Names of victims released as 4 gunmen still sought in deadly attack at party near Rutgers University
Lionel Macauley was an aspiring actor; Anthony Robinson had a 2-year-old.
All it took was 15 seconds for four gunmen to kill two people and injure seven others at a house party near Rutgers University, a surveillance video of the attack shows.
New Brunswick police released the video of the shooting that unfolded early Sunday outside a house party just two blocks from the south side of the Rutgers campus.
The footage shows a car pulling up to a house at 1:18 a.m. and four gunmen jumping out with guns blazing and aimed at about 100 people gathered outside the residence, where a birthday party was taking place for one of the men who was killed.
In just 15 seconds, more than two dozen shots were fired before the team of gun-wielding perpetrators got back in the car and sped off.
The two men mortally wounded in the shooting were taken to Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in New Brunswick, where they were pronounced dead. The six other people who suffered bullet wounds were taken to multiple hospitals in the area.
A ninth victim who suffered minor injuries in the shooting and did not require hospitalization later contacted authorities, Middlesex County Prosecutor Yolanda Ciccone and Anthony A. Caputo, director of the New Brunswick Police Department, said in a joint statement on Monday.
They identified the two men killed in the shooting as Lionel Macauley, 28, of Somerset, N.J., and Anthony Robinson 23, of New Brunswick.
Macauley was an aspiring actor, spoken-word poet and a professional dancer, who recently appeared in a short film titled "Color Blind" about best friends, one white the other Black, facing modern-day racism, his father told ABC News on Monday. The film ends with one of the friends being fatally shot by a police officer.
"He was a good kid," Macauley's father, Cyril Macauley, said. "I've just been lying in bed crying all day, thinking about him."
He said his son was a member of Signdance Collective International and traveled throughout Europe with the group last year. Cyril Macauley said Lionel was looking forward to traveling with the group to perform in Croatia later this year.
Macauley's bio on the Signdance Collective International website says he has been acting and dancing since he was 11 years old.
"Lionel's career has also afforded him the opportunity to travel to Europe with Signdance Collective International performing before audiences in places like Italy, Austria, Slovenia, Turkey, and London," the group's website says, adding that Macauley performed his spoken-word poetry at major events at Rutgers University.
Cyril Macauley told ABC News that his son just returned last week from a vacation to Aruba.
"We have lost a great soul," Cyril Macauley said.
Both Macauley and Robinson were graduates of Franklin High School in Somerset.
A GoFundMe page established by relatives of Robinson, the father of a 2-year-old girl, says the birthday party being celebrated when he was killed was for him.
"He would do anything for his family and his friends," relatives wrote on the GoFundMe page. "He didn’t have any problems with anyone. Always energetic with a rare personality."
While many Rutgers students live in off-campus housing in the neighborhood where the shooting occurred, authorities said the investigation shows that no students or staff affiliated with Rutgers were injured in the shooting or had any affiliation with the targeted house party.
Police are asking for the public's help in identifying the gunmen, who left the street littered with shell casings and casualties. As of Monday evening, no arrests had been made.
Witnesses told ABC News station WABC in New York that prior to the shooting a fight broke out at the house the gunman appeared to target.
Jacob Beacher, a Rutgers University student, who lives nearby, told WABC that following the eruption of gunfire, he rushed out of his residence to see wounded victims lying in the street.
"I ran up to one young man and I'm saying, 'I'm here man,' and he's gargling blood, so I flipped him over so he won't choke or suffocate, checked for a pulse," Beacher said.
