NEWARK, N.J.—A 14-year-old shot and killed a police officer and wounded another Friday evening in New Jersey, authorities said, in a chaotic scene that witnesses described as seeing officers running down a busy street before they heard a volley of a dozen or more gunshots.
The slain officer, 26-year-old Joseph Azcona, was part of a team of Newark police detectives and federal agents that had gone to capture a suspect in an illegal weapons sting when the officer was fired on in his vehicle, authorities said.
“He didn’t even get a chance to step out of the vehicle before he was struck,” Emanuel Miranda, Newark’s director of public safety, told a Saturday morning news conference with Newark’s mayor and top prosecutor.
Miranda called Azcona a “true hero.”
The other officer who was struck was hospitalized with injuries that were not expected to be life-threatening, authorities said. Newark Mayor Ras Baraka called the shooting a “heinous, callous disregard for humanity“ and that officers had gone to the scene knowing that ”grave danger was possible.”
Police took five people into custody, including the 14-year-old who was charged with murder, attempted murder and possession of illegal weapons, Essex County Prosecutor Theodore N. Stevens II told the news conference.
The 14-year-old was shot and hospitalized with injuries that were not life threatening, Stevens said.
Stevens did not identify the boy or the other four people in custody who he said were undergoing questioning by investigators Saturday. Stevens and Miranda gave few other details about what led police to the group that fired on Azcona, the ensuing police response or the shootout.
One gun was recovered, Stevens said. It and officers’ guns were being evaluated to determine which of them were fired and how many shots were fired, he said.
Azcona. a five-year veteran of the Newark police force, was promoted to detective two years ago and assigned to an intelligence unit that was the “best of the best,” Miranda said.
Azcona and the other officer were shot around 6:37 p.m. in the area of Broadway and Carteret after the team of detectives and federal agents went to investigate a report of illegal firearms activity, authorities said. Witnesses said they heard a string of gunshots after they saw officers running down the street on a commercial strip between a McDonald’s and White Castle restaurants near the Passaic River.
Witness Randy Mejia told WCBS-TV right before he heard gunshots that he saw officers running.
“It sounded like a car accident and it went boom, boom, boom,” Mejia said.
The wounded officers were taken to University Hospital in Newark, where Azcona was pronounced dead around 2:30 a.m., Stevens said. Azcona’s mother, father and brother were at the hospital to see him and grieve after the shooting, Miranda said.
Police declined to identify the officer who was wounded.
Baraka expressed frustration that society hasn’t figured out a way to prevent a 14-year-old with a firearm from shooting at police.
“We just have to do a better job. I have to do a better job. Our families have to do a better job. The community has to do a better job at making sure that our children are not handling guns in the street, shooting at police officers,” Baraka said. “This is not a police problem. This is our problem. This is our collective problem.”
