From left, Orange Board of Education candidate Derrick Henry and current Orange Board of Education member and co-sponsor of the Recall Mayor Dwayne Warren petition movement Tyrone Tarver answer questions from the audience on Saturday, Sept. 22, during the recall meeting at the artfullbean cafe on Jefferson Street in the city’s Valley section. The Essex County Prosecutor’s Office took issue with a recent statement by Tarver regarding the number of homicides in Orange this year.
ORANGE, NJ — The Essex County Prosecutor’s Office took issue with a recent statement regarding the number of homicides in Orange this year by Orange Board of Education member Tyrone Tarver.
“Since last summer, Orange has had 48 violent crimes happen within the city. This year, we’re up to six murders. Two just happened about three weeks ago. One of those murders, a woman was murdered and her body was dumped in Irvington,” said Tarver on Saturday, Sept. 22, at a meeting of the Committee to Recall Mayor Dwayne Warren at the artfullbean cafe on Jefferson Street in the city’s Valley section.
“So the violence is very ongoing. To a lot of people in the East Ward and on the perimeter of the East Ward, crime is a huge issue. Crime is actually creeping outside of the East Ward. Shootings happened on Tremont Avenue a few months ago. You heard about the home invasion where one person was kidnapped. On Park Avenue, there was another home invasion, where they actually stabbed and almost killed one person and the other person was left in the basement until the cops came. So crime is actually spreading away from the known epicenters, where it usually happens,” Tarver alleged.
“There were five,” homicides, corrected Essex County Prosecutor’s Office spokesperson Katherine Carter on Friday, Sept. 28.
Carter’s clarification was the latest update on the city’s homicide statistics. The Essex County Prosecutor’s Office handles all homicides in Essex County, regardless of individual departmental jurisdiction, working in conjunction with local law enforcement.
Orange’s first two homicides were on Mother’s Day, Sunday, May 13, and Memorial Day, Monday, May 28. On Friday, Aug. 17, Irvington Police Division officers discovered Shafequah Cooper, 37, of Orange, had been killed in Orange and her body later dumped in Irvington; this became the third homicide of the year for Orange.
On Tuesday, Sept. 18, acting Essex County Prosecutor Theodore N. Stephens and Bowers announced Darren Black, 37, of East Orange, has been arrested and charged with Cooper’s murder.
“Black was arrested without incident in Princeton by detectives from the Essex County Prosecutor’s Office Homicide-Major Crimes Task Force and the FBI Fugitive Task Force,” Stephens said. “He has been charged with murder, concealment and removing human remains, illegal possession of a weapon and possession of a weapon for an unlawful purpose. He is being held in the Essex County correctional facility.”
Cooper’s homicide was initially counted as Irvington’s fifth homicide of the year, before the Irvington Police Division revealed she had been killed in Orange.
Carter did not reveal any details about the fourth and fifth homicides in Orange. Attempts to obtain comments from Orange Police Director Todd Warren and Mayor Dwayne Warren about homicides in the city this year were unsuccessful by press time this week.
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