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February 10, 2003, 06:41 AM
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/09/nyregion/09NEWA.html?ex=1045458000&en=f0084fc1ffda2ef8&ei=5062&partner=GOOGLE
3 Dead, 3 Hurt When Man Opens Fire With Assault Rifle in Newark Bar
By COREY KILGANNON
EWARK, Feb. 8 — It was just after 11 p.m. at The Cave Lounge, a lively neighborhood bar on the south edge of downtown Newark. The older crowd was beginning to filter out, handing the evening over to younger patrons already beginning to dance, play pool, and sip cocktails.
The bartender, Sonya Fortenberry, 36, had just slid a Hennessy and water to her friend Teresa Holder when the man with the hooded sweatshirt and the assault rifle appeared in the doorway.
Ms. Fortenberry was laughing with Ms. Holder when the man opened fire.
"I just remember a lot of screaming and blood and bullets everywhere," said Ms. Fortenberry, who was not seriously wounded despite having been shot three times.
"Everything got hit: people, dishes, glasses, the walls. He didn't even step all the way in the door. All you really saw was the gun."
Ms. Holder, believed to be in her 30's, who lived in Newark and was a mother of five, was killed, as were two men identified by the police as Edward Byers, 35, of Newark, and Abdul Malik Muhammad, 37, of Piscataway.
Newark detectives were still searching last night for the gunman, who also wounded three people, including Ms. Fortenberry.
And this low-income, tightknit community was still trying to understand how this warm neighborhood spot could be subjected to such violence.
The two most seriously wounded patrons, a man and a woman whose names were not released, remained in critical condition at University Hospital in Newark, the police said.
About 25 people were in the bar at the time of the shooting, said Lt. Derek Glenn, a spokesman for the Newark Police Department. But neither the police nor witnesses could offer a clue about the killer's motive, if he had one.
The bar is in the ground floor of an aging three-story building on Halsey Street, a hardscrabble block lined with auto body shops and once-majestic buildings that have long since been vacant and boarded up.
A longstanding old-timers' hangout, The Cave, with its cozy feel, pool table and small dance floor, had become popular lately as a weekend late-night spot with the younger local crowd. Neighbors said that the bar had occasional minor fights, but no real violence or other problems. Still, the establishment had hired uniformed security guards as weekend bouncers, from 11 p.m. on.
They patted down patrons only if they were strangers, said Ms. Fortenberry, adding that the guards had not yet taken their usual spots at the door when the gunman appeared.
"This was a family bar where everybody knew everybody," said John Hayes, 36, a construction worker from Newark who was in the bar Friday night. Mr. Hayes described The Cave as a place where patrons favored Hennessy Cognac, hip-hop music and heated matches of pool.
Eight people stood around the pool table just before the gunmen appeared, Mr. Hayes said, and a D.J. had just begun spinning dance records.
"The Cave was like family," he said yesterday, standing in his 11th-floor apartment a block away. He stared past his high school basketball trophies and down toward the bar, where police cars stood guard.
Witnesses described the gunman's weapon as an automatic rifle.
"Most people say it was an AK-47," said Mr. Hayes, who added that he had been a regular at The Cave since he had a job cleaning it as a teenager. "And people in this neighborhood know their guns."
That is precisely the problem with the area, said Thomas Ellis, president of Enough Is Enough, a local anticrime community group. For much of the day, Mr. Ellis was the only person standing in the cold outside the bar.
"You have six people shot, three of them killed, in a poor black neighborhood," he said. "If this happened most other places, you'd have a sea of news cameras and people. But, here, nobody cares. Not even the community."
On Friday night, Ms. Fortenberry said, "The shots probably lasted about 10 or 15 seconds, but it seemed like forever."
She dropped behind the bar and did not realize for five minutes that she had been shot, she said, adding: "I thought I got cut by the broken glass, plus I was in shock."
She was trapped behind the bar by the bullet-riddled bodies of Mr. Muhammad and Mr. Byers, known at the Cave as "Big Cat." Ms. Fortenberry, who also works as a medical assistant, took the men's pulses.
Malik had none, but Big Cat had a faint pulse," she said, sobbing lightly.
"I was like, `Big Cat, it's me, baby,' because I used to go out with him."
Ms. Fortenberry, who did not realize she had been shot until paramedics had taken Ms. Holder away, was hospitalized overnight and released.
Leaning on a crutch yesterday and staring at the shuttered bar, she said that friends had persuaded her last year to leave another bartending job to take the one at The Cave.
"They said I'd be much safer at The Cave," she said, "because it's a family bar."
3 Dead, 3 Hurt When Man Opens Fire With Assault Rifle in Newark Bar
By COREY KILGANNON
EWARK, Feb. 8 — It was just after 11 p.m. at The Cave Lounge, a lively neighborhood bar on the south edge of downtown Newark. The older crowd was beginning to filter out, handing the evening over to younger patrons already beginning to dance, play pool, and sip cocktails.
The bartender, Sonya Fortenberry, 36, had just slid a Hennessy and water to her friend Teresa Holder when the man with the hooded sweatshirt and the assault rifle appeared in the doorway.
Ms. Fortenberry was laughing with Ms. Holder when the man opened fire.
"I just remember a lot of screaming and blood and bullets everywhere," said Ms. Fortenberry, who was not seriously wounded despite having been shot three times.
"Everything got hit: people, dishes, glasses, the walls. He didn't even step all the way in the door. All you really saw was the gun."
Ms. Holder, believed to be in her 30's, who lived in Newark and was a mother of five, was killed, as were two men identified by the police as Edward Byers, 35, of Newark, and Abdul Malik Muhammad, 37, of Piscataway.
Newark detectives were still searching last night for the gunman, who also wounded three people, including Ms. Fortenberry.
And this low-income, tightknit community was still trying to understand how this warm neighborhood spot could be subjected to such violence.
The two most seriously wounded patrons, a man and a woman whose names were not released, remained in critical condition at University Hospital in Newark, the police said.
About 25 people were in the bar at the time of the shooting, said Lt. Derek Glenn, a spokesman for the Newark Police Department. But neither the police nor witnesses could offer a clue about the killer's motive, if he had one.
The bar is in the ground floor of an aging three-story building on Halsey Street, a hardscrabble block lined with auto body shops and once-majestic buildings that have long since been vacant and boarded up.
A longstanding old-timers' hangout, The Cave, with its cozy feel, pool table and small dance floor, had become popular lately as a weekend late-night spot with the younger local crowd. Neighbors said that the bar had occasional minor fights, but no real violence or other problems. Still, the establishment had hired uniformed security guards as weekend bouncers, from 11 p.m. on.
They patted down patrons only if they were strangers, said Ms. Fortenberry, adding that the guards had not yet taken their usual spots at the door when the gunman appeared.
"This was a family bar where everybody knew everybody," said John Hayes, 36, a construction worker from Newark who was in the bar Friday night. Mr. Hayes described The Cave as a place where patrons favored Hennessy Cognac, hip-hop music and heated matches of pool.
Eight people stood around the pool table just before the gunmen appeared, Mr. Hayes said, and a D.J. had just begun spinning dance records.
"The Cave was like family," he said yesterday, standing in his 11th-floor apartment a block away. He stared past his high school basketball trophies and down toward the bar, where police cars stood guard.
Witnesses described the gunman's weapon as an automatic rifle.
"Most people say it was an AK-47," said Mr. Hayes, who added that he had been a regular at The Cave since he had a job cleaning it as a teenager. "And people in this neighborhood know their guns."
That is precisely the problem with the area, said Thomas Ellis, president of Enough Is Enough, a local anticrime community group. For much of the day, Mr. Ellis was the only person standing in the cold outside the bar.
"You have six people shot, three of them killed, in a poor black neighborhood," he said. "If this happened most other places, you'd have a sea of news cameras and people. But, here, nobody cares. Not even the community."
On Friday night, Ms. Fortenberry said, "The shots probably lasted about 10 or 15 seconds, but it seemed like forever."
She dropped behind the bar and did not realize for five minutes that she had been shot, she said, adding: "I thought I got cut by the broken glass, plus I was in shock."
She was trapped behind the bar by the bullet-riddled bodies of Mr. Muhammad and Mr. Byers, known at the Cave as "Big Cat." Ms. Fortenberry, who also works as a medical assistant, took the men's pulses.
Malik had none, but Big Cat had a faint pulse," she said, sobbing lightly.
"I was like, `Big Cat, it's me, baby,' because I used to go out with him."
Ms. Fortenberry, who did not realize she had been shot until paramedics had taken Ms. Holder away, was hospitalized overnight and released.
Leaning on a crutch yesterday and staring at the shuttered bar, she said that friends had persuaded her last year to leave another bartending job to take the one at The Cave.
"They said I'd be much safer at The Cave," she said, "because it's a family bar."