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Jersey City Remembers a Fallen Cop

December 10, 2020/in header, Latest News, News /by Aaron Morrill

This morning, under a clear blue sky, family members, police and dignitaries gathered in Jersey City’s Bay View Cemetery to remember Joseph Seals, the 39 year old detective whose murder one year ago became the first shots fired in a rampage that culminated in a deadly attack on a kosher food market just blocks away, an attack that shook the nation.

On the morning of his death, Seals had pulled into Bay View Cemetery to meet an informant as part of his job with an elite unit tasked with taking guns off the street. Unbeknownst to him, David Nathaniel Anderson and Francine Graham sat in a U-Haul van nearby getting ready to launch an attack on JC Kosher Market and a Jewish school nearby. The two were wearing military-style body armor and were armed with an AR-15  assault rifle, a .12-gauge shotgun and each carried a .9 mm Glock semiautomatic pistol. They were finishing their preparation of a bomb as Seals approached.

When the shooting ended hours later, Anderson and Graham, both members of a radical group known as The Black Hebrew Israelites, lay dead along with an owner of JC Kosher Market, Mindy Ferencz; a worker, Douglas Miguel Rodriguez; and a rabbinical student, Moshe Deutsch.

Neither Anderson nor Graham were from Jersey City. Nonetheless, the attack set off an often rancorous discussion about the place of the insular Satmar Jews within a largely poor and Black community that has seen itself as the victim of gentrification, aggressive policing and neglect. Led by local community and religious leaders, efforts are now afoot to promote a dialog between the Satmars and the larger community.  A new kosher market called Olive Branch has opened nearby, but without signage identifying it as Jewish.

Standing a short walk from where Seals fell, Jersey City Police Chief Mike Kelly spoke emotionally of Seals who had been promoted to detective in 2017:

“Everybody mentions Joe as being elite and working for an elite squad. He was an elite cop. He was an elite radio car cop. He was an elite street cop.” And speaking to other cops, Kelly added, “If you want to be an elite cop, that’s your model, Joe Seals.”

Mayor Fulop spoke of the choices Seals made on that fateful morning. “He chose to meet an informant here in the cemetery by himself.  He chose to because he thought it would be beneficial for getting more information and helping the broader community.  He chose to walk over to a vehicle that he recognized that could have been involved in something else throughout the city and he chose to put himself in harms way because he though that would be something that keeps other people safe here in the city.”

The crisp autumn air was filled with mournful wailing of bagpipes. Seals’s family walked to his gravesite while hundreds of Jersey City policemen and women stood silently at attention. A line of helicopters skimmed above the London Planes trees in tribute.

As the ceremony drew to a close, reporters gathered around Rabbi Shmully Levitin who drew lessons from Judaism: “It’s no coincidence that tonight is Hanukkah. We begin lighting the menorah tonight. The light of the menorah gives us such a significant lesson in how to respond to these acts of violence…a little light dispels so much darkness. Instead of trying to put bandaids on all the wounds of society, just try and focus on what unites us. Create the light in our lives.”

Congregation B’nai Jacob will host a memorial ceremony tonight via Zoom, which also happens to be the first night of Hanukkah. Members of the Black and Jewish communities and relatives of the victims will speak.

Photos by Aaron Morrill

 

Jersey City Police Salute Joseph Seals

Salute at Joseph Seals Memorial

Honor Guard at Joseph Seals Memorial

Joseph Seals Family Members

Rabbi Shmully Levitin

Former location of JC Kosher Market

 

Olive Branch Kosher Market

 

Bodycam Tapes Show Bravery of Jersey City Cops, Fulop says

February 26, 2020/in header, Latest News, News /by Ron Leir

Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop said police bodycam footage from the scene of the horrific Dec. 10, 2019, shooting at the Jersey City Kosher Supermarket at 224 Martin Luther King Drive showed that his city’s cops went above and beyond in exposing themselves to possible harm.

At a brief press conference held Friday, Feb. 21, directly across the street from the still-shuttered shop, Fulop, accompanied by Jersey City Public Safety Director James Shea, said the newly released tapes “only reinforce a lot of what we said in the days after the Dec. 10 incident … that we are exceptionally proud of how police officers ran toward danger and how they communicated with each other.”

The attack on the market by two radicalized anti-Semitic shooters identified as David Anderson, 47, and Francine Graham, 50, ended with both assailants dead along with the shop’s co-owner, Mindy Ferencz, 33; an employee, Douglas Miguel Rodriguez, 49; and a customer and rabbinical student Moshe Deutsch, 24. Police said Jersey City Det. Joseph Seals, 39, was shot dead by Anderson and Graham a short time earlier in Bayview Cemetery.

Two other Jersey City police officers – Ray Sanchez and Mariela Fernandez – were wounded during the multi-hour gun battle. Shea said on Friday that Sanchez had elected to delay surgery to repair his shoulder wound so he could attend Seals’ funeral. He has since had the procedure, Shea said. Fernandez suffered an injury to her right hand, according to Shea.

Fulop made his remarks to a phalanx of local and out-of-town news crews the morning after the state attorney general’s office released a total of seven videos (as reported by several TV news media outlets) taken from police bodycams at the shooting scene.

Asked by a reporter if the city felt “blindsided” by the attorney general’s decision to make the video available for public consumption, Fulop replied, “We were a little blindsided, I don’t want to mince words,” but added: “We do feel that’s their prerogative. It’s important to be transparent.”

The mayor said he received an email the night prior from the attorney general’s office advising the city about the tapes.  He also said the city learned that the victims’ families were notified prior to the tapes’ going out.

Elaborating, Shea said the city “confirmed (the families) were spoken to, and they were comfortable with the release.”

In any case, Fulop observed, “We couldn’t be more proud” of the way Jersey City police officers reacted to the threats to public safety.

In an interview with a TV newsman, Shea said an examination of the images captured by the bodycams made him feel “very confident that all of our officers acted heroically.” He said that as more information is released, the department would expect to learn more.

Meanwhile, the mayor said that to ensure the police continue to be in a state of readiness for any similar incidents in the future, the city would continue to invest in active shooter training, some of which will be carried out this year.

Excerpts from some of the footage broadcast recently by New York-based TV news stations show a man and woman emerging from a van parked along Martin Luther King Drive, carrying long guns aimed at the market and striding inside.

Other images depict a police officer ensconced inside an upper-floor classroom at Sacred Heart School, located across the street from the market, firing multiple rounds from a handgun aimed at the shop. The officer, speaking into a communication device, identifies his shots as friendly fire.

In an audio portion of one of the tapes, a police officer can be heard shouting in an apparent reference to one of the attackers: “I think he’s down. … No, he’s still moving. Behind the wood! Behind the wood!”

Various collections have been set up on behalf of the victims, and the City of Jersey City announced that it would help pay off the mortgage on the Seals family home in North Arlington.

Header:  Mayor Fulop and Public Safety Director Shea courtesy City of Jersey City video.

News Briefs

Hudson County Community College has been named the recipient of a one-year, $850,000 investment from the JPMorgan Chase. The investment will be utilized for a program the College developed to address the challenges of the economic crisis in Hudson County that were brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic. The program is designed to provide lasting improvement in the County’s workforce ecosystem.

Mayor Steven Fulop and the Jersey City Economic Development Corporation (JCEDC) have launched the latest round of emergency funding to provide over $2.5 million in direct aid and support to Jersey City’s neediest residents, regardless of immigration status. The city will partner with  York Street, Women Rising, United Way, and Puertorriqueños Asociados for Community Organization. 

Mayor Steven Fulop is joining forces with Uber to announce a new agreement that will expand residents’ access to COVID-19 vaccinations with free Uber rides to and from Jersey City vaccination sites. Phase 1B includes essential frontline workers and seniors 75 years old and over.

The federal Paycheck Protection Program, which offers businesses loans that can be forgivable, reopened on January 11th. The revised program focuses first on underserved borrowers – minority- and women-owned businesses.

Keep abreast of Jersey City Covid-19 statistics here.

Governor Murphy has launched a “Covid Transparency Website” where New Jerseyans can track state expenditures related to Covid.  Go here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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