Kizer Williams was 25 when he was fatally shot on the afternoon of Sunday, October 3, 2021, in Brownsville. He was walking with family toward a planned dinner when he was struck in the chest and leg in front of 180 Powell Street at the Seth Low Houses around 4:45 p.m. First responders took him to Brookdale University Hospital, where he was pronounced dead shortly afterward; some records later listed the loss as October 4, but contemporaneous reports place the shooting on October 3.

Police treated the killing as connected to an ongoing gang feud, saying the shooting stemmed from a longstanding rivalry involving a group known as the Waves and another gang. In the days after the homicide investigators described Williams as a possible gang member, yet detectives still lacked a provable motive, a description of the shooter, or a public identification of any suspect. The neighborhood felt the shock deeply when Williams’ older brother, Daishawn Benjamin, was killed weeks later nearby; an arrest in Benjamin’s homicide was announced in March 2022, but there had been no arrest in Williams’ death and no public ID of his shooter as of that announcement.

If anyone was in the area of 180 Powell Street on October 3, 2021, or has information about the shooting, please come forward.