Art, Business, & Culture in the 6th Borough
Bergen Hill Mass Shooter Sentenced to Double Life
24-Year-Old Convicted at Trial for Spree of Spring '21 Shootings
Journal Square, 02/09 – Hudson County Superior Court Judge Hon. Nesle Rodriguez on Wednesday, February 4th, sentenced Jersey City resident Omire Rios-Williams, 24, to two consecutive life sentences in New Jersey State Prison for his role in the May 21st, 2021, mass shooting that rocked the Bergen Hill neighborhood and left two dead and four seriously wounded.
Per information released by Hudson County Prosecutor Wayne Mello’s office, Rios-Williams was convicted at trial of two counts of Murder, one count of Conspiracy to Commit Murder, four counts of Attempted Murder, four counts of Aggravated Assault, two counts of Unlawful Possession of a Weapon, and Possession of a Weapon for an Unlawful Purpose.
Just before 11 o’clock on a warm mid-Spring Friday night, shots rang out on Brinkerhoff street near Lincoln High School. Responding JCPD officers came upon six victims, all in their early to mid-20’s, suffering from apparent gunshot wounds. Two of the victims, later identified as Randolph Black Jr., 25, and Jason Crutcher, 26, both of Jersey City, were pronounced dead as a result of their injuries. The other four victims recovered from their injuries.
Rios-Williams’s co-defendant, Cooleone McNeil, 25, of Bayonne, was convicted at trial of first degree Conspiracy to Commit Murder and later sentenced to 18 years in New Jersey State Prison, subject to the No Early Release Act.
Rios-Williams was additionally sentenced to 20 years in New Jersey State Prison, also subject to the No Early Release Act, after he pled guilty to one count of Aggravated Manslaughter related the earlier fatal shooting of Emmanuel Garcia in Jersey City on May 3, 2021.
Hudson County Assistant Prosecutors David Feldman and Daniel Gilbert represented the State in this matter.
Jackson Hill September Murder Suspect Arrested
The killing at MLK Jr. Drive and Union Street marked the city’s 10th homicide this year.
10/06/25 – Hudson County Acting Prosecutor Wayne Mello this morning announced the arrest of Shakeem Clarke, 26, of Jersey City, with the murder of Jamaal George, 27, also of Jersey City, on Sunday, September 8th, 2025. On that date, just after 5am, the Jersey City Police Department responded to reports of shots fired in the area of Martin Luther King Jr. Drive and Union Street. At the scene officers found a man later identified as George with an apparent gunshot wound to his upper torso. The victim was transported to Jersey City Medical Center where he was pronounced dead shortly after 5:30am.
Per the press release, Clarke was arrested on Friday, October 3rd, 2025, at the Hudson County Prosecutor’s Office in Secaucus and transported to the Hudson County Correctional Facility pending his first court appearance. The suspect has been charged with murder in the first degree as well as various weapons offenses.
The Mystery of the Missing Figures
Part 2 of Your Art Tax Dollars at Work
By Charley Cano, 07/30/25, Updated 08/02/25
“Curiouser and curiouser!”, as Alice exclaimed upon descending into the rabbit hole. What was originally intended as a brief general overview of the first five years of the Jersey City Arts and Culture Trust Fund has evolved into a bona fide little mystery.
As noted in Part 1, Live Wire first requested copies of the Trust Fund’s annual reports on June 4th, 2025. The Mayor’s Office promptly (the next day) forwarded the first and thus far only such report, for Cycle 1, or fiscal year 2022-2023.
This report (posted below) lists the total amounts of grants allocated and individual grantees, but not the individual grant amounts for organizations. For those I had to go to a Jersey Journal article by Ron Zeitlinger on June 2, 2022. (Individual artist fellowship grants are yearly divided equally from the total reserved for the individual artist grants.)
Though you have to work a little for them, the figures for Cycles 3 and 4 are publicly available. But not Cycle 2.
Similarly, the ‘Year in Review’ reports for the years 2022 and 2023 posted by the Office of Cultural Affairs also list grant totals and grantees, but not individual amounts for organizations. The 2024 Year in Review, however, does list the separate grant amounts for organizations, and that was the only place I found them posted. All three are posted below.
On April 24th, 2025, the Arts Council announced in a ZOOM meeting the 2025-2026 grantees and totals. The next day, the Mayor’s office followed suit with a press release announcing the grant totals. The individual grant amounts were subsequently posted to the grants page of the Cultural Affairs office website.
Annual tax filing reports are understandably at least one year behind in pertinence, just as with individual and business tax returns. Therefore, it’s not unusual that the final annual report for 20233-2024 might be a few months past Tax Day and one year behind in relevance.
What is strange, though, is that the figures for the subsequent two cycles were announced and well-publicized, even without waiting for the Trust Fund’s annual report.
Whereas the Jersey City Arts Council is a registered 501(c)(3) non-profit organization and must file annual reports with federal and state treasury departments, the Arts and Culture Trust Fund, being a public trust fund established and managed by the City of Jersey City, is generally exempt from both state and federal income tax filing requirements; operates under the tax-exempt status afforded to governmental entities; and is not subject to reporting requirements other than those applicable to regular municipal budgetary reports and City Hall may publish the figures involved at its discretion. The businesses and non-profits receiving grants, however, are required to report the income, whether or not they are exempt from paying taxes on the funds. Theoretically, the amounts reported by recipients will correspond to those published by the city. The potential for tax fraud with the trust fund is another danger and pitfalls I previously neglected to mention.
In sum, the trust fund is jointly administered by the city’s Office of Cultural Affairs and the Jersey City Arts Council. Although the arts council is a stand-alone non-profit organization and independent agency, it works in conjunction with City Hall in its operations on the trust fund and city-sponsored events like the Jersey City Art and Studio Tour (JCAST).
So what is so complex about the data from Cycle 2 that we’d have to wait a year to see it? What is different about that year from all the other years? I suppose we’ll have to wait and see in Part 3 of this ad hoc series. A second request for the 2023-2024 annual report, two months from the original request, was answered by Migdalia Pagan-Milano, Assistant Director of Cultural Affairs, who explained that the city is “working through the process of compiling the data” and offered to forward the information when complete.
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Jersey City Live Wire was created to offer readers in New Jersey's
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Editor-in-Chief: Charles E. Cano