A teenager was shot and wounded by a New Jersey State Trooper Friday night in Trenton near the Monument Elementary School. According to law enforcement officials, the boy was allegedly armed, with neighborhood residents saying the boy screamed, “Why they have to shoot me?” as he was being placed on a stretcher.
“I saw him when they put him on a stretcher,” Barbara Roberson-Derry told the Trentionan, 44, who lives in the area where the 14-year-old boy was shot on Calhoun Street near Pashley Avenue. She said she had heard multiple shots fired.
“By the grace of God, my daughter wasn’t out there playing, because she is usually out there,” Roberson-Derry said Saturday afternoon nearly 15 hours after the shooting rocked her neighborhood. “My daughter won’t be going over there (any more).”
A spokesman for the New Jersey Attorney General’s Office said the shooting was preceded by a brief foot chase. Paul Loriquet, the spokesman, said police had recovered a weapon at the scene and said the teen was taken to an area hospital in stable condition.
Police sources say the shooting occurred during a foot pursuit about 10:20 p.m. Friday. While running, the teen allegedly reached for a gun in his waistband, turned and fired at police, who fired back.
