Rampage in Jersey City Leaves Officer and 5 Others Dead

“Once again, our nation is faced with scenes of carnage, fear, hopelessness and loss,” Senator Booker said. “There should be no place in America where residents are gunned down while shopping for groceries, officers are slain while protecting our communities and children are sheltering in place at school. These tragedies cannot become our new normal.”

The governor praised the Jersey City police for their courage in the face of danger. “There are days that require us to stop and think about what it means to put on a uniform every day,” he said. “And God knows this is one of those days.”

Rabbi David Niederman, the executive director of the United Jewish Organizations of Williamsburg, a Satmar Hasidic community organization, said people in the Jersey City Hasidic community had told him that the shots came into the market first through the glass window. The shooters then tried to take cover inside the store.

“We are in shock,” he said, “and we pray.”

The kosher market caters to a small but growing number of Hasidic families who have moved to Jersey City in recent years. Many of them belong to the ultra-Orthodox Satmar sect and have settled into houses on dense blocks with neighbors that include a Catholic school, a Pentecostal church and a Dominican restaurant.

The market opened three years ago, signaling that the Orthodox community was putting down roots in what had been, and remains, a largely African-American part of Jersey City.

Detective Seals had lived in North Arlington, N.J., about eight miles north of Jersey City, for at least five years, neighbors said. Neighbors described him as a dedicated father with five children.

One neighbor, Josephine Gonzalez, looked at the Christmas lights on their block and said the holiday cheer disappeared the moment officers arrived to deliver the somber news to the family.

“Unfortunately, they will have a very sad Christmas,” she said. “It’s a horrible tragedy.”

Nick Corasaniti, Corey Kilgannon, Kwame Opam, Sharon Otterman, Ed Shanahan, William K. Rashbaum, Edgar Sandoval and Ashley Southall contributed reporting. Susan C. Beachy contributed research.