Person Of Interest In Custody After Standoff As Newark Mourns 3 Killed, 3 Wounded In Stabbing
NEWARK, N.J. (CBSNewYork) -- Police were holding a person of interest Sunday night, after three people were killed and three were critically injured in a stabbing inside a Newark home a day earlier.
Jeremy Arrington, 26, was being held late Sunday, authorities told CBS2. He was apprehended following a standoff, police said.
As CBS2's Hazel Sanchez reported, dozens of SWAT team members were at the ready on Pomona Avenue and Aldine Street in Newark, after learning Arrington was barricaded inside.
Jamal Littles lives across the street.
"We heard like: 'Don't shoot! Don't shoot!'" Littles said.
Within a couple of hours, police apprehended Arrington without incident. City officials said Arrington was wanted in a prior crime last month, but police are not calling him a suspect – only a person of interest – in the Saturday stabbings.
"I'm just happy that they got him off the streets," Littles said.
Mayor Ras Baraka personally had earlier asked the public for help in finding Arrington in a news release issued Sunday.
"Anyone who would kill our children indiscriminately does not deserve to be among civilized people," Baraka said in a statement.
Neighbors said they had seen Arrington quite a few times before and believe his relatives live in the house where police said he was barricaded.
Meanwhile, mourners overwhelmed with sadness and disbelief have been contributing to a memorial on Hedden Terrace in Newark where the crime happened.
According to police, a man barged into a home on Hedden Terrace at around 3:55 p.m. and stabbed six people inside.
Acting Essex County Prosecutor Carolyn Murray said Aerial Little Whitehurst, 8, Al-Jahon Whitehurst, 11, both of Newark, and 23-year-old Syasia McBurroughs, of Cedar Knolls, were killed.
The children were pronounced dead at University Hospital at around 4:40 p.m. on Saturday, authorities said. McBurroughs was pronounced dead at the scene.
Two 13-year-olds — one boy and one girl, believed to be twins — and a 29-year-old woman, who is the mother of the slain children, were critically wounded. They were all in critical, but stable condition at University Hospital in Newark late Sunday night, CBS2 has learned.
The survivors remain University Hospital in critical, but stable condition.
The victims were members of the same family.
Late Sunday, local leaders held a prayer vigil at Zion Hill Baptist Church near the crime scene, and called for an end to the senseless violence. They also encouraged the killer to come forward.
"God, give him the faith and courage and the name of Jesus to pick up a phone and call so he can be picked up, so he can be held accountable, and so that Your people can be safe," a church pastor said.
"None of the family members were able to make it here today. They were involved in the hospital and the prosecutor's office," said Newark City Councilman John Sharpe James. "But this is a wake-up call."
The pastor continued: "God, we pray for those who are yet alive. But somehow God, at this time, they would find a way to continue to live; that the marks and scars of this moment would not distract nor destroy their lives, but somehow even out of this tragedy."
As detectives moved in and out of the home on Sunday, protesters planned a rally against violence, WCBS 880's John Metaxas reported.
"It's very important that we all stand together and not even just when it's racially discrimination or anything else but black on black crime needs to stop also cause a lot of that is going on in our community," one activist said.
Authorities believe that the suspect knew someone inside of the house.
Arrington had an unrelated warrant for sexual assault and aggravated assault, authorities said.
