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Another victim was killed in a rash of shootings in just over three hours Wednesday night, as a tumultuous week for the city continued.
Police were looking for the shooter in that case, along with a few recent others.
The escalating gunfire comes amid an ongoing FBI investigation that has produced guilty pleas from three city police officers and pending charges against two others.
The body of Lexander Torres, 23, was found on a 16th Avenue sidewalk near 18th Street at 7:15 p.m. Wednesday, authorities said.
He’d been shot and killed – the 11th homicide in the city this year and the eighth by a gun.
A second victim, 24-year-old Eric Polanco, was taken to St. Joseph’s Regional Medical Center and later released after being treated for a gunshot wound, Passaic County Prosecutor Camelia M. Valdes and Paterson Police Chief Troy Oswald said in a joint announcement.
Three hours later (10:17 p.m.) police dispatched several blocks north to Fair Street found a 24-year-old Bloomfield man with a non-fatal gunshot wound. He was taken to St. Joe’s.
A little over an hour later (11:22 p.m.), a 58-year-old man was found shot, this time in a Lyon Street basement.
Police arrested 82-year-old Clark J. Thomas in that shooting and charged him with first-degree attempted murder and weapons offenses.
The night before, a 32-year-old city man was hospitalized after being shot on 10th Avenue just after 10 p.m.
No arrests had been made in the other shootings, which records show boosted the total number of people struck by gunfire in Paterson this year to 82, eight of whom died.
City police are hoping a continuing FBI probe cleans the department of rogue officers and boosts faith in the department by residents, merchants and community leaders – upon whom they rely heavily to solve and deter crime.
Officer Matthew Torres was taken into custody Wednesday and charged with making an illegal traffic stop and taking $1,000 from a passenger with fellow Officer Eudy Ramos.
Jonathan Bustios, 29, admitted during a guilty plea in federal court earlier this week that he pressured a defendant to give him a handgun in exchange for reduced charges during an arrest and conspired with colleagues to violates citizens’ civil rights.
Officer Ruben McAusland also took a plea deal from the government, admitted that he sold heroin and pot from his patrol car and, accompanied by Officer Roger Then, beat a suicidal patient in a hospital emergency room.
Then also took a deal and admitted in federal court two weeks ago that he destroyed a cellphone video he’d made of the assault.
He and McAusland await sentencing.
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