2012 was a difficult year for Mercer County, and specifically Trenton, with over 24 homicides, 165 shootings and 194 individuals struck by bullets. The Trenton Prevention Policy Board is currently working on several initiatives to help curb violence in the city, including implement a Youth Violence Prevention Initiative. Similarly, the City of Trenton is partnering with the faith-based community on January 25th and 26th to host a Gun Buy-Back event where Trenton residents can turn in their firearms for a maximum reward of $250.
The article by Alex Zdan can be found below or at http://www.nj.com/mercer/index.ssf/2013/01/guns_knives_and_a_pickaxe_merc.html#incart_river.
Guns, knives and a pickaxe: Mercer County homicides, a look back at 2012
Three wrecked cars on Route 29, a traffic snarl that lasted for 16 hours, and a man shot to death marked one of the most dramatic homicides in Mercer County last year.
It was Jan. 30 that detectives and police arrived to discover much of the riverfront highway had to be roped off with crime tape. Daquan Dowling, 23, was found dead in one vehicle following a drive-by shooting, and evidence suggested he was cut down by assailants who had fled on foot right past the New Jersey Statehouse, shortly after the Monday evening rush hour.
“We had a crime scene that was probably about a quarter-mile long,” Trenton Lt. Steve Varn said. It was one of the largest crime scenes in Trenton police history — so big, it took a helicopter flight by a detective to get a full crime scene photograph.
Although Trenton had to fight rising gun violence last year with a layoff-diminished police force, the homicide rate remained flat. Trenton’s small squad of detectives investigated 24 killings in 2012, the same as in 2011.
Mercer County’s only other reported homicides last year were in Ewing Township: One a murder of a Trenton resident that the Mercer County Prosecutor’s Office believes was a possible spillover of city violence, and the other a case in which a daughter allegedly hacked her mother to death with a pickaxe on Halloween night inside their home. Elsewhere in the county, violence was nowhere near as extreme.
Daquan Dowling, of Trenton, was found at around 6 p.m. on Jan. 30, 2012 in a crashed vehicle on the Route 29 northbound overpass for Memorial Drive and taken to a hospital where he was pronounced dead.
The Trenton department said they closed 17 homicide investigations in 2012: 10 from that year, seven from prior years. Their investigations into the remainder from 2012 remain active.
In all, Trenton recorded 165 shooting incidents last year, including homicides. In 25 of the shootings, more than one person was struck, leaving a total of 194 people hit by gunfire, police said.
Nearly two years ago, police saw what they called a “red flag” increase in shootings. There was no sign of abatement in 2012.
Trenton’s killings were more likely to happen on the street than in a living room. There was Irvin “Swirv” Jackson, cut down in an alley in broad daylight, James Harris, whose body was found in front of City Hall, and Tre’ Lane, whose young life was cut short on a North Trenton stoop.
There were the suspected robberies like Malique Potter, shot after two men asked him for drugs, a July argument over a dice game that left David Lewis III dead, and James Turner, targeted across the street from his grandparents’ home in September.
Odder killings were Florence Grayson, whose body was lying stabbed to death inside her home when her boyfriend and suspected killer jumped off a bridge into the Delaware River in New Castle, Del., killing himself. While the man who drove William Emmanuel to the hospital in March said he found the fatally wounded Emmanuel staggering on Perry Street, the prosecutor’s office revealed Emmanuel was actually wounded on Liberty Street while committing a home invasion. A resident of the home was arrested that night for allegedly possessing 12 pounds of marijuana.
A handful of officers within Trenton’s Major Crimes unit join with detectives from the prosecutor’s office to investigate the capital city’s killings. City police declined to discuss specifics of open cases or those moving through the court system during an interview last week, but offered a glimpse of the work they do.
Notifications are the worst thing I’ve had to do. One of the best things I’ve been able to do is go back to that family and say we made an arrest.
The detectives don’t cruise the street, waiting for a body to fall. Their shift starts at the office working on old cases. Patrol officers are the first on the scene, and the first to see the body.
When the detectives arrive, the patrol officers usually have already blocked off the scene with yellow caution tape, and shut down the street. Every effort is made to leave the space around where the crime occurred as a still life, but it’s not always clear which pieces of the puzzle are important.
“You have to think to the future,” said Sgt. Chris Doyle, the head of the homicide unit. “And you have to think to the conclusion of the investigation.”
That means being methodical, taking time like they did on Route 29 last January to scan the scene and collect any evidence. Sometimes, it can mean leaving an obviously dead person where they were found.
“If there’s absolutely no sign of life, the body doesn’t move,” Doyle said. “It’s evidence.”
“A body is part of a crime scene,” Varn said. “It is evidence. We understand how hard it must be for people to observe that, but we have to assure we take the proper steps in documentation, and make sure we don’t miss something that could be detrimental to the case.”
The decision in the Route 29 incident caused a regional traffic nightmare but paid off, police said. Now, three men are headed for trial in their alleged role in the killing of Dowling, an innocent victim who was driving his friend — the real target of the killers — up the highway.
“I think the detectives of the Criminal Investigations Section are doing an outstanding job investigating these incidents,” said Varn, a seven-year detective bureau veteran who was elevated to command the section in September. “They have a tremendous amount of dedication and have a lot of persistence to bring the cases to a conclusion.”
The long hours of work can pay off when the handcuffs finally go on the wrists of the accused.
“Notifications are the worst thing I’ve had to do,” Doyle said. “One of the best things I’ve been able to do is go back to that family and say we made an arrest.”
Contact Alex Zdan at azdan@njtimes.com or (609) 989-5705.
