What to Know
- Jeremy Arrington entered a not guilty plea at his arraignment on Thursday morning
- The 26-year-old allegedly attacked six people after one of the victims posted on social media that police were looking for him
- Three people died as a result of the attack, including two young children, and three others were injured, prosecutors allege
A 26-year-old man who was angry about a Facebook post pleaded not guilty Thursday morning to stabbing three people to death and knifing three others in Newark.
Jeremy Arrington was arraigned at the Essex County Veterans Courthouse on Thursday morning. Family members of the victims were visibly upset and cried as Arrington stared them down while he entered and exited the courtroom.
He is being held on $5 million cash bail in Essex County. Information on an attorney who could comment on the allegations against him wasn't immediately available.
Arrington might have been angry that one of the victims had reposted a Facebook alert from police naming him as a suspect in a shooting and sexual assault last month, authorities said.
Killed in the bloodbath Saturday were 8-year-old Aerial Little Whitehurst and 11-year-old Al-Jahon Whitehurst, both of Newark, and 23-year-old college student Syasia McBurroughs, of Hanover Township. The children were sister and brother; McBurroughs was not related to them and was visiting the family, authorities said.
Arrington went to the home, which is owned by the grandmother of the children, and apparently encountered nine people, authorities said. He stabbed six people over the course of about an hour, but two other children and an adult escaped without injury, authorities said.
Newark Mayor Ras Baraka described the scene as stomach-churning.
Local
The grandmother of the children said that the violence has pulled the family together and that she was "so sick of the killings and bad things that are happening in Newark."
"I'll remember (the kids') laughter, remember how friendly they were, remember how good they were in school," she said.
A vigil was held inside the gym of the George Washington Carver Elementary School Monday afternoon.
