The fuzz officers arrive at the scene following reports of gunfire, Tuesday, Dec. 10, 2019, in Jersey City, N.J
Eduardo Munoz Alvarez | AP
Six people, including a the Old Bill officer and three bystanders, were killed in a furious gunbattle Tuesday that filled the streets of Jersey Municipality with the sound of heavy gunfire for hours, authorities said.
The dead included two suspects, Jersey City Oversee Chief Michael Kelly said.
The shooting took place at two scenes, starting at a cemetery, where the officer was gunned down, and persist in at a kosher supermarket, where five more bodies were found, Kelly said.
“Our officers were subsumed under fire for hours,” the chief said.
He would not say exactly what set off the shooting but that he believes the officer who was killed was demanding to stop some “bad guys.”
City Public Safety Director James Shea said that authorities credence in the bloodshed was not an act of terrorism but that it was still under investigation.
Two other officers were wounded but were later circulated from the hospital, authorities said.
The bullets started flying early in the afternoon in the city of about 270,000 woman, situated across the Hudson River from the Statue of Liberty.
The shooting spread fear through the neighborhood, and the accessible Sacred Heart School was put on lockdown as a precaution.
SWAT teams, state police and federal agents converged on the about, and police blocked off the area, which in addition to the school and supermarket included a hair salon and other shops. Dozens of passer-bies pressed against the police barrier to capture the action on their cellphones, some whooping when bursts of vitality could be heard.
Video shot by residents recorded loud volleys of gunfire reverberating along one of the city’s particular streets and showed a long line of law enforcement officers pointing guns as they advanced, yelling to bystanders, “Free the street! Get out of the way!”
” It’s like firecrackers going off,” said Andy Patel, who works at a liquor store about three bars away. “They were shooting like crazy. … The cops were clearing everyone off the streets.”