Five people are recovering after an acid attack in Jersey City, in a frightening assault that unfolded out on a city street. According to authorities, someone drove up in a vehicle and threw acid on a group of people, leaving several of them needing hospital treatment and prompting a police response to the scene.
The attack took place on Wilkinson Avenue. By the account given by officials, the person responsible pulled up in the vehicle and hurled the substance directly at the group before driving off, turning an ordinary moment on the block into a sudden emergency for the people who were hit.
Investigators are still working to pin down exactly what was used in the attack. At this point, officials believe the substance that was thrown at the group was sulfuric acid, the kind of corrosive chemical that can cause serious harm when it comes into contact with the skin.
Police do not believe the attack was a random act. They say it appears to have stemmed from some kind of dispute that had taken place earlier in the day, an indication that the people who were targeted may have been singled out rather than caught up in a chance encounter on the street.
All five people who were struck were taken to the hospital in the aftermath of the attack. There, they were treated for injuries that officials described as non-life-threatening, and they were said to be recovering, an outcome that could have been far worse given the substance involved.
The fact that the attack was carried out from a vehicle, in the open and against a group of people, has unsettled the neighborhood. With the victims being treated and the apparent dispute behind the attack still being examined, the focus now turns to accounting for exactly what happened on Wilkinson Avenue and who was behind it.