EAST ORANGE, NJ — East Orange Mayor Lester Taylor observed National Gun Violence Awareness Day on Friday, June 2, by honoring two school resource officers who managed to peacefully defuse a potentially deadly situation involving an armed suspect in the vicinity of a public school last year.
School Resource Officers Segundo Marquez and Christopher Kyer were honored by Taylor at an event where city employees showed support by wearing orange, the official color of National Gun Violence Awareness Day.
On Nov. 22, 2016, both officers, who had been sworn in June, responded to the report of an alleged gun sale near East Orange Campus High School, shortly after school dismissal.
Marquez and Kyer’s intervention led to a foot chase with the suspect. In the midst of the foot pursuit, the armed suspect fired at the officers, but Taylor credited them with using their training and bravery to subdue and apprehend the suspect, without discharging their weapons.
“These officers epitomize what makes the East Orange Police Department one of the finest in the nation,” said Taylor on Friday, June 2. “In a situation that easily could have ended in tragedy, the officers exercised extreme restraint and great courage to fulfill their pledge to protect and serve the citizens of the City of East Orange.”
Taylor also commended the ongoing efforts of East Orange Public Safety Division and the East Orange City Council in working to reduce gun violence in the city, adding that during the first five months of 2017, police have already seized 37 illegal guns.
Public Safety Director Sheilah Coley also praised Council Chairman and 3rd Ward Councilman Ted Green for making sure East Orange was among the first cities in the nation to pass legislation banning the sale of realistic-looking toy guns to schoolchildren. In 2015, Green sponsored legislation to ban the sale of realistic-looking toy guns in the city, in an effort to avoid what happened to Tamir Rice, 12, and Tyree King, 13, both shot and killed in separate incidents in Ohio by police who allegedly mistook their toy guns for the real thing.
In July 2015, the ban was passed by the East Orange City Council with a vote of 9-1.
“Of course, it’s only natural for children to role-play, but what we found is that older children, and in some cases, adults were brandishing these toys as real weapons,” said Coley on Friday, June 2. “Banning the sale of realistic-looking toy guns has helped to eliminate the threat of people using the guns to commit crimes and also has allowed us to protect our citizens — especially our young people — from what could be a matter of life or death.”
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