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Detective Mohammad Bashir of the city’s Street Crime Unit was on a special holiday details with Passaic County Prosecutor’s Detective Eugene Tolliver when they saw the deal go down near the corner of Rosa Parks Boulevard and Pearl Street shortly before 6:30 p.m. Sunday, Public Safety Director Jerry Speziale said.
The detectives stopped a car that pulled away for motor vehicle violations and found the loaded 9mm Hi-Point, along with “a cache of assorted illegal substances,” Speziale said.
They arrested the driver, Zahkeir Carter, 21, and passenger Briana Hall, 19, the director said.
Both were charged with drug offenses and Hall with weapons offenses before they were sent to the Passaic County Jail to await detention hearings, he said.
Assisting the investigators were city Detectives William Hermann and Anthony Castronova and Sgt. Edgar Taylor.
City police have continued to seize illegal guns this summer at a rate of nearly one a day -- including one found on a 17-year-old boy on the Fourth of July.
Investigators were breaking up a dice game at the corner of Godwin Avenue and Summer Street when Detective James Jenkins saw the boy shove the gun into his waistband, Speziale said.
They grabbed the boy, who was carrying a .380-caliber semi-automatic handgun reported stolen from North Carolina, he said.
The boy was sent to Essex County Detention Center pending a hearing in the Family Part of Superior Court in Paterson.
The gun, meanwhile, was being sent to the New Jersey State Police laboratory to determine whether it may have been used in crimes.
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