Shooting Won’t Stop Newark School's Beloved 'Lights On' Events

NEWARK, NJ — A beloved outreach program at West Side High will continue to give local students a safe place to spend their Friday nights, despite a recent shooting outside the school, officials say.

West Side’s “Lights On” events have been acting as a safe haven since 2016, touching the lives of thousands of teens and their families. The program provides free activities, food and drinks to upwards of 100 students every Friday evening throughout the school year and ramps up its efforts in the summer.

West Side High and its principal, Akbar Cook, recently made national headlines for another of the school’s outreach programs, a free laundromat that fights bullying by giving low-income students a place to clean their clothes.

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But during an event on Aug. 9, the peace and love was hijacked by gunshots outside of the school. A pair of people – a 13-year-old and an 18-year-old – were injured, Newark police said.

Police eventually arrested two suspects, ages 16 and 15. The 16-year-old was charged with two counts of aggravated assault and weapons offenses. The 15-year-old was taken into custody in connection with a separate shooting on Aug. 5, authorities said.

“We are seeing younger assailants and younger victims in these shootings,” Public Safety Director Anthony Ambrose said. “We need to find solutions to our problems with these dangerous, repeat offender juveniles. They are a very small minority of the young people in Newark, but they are accounting for significant percentages of certain crimes in the city because they are continually released from custody after we arrest them.”

The shooting caused some to worry about whether the Lights On program – which has earned praise from the likes of Oprah Winfrey, Ellen DeGeneres and U.S. Sen. Cory Booker – will endure.

But after the violence outside West Side High and a wave of fatal shootings in the city, Mayor Ras Baraka assured local residents that Lights On and the students who depend on it are in good hands.

In a video message last week, the mayor said those responsible were “enemies to the 300,000 residents of this city” and urged them to surrender to authorities.

“I want the parents to know that program will continue,” Baraka said. “The city of Newark will partner and make sure that it’s safe. We will have a [police] car outside that place to make sure these things do not happen.”

Baraka emphasized that it’s important to “protect our safe places” and not run from them.

“We cannot turn the places over that are positive for our kids to folks that are bent on creating destruction,” Baraka insisted. “All the people of good will, good voices, good intent, have to overpower those who seek to destroy our community.”

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The mayor made a plea to the guardians of Newark – its “parents, cousins, uncles and older brothers” – to keep the youth of the city busy with activities, whether it be boxing, softball or computer coding.

“Make sure your kids are involved,” Baraka urged. “Make sure your neighbor’s kids are involved.”

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The first Friday night after the shooting, Cook – the driving force behind the program – posted an Instagram video filmed outside the school as it prepared for another Lights Out event. As buses with students begin to arrive, police cars with flashing lights could be seen in the background.

Despite the memory of the recent shooting and the flashing police lights, the atmosphere was one of joy, not fear, Cook points out in the video.

“We’re back at it,” he enthuses. “We’re still safe. We’re still rocking.”

Cook, with the support of the West Side Alumni Group and the MCJ Amelior Foundation, started the Lights On program in 2016. Since then, he’s been one of the most visible role models at the weekly gatherings, offering a strong-yet-compassionate presence to his students.

And the lights will continue to shine for local teens at West Side High, he promised last week.

“We’re still an oasis for the kids,” Cook wrote, ending his Instagram post with a #westside hashtag.

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