XPost: alt.true-crime, aus.legal, misc.legal   
   XPost: talk.politics.guns, uk.legal   
   From: reality@check.it   
      
   5 Police Officers Shot and 2 Suspects Killed in Jersey City Melee   
   By LIZ ROBBINS   
   Five Jersey City police officers were shot and wounded - two critically - as   
   they tried to arrest a shotgun-wielding suspect early Thursday, officials   
   said. The first officer was hit during a predawn encounter with the man, and   
   the others were hit in a furious shootout in a building apartment and   
   hallway that erupted when they tried to arrest the suspect, officials said.   
      
   Both the first suspect and a second one, described by some as a woman, were   
   killed in the gun battle at 24 Reed Street near Journal Square, the   
   officials said.   
      
   One critically injured officers was shot in the face, the other in the neck.   
      
   The officer shot in the face had "no signs of life" when he was brought to   
   the Jersey City Medical Center, according to the hospital's chief of   
   surgery, Nathaniel Holmes, but was steadily improving in the early   
   afternoon. The officer shot in the neck was in surgery and doing well, the   
   Jersey City mayor, Jerramiah T. Healy, said.   
      
   Mr. Healy called the incident a "terrible gunfight." Of the other officers   
   who were shot, one was hit in his bullet-proof vest, another in the arm, and   
   the third was grazed in the leg by a bullet and already released. Several   
   others had minor injuries. The police would not release the names of the   
   officers.   
      
   According to another Jersey City law official who requested anonymity   
   because the case was still under investigation, the two people dead are   
   suspected of conducting a robbery in Jersey City with shotguns in June and   
   were under surveillance. The Jersey City police chief, Thomas J. Comey,   
   would not confirm their identities or their gender.   
      
   "These individuals were being sought by our department for a major crime,"   
   Chief Comey said, declining to comment on the crime. "This individual came   
   fully ready to go to war with us. This is not a normal shotgun, this is not   
   a street weapon, this is one meant to hunt nothing other than men, and he   
   took it out on our police officer."   
      
   The horrific scene unfolded in a period of about seven hours in New Jersey's   
   second-largest city that sits in the reflection of Manhattan. Glittering   
   waterfront condominiums rub up against rundown areas like the gritty corner   
   of Reed Street and Bergen Avenue, a neighborhood of three- and four-story   
   buildings interspersed with empty lots of overgrown grass, bodegas and   
   beauty salons that was witness to warfare: two separate bursts of heavy   
   gunfire, erupting about an hour apart.   
      
   Chief Comey said that two officers had been sitting in a parked car at about   
   11 p.m. Wednesday near what they believed to be the suspect's car when a man   
   dressed in a cloak that appeared to be priest's garb walked toward the car.   
      
   After driving up alongside the vehicle, the officer on the passenger side   
   jumped out to apprehend the suspect. But concealed under the suspect's cloak   
   was a pump-action shotgun and a strap of ammunition. The suspect pivoted,   
   threw off his cloak and unloaded two rounds of ammunition.   
      
   "As he realized we were on him, he shed an outer garment to make sure that   
   he could pull the shotgun up so he could go to war almost instantly, go to   
   battle," Chief Comey said of the suspect.   
      
   The shotgun blast missed the officer on foot, but the pellets shattered the   
   windshield of the police car, grazing the leg of the officer at the wheel.   
   The gunman then fled into the apartment at 24 Reed Street, and the officers   
   called for emergency backup. Officers from the Port Authority of New York   
   and New Jersey, under a cooperation agreement, joined the Jersey City   
   police.   
      
   The building was evacuated, and about an hour after the first shooting, a   
   team of officers entered.   
      
   As soon as they started to break down the door into the apartment, one   
   suspect started firing, his bullets piercing the apartment's walls and   
   through the halfway open door. The first officer inside the door was struck   
   in the neck. The second officer who, was right behind him, was shot in the   
   face, Chief Comey said.   
      
   A furious exchange of bullets followed, and the two suspects were fatally   
   wounded. Officers hurried to carry their wounded colleagues down the flight   
   of stairs to rush them to the hospital.   
      
   A little more than three hours later, Dr. Holmes, at the New Jersey Medical   
   Center, was standing among other hospital and law enforcement officials   
   expressing his amazement. The officer shot in the face had no vital signs at   
   first. "So the fact that we can talk about him being in surgery is a minor   
   miracle," Dr. Holmes said.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)