Asbury Park shooting: 10-year-old killed, mother injured

ASBURY PARK - A west side neighborhood reeled Thursday after a 10-year-old-boy was killed and his 39-year-old mother was injured by gunfire Wednesday night.

City police responded to 405 Ridge Ave. late Wednesday for a report of a shooting. Few details were divulged – neither the names of the victims or any suspects. Investigators remained on the scene for hours Thursday.

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“Scared – we’re afraid," said Nicole Johnson, who lives with her husband and two young daughters across the street from the shooting. "You don’t think of anything like that happening, but to think of your child dying is scary.”

Asbury Park police referred inquiries about the shooting to the Monmouth County Prosecutor's Office. A spokesman for the prosecutor's office disclosed scant details on Thursday.

Tania Del Balee held back tears as she talked about the 10-year-old boy who used to play outside with her kids.

“We won’t hear his laughter again,” she said. “It was such a shock.”

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The boy was a student at Bradley Elementary, neighbors said.

Del Balee, a mother of four, woke up to the sound of gunshots Wednesday night and checked on her kids. The shots woke them up, too.

“As a mother, the first thing that comes to mind is if your kids are OK,” she said.

Hours later, she spoke with an officer and learned her 10-year-old neighbor was killed.

Luis Rodrigez, who also lives on Ridge Avenue, sat on his porch watching the officers investigate Thursday morning.

“I heard the shots like du-du-du,” Rodriguez told a reporter in Spanish.

405 Ridge Ave. sits right at the edge of Asbury Park, just to the east of Neptune.

"This has got to stop in Asbury Park," said Rita Marano, a longtime city resident. "It really does. I don't know why it happens here."

Douglas Eagles, executive director of the Boys & Girls Clubs of Monmouth County, said the club will host a vigil Saturday night to help the city heal.

“I think it’s important in the face of this type of violence to come together visibly and out in public to say that this is not normal, we do not accept this as normal,” Eagles said. The vigil will begin at the Boys & Girls Club, at 7 p.m. Saturday at 1201 Monroe Ave.

Local activists placed the shooting here into the context of the heated national discussion over gun violence in the wake of a mass shooting in Parkland, Florida, that claimed 17 lives on Valentine's Day.

“We have to talk about gun control,” said John Moor, the mayor of Asbury Park. “We have to do anything we can to keep them off the street.”

Moor praised student demonstrators in New Jersey and across the nation who have engaged in walkouts to protest gun violence and push for gun restrictions.

“It’s a shame when kids realize there’s a problem. Students realize there’s a problem with guns and our elected congressmen in New Jersey deny it,” Moor said.

This past Sunday, Moor sat at St. Stephen African Methodist Episcopal Church in Asbury Park as Gov. Phil Murphy pledged to fight gun violence. Murphy said the nation needs tougher federal gun laws.

Moor called it a “sad day for Asbury Park” when the Press reached him Thursday morning.

“I’m heartbroken,” Moor said.

Here is what is still unclear:

The identities of the boy and his mother.

Whether the boy or the woman were a target or bystander.

Which floor of the two-story, multifamily home the victims were on.

Whether authorities have identified suspects or made arrests.

Any possible motivation for the shooting.

Whether the shooting took place inside or outside.

“There’s a systemic issue that’s happening in Asbury Park,” said Adrienne Sanders, president of the Asbury Park-Neptune chapter of the NAACP. “You have a high concentration of poverty on the west side of the city, which is where the majority of crimes take place. Jobs, the educational system, poverty, that all plays a part in what we see in violence.”

Kyle Mead criticized what he called the ineffective policing of the city's west side.

“We need more cops on foot, actually doing their jobs," said Kyle Meade, who told reporters that he was on his way home from municipal court. "They know where the shooting is at, they know what’s going on – but they don’t want to do their jobs.”

On Thursday, Asbury Park Acting Superintendent Sancha K. Gray issued the following email statement to the Asbury Park Press in response to the shooting death.

“Our top priority is always the safety and well-being of our students and staff," Gray said. Any act of violence is always disheartening, particularly when it happens in our community," the statement reads.

"Our deepest condolences go out to the family of the 10-year-old boy who was shot and subsequently died. To ensure that correct information is disseminated, we will refrain from commenting at this time, as this is an ongoing police investigation.”

This is one of the more recent instances in which children have been hurt or killed by guns in Asbury Park.

On Nov. 4, 2015, a stray bullet grazed an 8-year-old Asbury Park girl's forehead while she was inside her Borden Avenue home watching television. The county prosecutor believed the bullet came from the service weapon of Terrence McGhee, an Asbury Park patrolman, while he was locked in a gun battle with a suspect who fled on foot.

The girl was treated at a local hospital and released.

Baquasia Gibson, who lives on the same block of Ridge Avenue, said the boy killed Wednesday had called her own son “his little brother.”

“That little boy is innocent,” Gibson said. “It’s not right.”