Murderous Shoot-out Using Semi-Automatic Tec-9 in Town that Isn't Used to Violence

(PERTH AMBOY) In the small town of Perth Amboy, New Jersey, which hasn't been subjected to much violent crime ever since the "big clean-up," starting with Mayor Joseph Vas' tenure as mayor in 1990, and happens to be where I live, a murderous shoot-out using a Tec-9 semi-automatic handgun, and at least one other weapon, and a hail of gunfire from the first responding Perth Amboy police officer's service weapons, seemed to make up for that overnight, Friday. Five people were affected, two falling dead and three others injured, two of them seriously. No police officers were injured in the incident.

And while police are still investigating the incident, eyewitnesses and one victim report Edwin Cordero Jr., 27, of Perth Amboy, opening fire when he saw police had arrived on the scene, killing one of the occupants and also shooting himself dead in the neck after police ordered the man to put down his weapon.

Authorities said Perth Amboy Police Officer Ganagioti Bouleris and another police officer John Wonski arrived at the scene while the Tec-9 wielding Cordero was spraying the vehicle with bullets. In a news release, authorities with the Middlesex County Prosecutor's Office said, the officers engaged the gunman, telling him to drop his weapon, and when he didn't comply with the order, Officer Bouleris squeezed off five rounds at the assailant at just the same time as the gunman was turning the semi-automatic handgun on himself, shooting himself in the neck. Neither, the Middlesex County Prosecutor's office, nor the attending coroner are saying at this time who's bullet killed Cordero, the officer's or his own, and whether or not Officer Bouleris' bullets hit him or anyone else.