Several hurt, 1 woman killed in Newark gun violence

NEWARK, New Jersey (WABC) -- One woman is dead and at least six others injured in two shootings in less than two days in Newark.

The most recent incident happened Monday evening in the West Ward near the Irvington border.

Firefighters hosed down the sidewalk on South 19th street Monday night.

It's their job is to save lives, but instead they were cleaning up a gory scene of violent, inexplicable death.

"I just saw the black car pull up and after that I just heard the shots coming toward the house, coming to the house, coming exactly to the porch I was sitting on. My porch," an eyewitness said.

The eyewitness, too afraid to be identified, was on the front porch when it happened.

Someone in a black car with a gun unleashed a barrage of bullets.

They were fired in her direction.

"I ran in the house," she said. "When I came back downstairs, the lady was laying on the ground."

When it was over, three people, two men and a women, had been shot.

The woman, reportedly visiting someone who lives on the first floor, did not survive.

Not long after the shooting, and not far away, those firefighters had another job when a black BMW burned. Investigators want to know if it is the same car used the drive-by.

"When you look at this scene right now, what do you see?" Eyewitness News asked.

"Hopelessness," said Donna Jackson, a community activist. "How do you expect people to walk in and out of their houses and not feel afraid?"

But for Jackson, the details are almost irrelevant on a single block peppered with burned out memorials to other victims of recent violence.

On South 19th Monday night, Newark police posted signs asking for the neighborhood's help.

Jackson says it's the neighborhood that needs the help.

"You're standing on a block where you're looking at, at least five memorials here and they probably have happened in the last three weeks. The city is on fire," Jackson said. "We are less than two weeks away from school opening for our children, and if we are going to continue to have these kind of shootings we're going to have even more casualties and more people hit."