5th Shooting in 3 Months Prompts Changes in Montclair

The recent string of shootings in Montclair has incited changes to policing tactics in the short- and long-term.

Hours after four people were shot in her Fourth Ward, Councilwoman Renee Baskerville said the council and police are working to make the “necessary changes within our structure” to better address the recent string of shootings in Montclair. “We are going to make some immediate changes.”

Baskerville was mum on the specifics Tuesday afternoon for “safety reasons,” but said more information will be released at a community meeting Wednesday at 7 p.m. in the Montclair Fire Department Headquarters, at 1 Pine St. Baskerville, Mayor Robert Jackson, Township Manager Marc Dashield and members of the police department are expected to attend. 

“People will get the answers that they need to know about what is going to happen differently after this incident,” Baskerville said.

The meeting will focus on the most recent gunfire that hit three teenagers and a 20-year-old around 1 a.m. Tuesday. Officials will address how to make residents safe in the short-term and discuss long-term goals “to make us even stronger than we were before,” Baskerville said.

But Baskerville warned the township needs to attack the uptick in shootings as a community and not as separate wards.

“This is not a down there in Fourth-Ward matter,” Baskerville said. “People want to say, ‘What’s going on down there in the Fourth-Ward?’ … The whole climate to me is … actually becoming one that is more Ward against Ward then we have ever been before.”  

5 Shootings in 3 Months

Tuesday's early-morning gunfire that left four people wounded was the fifth shooting in the past three months.

The first incident was a bloody murder-suicide in the Fourth-Ward that rocked the entire township in late May.

The bodies of Brandon Brown, 26, of Montclair, and Shanae Q. Howard, 24, of Orange were found near a children’s playground in Canterbury Park. Brown shot Howard multiple times in the head before killing himself with a single bullet to the head, according to authorities.

The second shooting happened on May 31 when 20-year-old Jaylen Riley was shot three times, including once in the chest, in front of the Union Gardens Apartments at the intersection of Greenwood and Glen Ridge avenues. 

Devon Marshall, 20, whose last known address is in Montclair, remains at-large and wanted by police for the shooting.  

The next shots were fired the following day on June 1 when a 25-year-old man was found bleeding on Mission Street. He was shot in the leg.

Police later arrested Rasheed Riley, 21, and Yasin Wilson-Sims, 18, both of Montclair, for the shooting on June 1.

The fourth victim is a 17-year-old girl from Newark, which police have not named because she is a minor. 

Love was shot in the chest and sustained the most serious injuries. She is on a ventilator in serious but stable condition at University Hospital in Newark, authorities said. 

But this was not the first shooting involving Love and Baxter. On July 27, Love and Vaxter were shot at while walking on Elmwood Avenue. Police said the shooting was not random, and the two were the intended targets. Neither of the two teenagers were injured that night.