Attorney General Matthew Platkin offered ‘thoughts and prayers’ after a member of the New Jersey State Police was shot in Paterson early this morning.
The trooper who was shot in the leg was hospitalized and listed as being in stable condition.
The incident occurred at around 1 a.m. in the area of 28th Street and 9th Avenue, where police from multiple departments were seen searching the area with flashlights, and checking homes, backyards, and vehicles.
The shooting involved a car traveling on Route 20, which ended up in the Paterson residential neighborhood near the intersection where the shots were fired.
Police had one suspect in custody and were looking for two others who fled the scene.
Officers with long guns were seen searching a nearby wooded area early Thursday morning, even having their K-9s sniff through a local Burger King.
“My office and the entire New Jersey State Police family is keeping our trooper and his family in our thoughts and prayers as he receives treatment for his injuries,” said Platkin.
Without discussing the situation in any detail, Platkin said the trooper was shot “while he was working to keep the residents of Paterson safe from the very same violence of which he is now a victim.”
Gov. Phil Murphy vowed justice but the violence comes amid a frequent inability of police to solve crime. According to Uniform Crime Report statistics released by authorities, the vast majority of offenses reported to police go unsolved.
“Upwards of 70 percent of reported crimes remain a mystery,” said Lisa McCormick, a critic of the political establishment who has pointed out that almost half of the homicides reported in 2021 were not cleared by an arrest.
“People are literally getting away with murder in New Jersey,” said McCormick. “The Murphy administration has consistently failed to publish UCR reports on a timely basis but the latest release shows that the pattern is unchanged.”
“We will ensure that all those responsible for this violent and heinous act are caught and brought to justice,” said Murphy on Twitter.
“I am not sure anyone is surprised that the ‘thoughts and prayers’ offered by politicians after the last 3,000 gun violence incidents were not successful in stopping the latest shootings but it’s not surprising to see officials doing the same thing that never worked before,” said McCormick. “Americans have the greatest number of shootings because the United States has the most guns in circulation. The amount of firearms among the population is actually greater than the number of people in this country.”
McCormick said the Second Amendment is anachronistic and should be repealed or changed because Congress has failed to properly regulate guns, as permitted by the US Constitution’s Commerce Clause & enumerated powers.
“Many gun advocates evidently have never actually read the Second Amendment, which is: ‘A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed’,” said McCormick. “In Article 1, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution, the militia is defined. So it is not, and never has been, an open right to keep and to bear arms. That right only exists in the context of a well regulated militia.”
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