Road Rage Incident Linked to Olive Street Shooting?

Two perplexing incidents Monday leave Newark police with more questions than answers.

As Patch reported earlier,  at 6:20 pm a 28-year-old man sustained non-fatal gunshot wounds while sitting in a parked car on the 37000 block of Olive Street.

About five hours later, at 11:24 pm, two officers responded to a report that someone had brandished a gun at a driver on Thornton Avenue.

"The victim is this case is related to tonight’s shooting victim and officers are working to determine if there is any connection between the two incidents," according to the Newark police log.

Commander Mike Carroll said police are not sure what to make of the two incidents.

The shooting took place in an area where gang activity has been known to occur but there is no reason to believe the victim has any gang connection, he said.

The road rage incident, involving a relation to the shooting victim, makes the two episodes more baffling.

Carroll said most motorists go their entire lives without someone threatening them with a gun while they are driving. And yet this rarity happened to a person connected to a victim shot five hours earlier.

"The chances of something like this being purely random are highly unlikely," Carroll said, but what if any connection there may be still eludes understanding.