On the late evening of May 9, 2024, 38-year-old Baseem Taliaferro of Galloway Township was shot inside a first-floor apartment at 9 West Pleasant Avenue in Pleasantville and pronounced dead at the scene with a fatal gunshot wound to the chest. Police were called for shots fired shortly after 11 p.m. A witness reported an argument about twenty minutes before the shooting involving 35-year-old Kalief Lyons and several others near the building.

Surveillance footage showed Lyons leaving the area after the dispute, then returning to the rear of the building with his face covered by a ski mask. The system recorded him walking away about two minutes after the shooting without the mask.

At the time of the killing Lyons was on home detention awaiting sentencing for a November 2022 firearms-related case; he had pleaded guilty in March 2024 to second-degree charges for being a person not to possess a firearm and had been released without a monitoring bracelet to await a May 28 sentencing. Lyons was charged with murder and multiple weapons offenses and held at the Atlantic County Justice Facility; he was also later sentenced to 10 years for the prior gun charge, a term to be served while the murder case proceeds. Does anyone have information about the argument or movements near West Pleasant Avenue that night?