On the evening of September 17, 1984, Patrolman Daniel J. Smith, 27, of the Essex County Police Department was fatally shot while on duty in East Orange, New Jersey. Smith, a third-generation officer who had joined the department in January 1983 after graduating from the Essex County Police Academy in Cedar Grove, stopped a vehicle on Interstate 280 near the Oakwood Avenue overpass. As he approached the driver’s side, the motorist produced a shotgun and shot Smith in the head.

A short pursuit followed when East Orange patrols arrived; the suspect vehicle crashed into the highway median and a man and a woman in the car were arrested. Several firearms were recovered from the automobile. The man was later convicted of first-degree murder, robbery, motor vehicle theft and illegal weapons possession and received a life sentence plus 40 years. Smith, a native of Bloomfield, was survived by his wife Patricia and his sister Margaret Smith Harvey. A stretch of I-280 in East Orange was dedicated as the Patrolman Daniel Danny J. Smith Memorial and he was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor.

Did anyone in the area at the time see the traffic stop or the vehicle before the shooting?