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Witness: N.J.shooter had no targets
EAST ORANGE, N.J. (AP) — A Seton Hall University
student who attended an off-campus house party at
which five people were shot said the gunman stood
on her back as she lay on the floor and didn't
appear to be targeting anyone during the chaos she
described as "hell."

"He was just shooting he had no intended target,"
said a text message from the woman, whose friend
was the only person killed.

The woman spoke Sunday by BlackBerry instant
messenger on condition of anonymity because she
feared for her safety while the shooter remained at
large. She said she was too upset to talk over the
phone.

She described the Friday night party, which lasted
into early Saturday, as a "typical fraternity party" with
at least 100 people at the privately owned row
house.

Students said the shooter was kicked out of the
party when he refused to pay the cover charge.

The woman said she heard a fight erupt before the
man was thrown out. Seconds later, she said, he
returned with a handgun and started shooting as
chaos erupted.

"Everyone was scrambling n stampeding. People
were jumping out the two windows n all I cud smell
was smoke n blood," the woman wrote. "The next
thing I knew I opened my eyes n saw hell..blood n
just panic."

The woman said was on the floor when the gunman
stepped on her back and shot her friend Jessica
Moore, a 19-year-old honors student majoring in
psychology. Moore, who was from Disputanta, Va.,
died later at a hospital.

Authorities had not released the names of the four
wounded people, whose injuries weren't considered
life-threatening.

Two of the injured are 19-year-old women who go
to Seton Hall, and one is a 25-year-old man who
attends the New Jersey Institute of Technology. The
other is a 20-year-old man from New York who is
not a student.

East Orange police were following several leads but
had not identified a suspect, spokesman Andrew Di
Elmo said.

On Sunday, police had set up an electronic sign, the
kind usually used to tell drivers of detours, to ask
for help solving the house party shooting, which o
ccurred just after midnight. The message
advertised a $10,000 reward for information leading
to an arrest.

The party was primarily for students at Seton Hall, a
well-regarded Roman Catholic university with a
gated campus in South Orange, about 15 miles from
New York City. There are no sanctioned fraternities
at Seton Hall and no fraternity houses.

The university, with its collection of red brick
buildings tucked behind a wrought-iron fence,
stands in stark contrast to the gritty neighborhood
where the party was held a mile away. Just a block
from the shooting site, the remains of a memorial
for another recent shooting victim could still be
seen.

There were at least five shootings in the area this
summer, said Rabu Anderson, who owns a clothing
store there.

Advertisement "Some of it is gang violence, some of it is just plain
ignorance," Anderson said.

East Orange resident Leon Drinks, who lives four
doors down from the house where the party
shooting occurred, said the violence has become
much worse in the past couple of years. He said just
after midnight he heard six shots — not an
uncommon sound on South Clinton Street.

"I kinda laid low for a minute, then I heard the
stampede of people on this side of the street and
that side of the street," said Drinks, 54. "People were
running in driveways and alleyways trying to get out
of the mess."

Seton Hall, which has 10,000 students, knows about
the dangers in some of the neighborhoods nearby
and advises students not to leave campus alone.