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Essex County freeholder Rufus Johnson, center background, who was recently violently carjacked in Newark, meets with (L-R foreground) Du Kelly, Eion Haynes, Lauren Wells and Wes Coleman, who are joining the cause to find ways to keep they youth of Newark out of a life of crime.

(Photo by Robert Sciarrino/The Star-Ledger)

NEWARK — It happened so fast that Rufus Johnson said he couldn't recall what type of weapons the carjackers brandished.

He just remembers seeing three guns.

Johnson, a second-term freeholder, said he had just pulled into his driveway in the Upper Vailsburg neighborhood of Newark's West Ward. He had just finished an all-day county budget hearing downtown and it was dark.

His wife and two daughters were inside the house, a few paces away. He was about to gather his belongings and exit his Mercedes Benz when a minivan pulled up to the end of his driveway, squarely blocking the exit. Three young men wearing masks jumped out, each with a gun.

Johnson was mum in the days immediately after being violently carjacked on Jan. 26, but spoke out late last week.

This isn't his first brush with violence, either. Months earlier, Johnson was having breakfast at the counter of a mom-and-pop eatery popular with police and local clergy in the West Ward on 18th Avenue when gunfire erupted inside, leaving one man dead and two others injured.

Looking back on both incidents, Johnson said government leaders like himself must shoulder responsibility in combating violence by keeping youth from getting sucked into a life of crime.

"It's a whole lot of things that contributed to what happened to me. It's not just those kids," he said.

A former basketball player who coached for nine years, Johnson, 56, also works as chief-of-staff for state Sen. Ronald Rice and describes himself as a longtime youth advocate. Over the past decade-and-a-half, Johnson said, government cutbacks have laid waste to the budgets of social services and youth recreation programs which he said are vital to a community's health.

Juveniles are responsible for most carjackings, Sheriff Armando Fontoura said. About 75 percent of carjackings occur from 5 p.m. to 5 a.m. and often occur in residential areas. He called carjackings the county's "latest scourge."

"A car is an extension of your castle. It's like being in your home," Fontoura said.

Freeholder President Blonnie Watson, a Central Ward resident, agreed that the focus must be on helping young people.

Essex County freeholder Rufus Johnson, who was recently violently carjacked in Newark, holds a meeting in his office to discuss ways to reach out to the youth of Newark.

"When you're hungry or you need a roof over your head...what do you do as a human being? These young kids are suffering because their parents can't provide for them," she said.

Johnson said he is not calling himself a victim, despite the two recent incidents. Rather he wants to focus on youth intervention.

"I grew up in recreation and social services," Johnson said in an interview at his fifth floor office in the Hall of Records. "I grew up where my mom was raising nine of us, single parent home, and I know what it was like to eat government cheese, spam, butter and things of that nature. But those little things helped sustain us and made us feel like a whole family," he said.

He said he wants to see changes where police and firefighters that serve Newark to be required to live in town for five years, to help "stabilize" the community. They can become role models, he said.

For several months, Johnson has been working with the West Ward Economic Development Corp. as its adviser to create opportunities for young men from South Orange Avenue. The group has partnered with Rutgers University graduate students to clean up and redesign the corridor, and the teens who successfully participate and get good grades can score engineering and architecture scholarships at Rutgers, Johnson said.

He said he made sure that more than 15 teens are OSHA certified and ready to begin work as soon as the project details are finalized.

He said he plans to continue pouring his time into the project. "On the streets they say don't talk about it, be about it," he said.

A resident of Newark since age 3, Johnson refers to himself as "the quiet one" among his freeholder colleagues. He avoided speaking publicly about the carjacking until last week because he needed time to think over what happened.

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"I didn't want to say something out of anger. I wanted to have my mind right," he said.

Fontoura noted that about 80 percent of vehicles are recovered within a day or two and authorities recovered Johnson's car by the next day. The Essex County Prosecutor's Office and Newark police are continuing to investigate the incident.

"Will I stop running around in the communities? No, I won't. Hey, I hope I'm a cat with nine lives because I only used two and I have seven more to go," Johnson said, with a small laugh.

"I’m not exempt. None of us are exempt form any of this," he added on a more somber note. "It just so happened that it happened to me, you know, but I’m not angry or frustrated, ready to move or things of that nature.

"I feel like, what am I going to do to help this situation here? I grew up, I’m a product, I love this town. I truly do, I love this town and I’ve been here toiling in it all my life and I’m not one that likes to run into a situation or something and run away. I’m going to try to do the best I can,” he said.

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