Back in the woods in Oakland, NJ, lies whats left of a summer resort called Pleasureland Swim Club.
Thousands of out of town people would flock to the area on hot summer days. Once busisness started to get slow, owner Frank R Gallo decided to start attracting people from the New York City boroughs.
Well on Sunday, August 4th 1985, one such group had been bussed in to celebrate Jamaican Independence Day.
About 4:30pm, all hell broke loose.
Six people have been arrested after a gun battle that erupted at a picnic left two people dead and 21 injured and sent hundreds fleeing for their lives over a barbed-wire fence.
"Once the shooting started, pandemonium broke loose," said Bergen County Prosecutor Larry McClure, who described one of the people killed as a bus driver who was "an innocent bystander."
Police Lt. Jim O'Connor said the shooting broke out among West Indian visitors to the FRG Sports Complex in this community 20 miles west of New York.
McClure did not identify the bus driver, but he said the second victim died on the operating table at St. Joseph's Hospital and Medical Center in Paterson.
Hospital spokeswomen Terri Setteducato identified him as Hopeton Reid, 28. Eleven of the injured people were gunshot victims, including a pregnant woman shot in the leg and a 4-year-old boy.
Several others were treated for injuries received when they were trampled in the panic, said Marie Nativo, nursing superintendent of Wayne General Hospital, where some were treated. The injured were taken to a number of area hospitals.
Among those trampled, Ms Nativo said, was Alberto Ayala, another bus driver. O'Connor said the West Indians arrived at the picnic and swimming complex aboard 15 buses.
McClure said about two dozen handguns and two Uzi machine guns were recovered and more weapons were expected to be found as an investigation continues. Police also found machetes and knives at the park.
Mario Drago, owner of the Pleasureland pool complex next door, said he heard the shooting break out. Drago said patrons told him the gunfire broke out among rival gang members at the swim club.
Although the owner reopened shortly after the shootings, The township started court preceedings aimed on permenently shutting the place down. It worked and here You see it today.
A sports and recreation complex where 2 people were fatally shot and more than 20 were injured during a shootout between patrons on Aug. 11 reopened this weekend.
The owner of the 50-acre park, the FRG Sports Complex, said he would not operate it any differently than in the past. ''This is a family-oriented place,'' the owner, Frank Gallo, said. ''We've never had trouble in 10 years.''
The Oakland Mayor, William J. Winterhalter, said the town intended to begin court proceedings aimed at permanently closing the complex.
Five men have been charged with attempted murder and gun possession in connection with the shootings. A sixth man is charged with handgun possession. All are being held in the Bergen County Jail.
The shootout involved members of a predominantly Jamaican group of nearly 2,000 who had come in chartered buses and cars from a Brooklyn neighborhood, according to Bergen County Prosecutor Larry J. McClure.
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