On March 12, 2018, 28-year-old Shahad Smith was fatally shot on the 700 block of Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard in Newark. He was a Bloomfield resident and was struck at approximately 5:42 p.m.; emergency responders pronounced him dead at the scene less than thirty minutes later. The weapon used was identified as an assault weapon, and Smith’s death was one of three homicides in Newark during that 24-hour period.

The shooting drew national attention when U.S. Senator Cory Booker said Smith had been his neighbor for eight years in the same housing complex and urged that Smith’s life matter. The Essex County Prosecutor’s Office Homicide/Major Crimes Task Force, with Newark Police detectives, opened an investigation and asked the public for information. No arrests or public identifications of suspects have been announced, and who killed Shahad Smith remains unresolved.

If anyone knew Shahad, saw the area that evening, or has information that could help the investigation, please come forward.