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Witnesses reported seeing the same white Acura flee the shootings in two drug-infested neighborhoods, as gunfire in the Silk City continues to escalate.
A drive-by at the corner of 30th Street and 22nd Avenue wounded five city men ranging in age from 22 to 27 shortly before 5:30 p.m. Thursday, Passaic County Prosecutor Camelia M. Valdes and Paterson Police Chief Ibrahim Baycora said in a joint release.
All five were gone when police arrived. They’d been taken by private vehicles to St. Joseph’s University Medical Center more than a mile and a half away, Valdes and Baycora said.
This followed another drive-by shooting at an open-air drug market at the corner of Park Avenue and Carroll Street shortly before 5 p.m.
Police found two wounded women – one, 32, from Elizabeth and the other a 26-year-old city resident, authorities said.
One had been struck in the head but was alert and conscious, responders said. Both were taken to St. Joe’s.
Valdes and Baycora didn’t say whether any shooters had been arrested or identified.
What is for certain is that the number of Paterson shootings -- and shooting deaths -- threatens to shatter last year's recent record total.
Five people were wounded and two killed this past Sunday in two Paterson shootings, two of which happened barely 10 minutes apart.
SEE: Five Shot, Two Dead In Dawn-To-Dusk Paterson Shooting Spree
In one, a convicted 21-year-old sex offender walked up to a deaf city man and shot him dead from point-blank range, authorities charged.
SEE: Convicted Sex Offender Shot Deaf Paterson Man Dead From Close Range, Authorities Charge
Less than a week before that, three men and a woman were hospitalized in a trio of Paterson shootings in a span of barely six hours.
WILD NIGHT: Four Wounded As Bullets Fly In Paterson
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