Crime & Safety

Woodbridge Police Find Abandoned Guns Used in Friday's Bunns Lane Shooting

Two 9mm semi-automatic handguns found near an Oak Ave. home were the weapons used in Friday's attempted burglary and shooting which injured one man.

have been scouring the Bunns Lane neighborhood for the guns used by two suspects since .  Today police finally recovered two 9mm semi-automatic handguns on Oak Ave. near the site of the shooting. 

"We've been searching for the guns since Friday," said Woodbridge Police spokesman Captain Roy Hoppock. "We didn't want the guns to inadvertently fall into the hands of children."

Both guns, Hoppock said, were loaded when they were found.

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Police theorize that Damien D. Van Pelt, 21, of Scotch Plains and Mushìn J. Abdullah, 31, of Newark dumped the guns after they shot a man who sought to stop the two from robbing his girlfriend's Bunns Lane apartment. 

The man, who was shot in the legs, did not sustain life threatening injuries, police said.

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After the shooting, both two suspects fled towards Route 9. One was caught as he emerged from a neighborhood house where he was hiding, and the other was discovered by one of the K9 police dogs hiding in a dumpster not far from the Hess building. NJ State Police, their K9 units, and a helicopter were used in the manhunt.

Van Pelt and Abdullah, who were arrested and taken to the Middlesex County jail in New Brunswick, weren't cooperative in telling Woodbridge detectives what they did with the guns.

"Where the guns were, that was one of the top questions we asked. We weren't going to give up. They could've been thrown them in the water, the pond, in that area," Hoppock said.

Hoppock said that police concentrated their search for the weapons in the Oak Ave. area, and that residents were notified of the search.

The township's new police recruits, sworn in just last week, were brought in on Friday to search for the weapons. On Saturday, the township's police auxiliary took up the hunt.

When the weapons weren't found, police detectives came in on Sunday to conduct a search. Finally, the guns were located on Tuesday, Dec. 13, at around 11 am, Hoppock said.

"We were lucky we had nice weather," Hoppock said, since it made the weapons search easier than it might have been. "We are glad the guns were found."

Van Pelt and Abdullah were arraigned in Middlesex County Superior Court before Judge Joseph Paone. Both were charged with attempted murder, unlawful possession of a weapon, burglary, and theft. Bail was set for each man at $250,000 with no ten percent option.

In addition to the attempted murder and burglary charges, Van Pelt was also wanted for escaping from Northern State Prison's Kintock Halfway House in Newark. That facility is a low security residential treatment facility used by soon-to-be-released prisoners. 

In order for a prisoner to qualify for the halfway house, they must be model prisoners and have demonstrated good behavior while in jail, according to a New Jersey Monthly article on Kintock. No locks are used at Kintock, the article said, but the exit doors are hooked up to alarms.


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