Heavy gunfire reported in Jersey City neighborhood

Heavy gunfire is being reported in a Jersey City neighborhood.

SWAT teams are responding to the scene and police have blocked off the major thoroughfare. Loud volleys of gunfire could be heard at regular intervals but subsided around 2 p.m. in the city, which is just across the Hudson River from Manhattan.

The area has a Catholic school, a few convenience stories, a kosher supermarket and a hair stylist. Phones rang unanswered at several nearby businesses. The Catholic parish, Sacred Heart, has closed, and no one answered at its associated school.

Andy Patel works at a liquor store about three blocks away from the site of the shooting site and says there has been consistent gunfire fire for about an hour.

“I can hear the gunshots. It’s like firecrackers going off. They were shooting like crazy about an hour ago. Then it stopped for like 20 or 30 minutes. The cops were clearing everyone off the streets,” says Patel.

— AP