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The biggest bust involved three men – one of them an ex-con – caught with a pair of guns shortly after 11 p.m. Thursday, Police Director Jerry Speziale said.
Detectives Luis Roca and Joseph Aboyoun had just pulled over a Mercedes Benz that ran a stop sign on East 19th Street when they spotted a weapon in the car, Speziale said.
They immediately removed the driver, Diarre Chitty, 21, and his two passengers while summoning backup following the stop at a Lafayette Street gas station, he said.
One suspect, Rasheed Thomas, 19, resisted but was subdued with the assistance of the arriving officers, Speziale said.
Two 9mm guns were found – one a Springfield Arms and the other a Glock – along with high-capacity magazines for each, the director said.
Chitty, Thomas and passenger Rhosheen Mayes, 18, were all arrested.
The incident followed another barely two hours earlier, when a group of detectives responded to gunfire detected by the city’s ShotSpotter system near the scene of a previous shooting on North 1st Street.
They approached Shaquille Brewington, 27, who ran, Speziale said.
The group – which included Detectives Mustafa Dombayci, Yamil Pimienta, John Traynor, Suquan Gary, Joseph Aboyoun, Luis Roca and Levis Qirjako – chased Brewington through a North Straight Street backyard, where he was tossed a black handgun, the director said.
Gary grabbed Brewington on Watson Street while colleagues retrieved the 9mm Taurus handgun and high-capacity magazine, Speziale said. They also recovered 10 heroin folds, he said.
A little over 24 hours earlier, investigators spotted Francisco DeJesus, 19, of Hawthorne, who was a “person of interest” in a gun-related incident in the area of Sparrow and Highland streets, Speziale said.
Detectives Levis Qirjako, Pimienta, Traynor and Dombayci found DeJesus carrying a loaded .380-caliber Ruger and arrested him without incident, he said.
All of the defendants were sent to the Passaic County Jail to await first appearances in Central Judicial Processing Court in Paterson on a variety of weapons charges.
Both Brewington and Thomas were charged with resisting arrest. Brewington also was charged with a drug offense and Chitty with being a convicted felon in possession of a firearm.
The guns were being sent to the New Jersey State Police Ballistics Units to determine whether they may have been used in crimes.
Detectives and uniformed officers are “totally focused on reducing illegal guns on our streets,” Speziale said. “They continue to work tirelessly in their efforts for a safer city.”
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