'An American hero': Detective Joseph Seals mourned a week after Jersey City shootings
JERSEY CITY, N.J. – As a cold, persistent rain pelted this wounded city Tuesday, thousands of police and residents gathered to bid farewell to the detective killed in last week’s mass shooting.
The body of Jersey City Police Det. Joseph Seals was brought by hearse to St. Aeden’s Roman Catholic Church for a funeral Mass presided over by Cardinal Joseph Tobin.
Inside the ornate, century-old worship space, more than 1,000 police officers, residents and political leaders – including Gov. Phil Murphy, U.S. Attorney General William Barr, New Jersey Attorney Gurbir Grewal and U.S. Attorney Craig Carpenito – assembled to mourn Seals.
Tobin told the congregation that faith can't take away the pain, but it offers comfort in troubling times.
Seals' son, Adrian Junco-Seals, 15, a sophomore at St. Benedict's Prep in Newark, eulogized his stepfather, who he said was "a great man in and out of work."
"He will forever be remembered as an American hero," Junco-Seals said.
Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop called Seals "one of our best officers in the entire department."
Referring to the mystery of why Seals was at Bay View Cemetery, where he was shot and killed, Fulop said, "The truth is those details are not important right now. There is zero doubt in my mind that Joseph Seals saved countless lives on Dec. 10."
Jersey City Police Chief Michael Kelly said, "I'm at a loss for words to describe the callous, heinous murder of Joe, but I'm not at a loss for words in describing the last seven days" and how the Jersey City police have responded to the shootings and their aftermath.
"Those of you working in blue know what that means," Kelly said. "Joe lost his life fighting evil – gang nonsense, drug wars, shootings and, most of all, hate violence."
Seals, 39, a 15-year veteran of the Jersey City police force who lived in North Arlington with his wife and five children, was shot and killed last Tuesday as he attempted to confront two people in Bay View Cemetery.
The man and woman accused of killing Seals had been followers of an anti-Semitic, anti-police group known as the Black Hebrew Israelites, authorities said. The pair fatally shot three more people at a kosher grocery and wounded two police officers and a bystander before they were killed in a nearly three-hour gunbattle with police.
The shootings are being investigated by federal, state and local authorities as a hate crime.
David Anderson, 47, a former U.S. Army reservist from Jersey City, and Francine Graham, 50, a onetime health aide from Elizabeth, did not stop firing until police in an armored truck burst into the JC Kosher Grocery and shot them to death.
Besides the murders of Seals and the three people at the grocery, Anderson and Graham were suspects in the beating death of a livery driver whose body was found Dec. 7 in Bayonne.
After killing Seals at the Bay View Cemetery around noon last Tuesday, the pair drove a mile through the city's Greenville neighborhood to the JC Kosher Market, which serves the area's fledgling Hasidic community.
Around 12:30 p.m. Tuesday, they parked their van in front of the Sacred Heart Catholic School across from the grocery.
A video from a nearby surveillance camera released by police shows Anderson, who also carried a 9 mm pistol, opening the driver’s door and firing his AR-15-style rifle into the grocery. Graham followed, carrying a 12-gauge shotgun and another 9 mm handgun, police said.
Pedestrians on the sidewalk ran as Anderson and Graham pushed into the grocery and continued shooting.
Hearing the gunshots, two police officers on foot patrol ran to the grocery. Both were wounded but escaped and summoned more police. A customer was wounded and ran from the store to safety.
After the attackers were killed, police found the body of the store’s co-owner, Leah Minda Ferencz, 33, a mother of three children who ran the market with her husband. Also killed was a customer, Moshe Hirsch Deutsch, 24, and one of the store’s workers, Douglas Miguel Rodriguez Barzola, 49, an immigrant from Ecuador who left behind a wife and 11-year-old daughter.
A variety of groups conducted memorial services and funerals for the other victims last Wednesday and through the weekend.
Email: kellym@northjersey.com Twitter: @mikekellycolumn