On a Friday night in August 2015, Rodrigo Berru, a 45-year-old livery cab driver from Newark, New Jersey, was shot and killed while working for Classic Taxi. The shooting happened at approximately 9:45 p.m. in the 300 block of Frelinghuysen Avenue; officers found him unconscious and unresponsive inside his vehicle and he was pronounced dead at 9:47 p.m. His death was recorded as the 59th homicide in Newark that year and was one of six killings in the city that week.

Authorities described Berru as an Ecuadorian immigrant who had driven a taxi in Newark for about a decade. The investigation continued for nearly two months; in October 2015 the Essex County Prosecutor’s Office announced that a 17-year-old male from Newark had been arrested and charged in connection with the killing. The youth’s name was not widely published because he was a juvenile. Details about motive and subsequent legal proceedings remain limited in reports.

Did anyone in the community know Rodrigo or have information about his work that could help clarify what happened that night?