The following information is from Capt. Timothy Wagner, the Kearny Police Department’s public-information officer:
On Tuesday, May 14, at approximately 10:23 a.m., Kearny police patrol officers responded to the U.S. Postal Service New Jersey Priority Mail Processing Center at 1200 Harrison Ave., Kearny. Police dispatch had received a report from a postal employee that a man asleep inside a car parked in the center’s parking lot had a pistol on his lap.
Patrol officers located the vehicle and confirmed that a man was asleep in the car with his hand on what appeared to be a handgun. The man was later identified as Xsayvire Smalls, 29, of Newark, a Postal Service employee.
Officers established a safe perimeter around the area and dispatched both the Kearny Police Emergency Service Unit and the Hudson County Regional SWAT Team to the scene. The Regional SWAT Team is comprised of tactically-trained officers employed by police departments around Hudson County, including officers from the Kearny Police Department.
SWAT crisis negotiators attempted to start a verbal dialogue with Smalls, but he did not respond. Thereafter, SWAT officers approached the car and removed Smalls without injury. No shots were fired in this incident; however a loud distraction device, commonly called a “flash-bang” was employed by the SWAT team.
The sound of this device was captured on some amateur videos that were posted to the Internet by citizens outside the incident perimeter.
Officers recovered the weapon from Smalls’s car and confirmed that it was a BB/pellet-type firearm.
Smalls’s arrest is currently being processed by the Kearny Police Department. The list of charges against him is pending.
Aspects of this incident remain under active investigation; however, at this time, police have established no nexus to an attack of any kind. Police authorities stress that there is no threat to the public.
Earlier in the day, Chief George King told The Observer there had been reports of shots fired broadcast by a police agency that was not the KPD. Those reports, he said, were unfounded — shots were never fired in this incident.
The Kearny Police Department thanked numerous agencies who participated in safely resolving this incident, including the Hudson County Regional SWAT Team, the Hudson County Prosecutor’s Office, Hudson County Sheriff’s Office, U.S. Postal Police, U.S. Postal Inspection Service, Harrison Police, New Jersey State Police, FBI, Kearny EMS and Jersey City Medical Center EMS.
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Kevin A. Canessa Jr. is the editor of and broadcaster at The Observer, a place where he has served on and off since 2006. He is responsible for the editorial content of the newspaper and website, the production of the e-Newspaper, writing several stories per week (including the weekly editorial), conducting live broadcasts on Facebook Live, including a weekly recap of the news — and much more behind the scenes. Between 2006 and 2008, he introduced the newspaper to its first-ever blog — which included podcasts, audio and video. Originally from Jersey City, Kevin lived in Kearny until 2004, lived in Port St. Lucie. Florida, for four years until February 2016 and in March of that year, he moved back to West Hudson to return to The Observer full time. Click Here to send Kevin an email.