As Green Bean wrote, this will most likely be another nail in Trenton’s coffin. It does seem as if Newark is improving; Trenton and Camden are in a race to the bottom.
Oh god, this is scary. So glad she did dinner instead.
Unsurprisingly, gunman who cops killed was a gang member who had apparently gone to prison once for murder. So, most likely an illegal gun from the street.
Might be a long, hot summer of retaliation killings in Trenton.
Another “soft on crime” consequence:
On the contrary, the dead shooter was a felon, unable to legally purchase or possess a firearm. For some mysterious unknown reason, unfathomable, he ignored that gun control law. It just seems impossible, since gun control laws will prevent felons from owning or using guns.
And for some unfathomable reason he ignored the laws against murder. Guess they’re ineffective and should be repealed. Useless!
Jennshark, very sorry to hear this news for your community. I hope your festival continues!
Query from an unassuming foreigner: what’s the significance of the comments about Trenton? 
It’s our state capital, and unfortunately it’s an excellent example of “urban decay.” It has been stubbornly resistant to improvement efforts. It’s a sucky situation, especially for those who are trying to make it better.
The sentencing for violent criminals is completely inadequate; the prison-industrial complex which treats people like cattle is far too busy stocking its human warehouses with drug offenders and the resulting backlogs in the justice system create incentives for really dangerous felons to be given plea bargains and put right back out on the street. It’s bullshit.
What would constitute a “mass event”? 17 shot and 2 dead seems pretty eventful to me…
Sorry that happened to your community. Be safe.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
That response really was a thing of beauty.
Some information on the dead shooter Tahaji Wells
Those details made me glad he was killed.
The doltish comment you’re responding to was, unfathomably, made by someone who passed a bar exam! Guess attorney accreditation is also useless.
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What a terrible thing to say. The details you apparently missed are that he spent at least 13 years in solitary confinement that retarded his cognitive development. I don’t excuse what he did, but if you’re going to call him a bad person, he was MADE one, not born one.
Right. He was in prison, in solitary confinement for absolutely no reason whatsoever. Did you miss this part:
The guy was no angel back then.
I would like to second this.
His sentence wasn’t for 18 years of solitary (or 13 even). I don’t know why he was in solitary, possibly for valid reasons - but the public information doesn’t say, and 13 years seems punitive for anything that wouldn’t have actually gotten him a new conviction and additional years of time, as opposed to paroled before the end of his sentence.
Exactly. I lived in Trenton proper for a few years and sold when bad renters on my street brought in chaos and gun violence. I now live 1/4 mile from the Trenton limit and it’s a different world. I wanted to stay on that street, but when a third shooting happened I picked up sticks.
Under the bombed-out appearance, much of former urban Trenton is gorgeous – breathtaking mansions, superb river views, amazing history, greenery . . . it’s easy to see how beautiful it once was. It now stands as a stark example of crooked politics and devastating generational poverty. And it’s the fucking State capitol! Decades of governors have surveyed this Beirut-like scene from their offices then hopped in a limo to their home in the safe burbs.
I am absolutely not defending what the shooter and his accomplices did, but it’s easy to see why growing up in this chaos would render one hopeless and hostile. I was eavesdropping on a conversation in the bank today and heard a woman (who knew the shooter’s family say “that boy was the walking dead, his mama was murdered when he was ten and he died too.”
I’ve thought a giant step forward would be requiring government workers who make over a certain salary to live in downtown Trenton. I think a fair bet is that a rapid improvement would happen, especially if NJ subsidized repairs and mortgages. As is, thousands of workers from the burbs and ritzy Bucks County (just over the river in PA) pour in at 8am and flee at 5.
We’re in the NYC commuter region. Make the City attractive and safe and it will attract commuters.
The same type of subsidies would also be given to inner city dwellers who want to stay and improve, providing some defense against being pushed out by gentrification.
New Jersey is one of the richest states in the U.S. and I’m tired of hearing nothing can be done to revitalize Trenton. Bullshit.