The shooting happened around 1:30 a.m. at the Baldassari Regency, located on the 100 block of Morris Avenue.
Police say as the guests were leaving, multiple shots rang out in the parking lot area.
"A couple fellas came, cars came here and they must have been looking for someone and they started shooting up," said owner Eddi Baldassari.
"Cars rushing out of here, people running this way and that way screaming--it was like big old chaos," said Annette Rosario.
When it was all over four men in their 20s had been hit, but all left before police arrived.
The victims were later located at two city hospitals being treated for non-life-threatening gunshot wounds to the arm, leg, chest and eyes.
Later in the day the neighborhood was still reeling from what happened. At the Washington Elementary School just across the street, custodians discovered a trail of blood in the parking lot and a bullet hole in the window frame of a kindergarten classroom. They also found this mangled bullet that apparently ricocheted off a metal door at the school. That was retrieved by a detective for evidence.
"It makes me feel very eerie because it could have been in school time, it could have been in the day, with kids here," said Principal Gloria Tunstall.
The shooting happened after the Thursday night dance party. Baldassari said he has been running the dance parties to generate business. He says many of his old customers won't come to Trenton because of the crime. And, with a third of the police force recently laid off because of budget cuts, he expects things will get worse.
"We had a hurricane, but the governor found the money to give all these poor people that got damaged. Now we got a disaster in Trenton. We got an emergency happening. Why can't we solve it? Why can't we find money?" Baldassari said.
While police continue to investigate the shooting, Baldassari has some decisions to make: Continue doing business in the city he loves and has invested in, or give up and move out like so many other restaurants have.
