A Scranton man shot at six juveniles he encountered on the former Clarks Summit University property in South Abington Twp. on Monday afternoon, police charge.<\/p>\n
Township police responded to 538 Venard Road at 3:34 p.m. for the report of a man \u2014 later identified as Afroyem Moskowitz, 29 \u2014 in a dark-colored pickup who fired at juveniles who were riding electric bicycles on a path around the pond area of the grounds, officers said.<\/p>\n
As officers traveled to the property, dispatchers informed them the juveniles fled to a residence in the township, police said.<\/p>\n
South Abington Twp. Police Chief Paul Wolfe spoke with the juveniles while officers from several departments throughout the Abingtons sought the alleged shooter, officers said.<\/p>\n
One juvenile told Wolfe they were riding their e-bikes on the walking path when they observed a man wearing black clothing and a hat driving a dark-colored pickup truck toward them, according to the criminal complaint. The juvenile added they heard the truck engine revving, and the vehicle sped toward them, police said.<\/p>\n
Additionally, the juvenile told Wolfe they left the walking path and went onto a dirt trail to get away from the truck, but the male continued pursuing them and started shooting at them out the window, officers said.<\/p>\n
When officers located Moskowitz, he told them he didn\u2019t shoot at the kids, but he shot at the ground, according to the criminal complaint.<\/p>\n
Patrolman Darrell Silverstein then took the gun \u2014 a Glock 9mm caliber semi-automatic firearm \u2014 from Moskowitz\u2019s waistband and officers placed him under arrest, police said.<\/p>\n
When asked if he had a license to carry a firearm, Moskowitz didn\u2019t provide officers an affirmative answer and then stated, \u201cI don\u2019t want to speak to incriminate myself,\u201d according to the criminal complaint. He also told officers, \u201cI regret what I did,\u201d per the complaint.<\/p>\n
Three spent 9mm shell casings and one unfired 9mm round were found at the scene, officers said.<\/p>\n
Silverstein responded to the property earlier in the day, at 1:56 p.m., in response to a break-in at a building on the premises, police said. At the time, Silverstein spoke with the complainant \u2014 identified as Moskowitz \u2014 who was inside a 2017 charcoal grey Chevrolet Silverado pickup truck with a bed cap, officers said.<\/p>\n
During an interview at the South Abington Twp. police station, Moskowitz \u2014 who told officers he works as a maintenance worker at the former Baptist Bible property \u2014 said there had been several intrusions on the property and stated, \u201cI didn\u2019t fire at them and I never would,\u201d according to the criminal complaint.<\/p>\n
Police charged Moskowitz with a felony charge of carrying a firearm without a license, six misdemeanor counts of terroristic threats with intent to terrorize another, and six misdemeanor counts of recklessly endangering another person.<\/p>\n
As on Tuesday, Moskowitz remained held without bail at the Lackawanna County Prison. A preliminary hearing is scheduled for Dec. 8 at 10:30 a.m.<\/p>\n
In April, a New Jersey man received approval from township officials to turn the property into a religious education center with a focus on the Jewish faith and teachings. The township\u2019s zoning hearing board unanimously approved a special exception zoning permit and variance submitted by Kalmin Katz of Jackson, New Jersey, for the Abington Center for Education at 538 Venard Road.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Scranton man shot at six juveniles he encountered on the former Clarks Summit University property in South…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7350,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[202,201,182,139,28,178,180,179,6799,181],"class_list":["post-44554","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-scranton","tag-crime-and-public-safety","tag-lackawanna-county","tag-local-news","tag-news","tag-pennsylvania","tag-scranton","tag-scranton-headlines","tag-scranton-news","tag-south-abington-township","tag-top-stories-stt"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44554","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44554"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44554\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7350"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44554"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44554"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44554"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}