The Jersey Journal
JERSEY CITY, N.J. — A Jersey City police officer suffered minor injuries while he and a large contingent of officers dispersed more than 100 Lincoln High School students near the school trying to see a fight, officials said.
Residents of the area near Crescent Avenue and Harmon Street say violent crowds of high school students run through their neighborhood all the time, and they want it to stop.
Police arrested a man and a 15-year-old boy, but the charges they face could not be determined last night, city spokesman Stan Eason said. The name of the injured officer was not available.
Residents said yesterday’s violence was the latest round of a fight in the area Tuesday that was broken up by police. A small group of combatants ran from Communipaw Avenue down Crescent Avenue to Harmon Street at the half-day dismissal time and a crowd of students leaving around 1 p.m. chased them in order to watch, Eason said.
Police tried to disperse the crowd and the crowd caused more problems than the original combatants, Eason said.
“There were 100 kids out here and they were fighting with the cops and with themselves,” said a Crescent Avenue resident who would not give her name. “I’m tired of this.”
The woman said she has to wait in front of her home to meet her 7-year-old niece at the end of the school day because the girl was caught up in a crowd rushing through the area recently.
“It’s a war zone,” she said. “The cops gotta do what they gotta do. You got kids walking through here with guns and a bullet doesn’t have a name on it. Something has got to give.”
“The cops were trying to restrain the students and the students were fighting back,” another resident said.
Copyright 2007 Jersey Journal