More than 80 people crowded the steps of Newark Police Headquarters on Wednesday for an emotionally charged protest demanding the city fire an officer involved in the fatal shooting of a Newark resident two days before.
Participants included family members of the man killed, identified by relatives as Wali Bey, a 43-year-old father of two who had lived in the city all his life.
Authorities say Bey and a man who survived were shot at about 1 p.m. Monday, in the area of Ross Street and Evergreen Avenue in the city’s South Ward.
Organizers of the rally from the Newark Anti-Violence Coalition led the crowd in chants of “Stop the shooting! Stop the killing! Stop the violence!” while protesters held signs reading, “Justice for Wali Bey!” and “We want Answers.”
As a police-involved fatal shooting, the incident is being investigated by the State Attorney General’s Office, which issued a brief statement on Monday that provided few details of what happened and said no additional information would be released until further notice.
The lack of information has frustrated family members and community activists, leaving an information void filled by speculation and accusations of a police “murder.”
“No longer will we stand by quietly when one of our brothers is murdered, gunned down in cold blood,” anti-violence coalition member Sharif Amenhotep told the crowd, which was bundled up against the cold outside the red brick building on Clinton Avenue.
Several officers watched the protest from inside the building through its glass facade. But there was no visible police presence outside, where the remarks were often heated, but the protesters were peaceful.
Earlier on Wednesday, Newark Mayor Ras J. Baraka and Public Safety Director Manuel Miranda issued a joint statement urging residents to disregard unspecified “misinformation” they may have seen on social media.
“We ask our residents to trust the process by exercising patience and by understanding that the New Jersey Attorney General’s Office is conducting an impartial and independent investigation on behalf of the people of our great city,” the statement read.
“We also respectfully request that well-meaning people cooperate with the investigation,” the statement added, “which will be completed in approximately 20 days.”
An Islamic funeral service for Bey is scheduled for Thursday at 11 a.m. at the Villa Americas funeral home on Roseville Avenue in Newark.
Mustafa Bey, who identified himself as an older cousin of the victim, told NJ Advance Media in a brief interview during the protest that he had not been at the scene on Monday, but had heard accounts of others who were.
Bey said his cousin and another man were in a parked vehicle when two cars without police markings pulled up, and several men wearing masks and civilian clothes got out.
He said the men approached his cousin’s vehicle with guns drawn, and that his cousin feared for his life and tried to drive away, but was shot.
“What would you do?” Bey said. “Men in masks coming toward you with guns.”
Bey said no gun was found in his cousin’s vehicle, and he later told protesters that his cousin “never carried a weapon.”
He said his cousin made a living operating two retail stores in the city, though he could not name them. He said he had no idea whether his cousin was targeted by the officers or any reason why he might have been.
The statement issued by Acting Attorney General Jennifer Davenport on Monday said only that Newark officers “encountered several civilians” in the area of the shooting on Monday, the federal holiday honoring the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
“During that encounter, one of the officers fired his weapon, striking two civilians,” Davenport stated. “They were taken to University Hospital in Newark, where one of them was pronounced deceased a short time later.”
The other man was wounded and received treatment, according to the statement. It said no officers were wounded, though one was taken to a hospital for evaluation and released.
Lawrence Hamm, a longtime social justice advocate and founder of the Newark-based People’s Organization for Progress, told NJ Advance Media that passions over the shooting may have been fueled by the recent fatal shooting of a woman in Minneapolis by an ICE officer while she, too, was behind the wheel of a vehicle.
“I think the whole situation in Minneapolis is ratcheting up people’s anxiety,” said Hamm. “And every time one of these incidents happens, people are a lot more sensitive now. Some people are asking, they’re really saying this: ‘Is this America?’”
South Ward Councilman Patrick Council watched Wednesday’s protest from the sidewalk, quietly lamenting a tragedy that has shaken the ward where he grew up and now represents.
But, Council said, “It doesn’t just affect the South Ward. It affects the whole city.”
