NEWARK — A Newark teenager fatally shot in the vestibule of his apartment building early Sunday tried to save another person from the gunfire, authorities and his sister said.
Gary Anderson, 18, was pronounced dead at 2:32 a.m. at University Hospital, about an hour and half after he was shot multiple times, the Essex County Prosecutor’s office said. His older sister Linda Bradley, 27, said her brother turned 18 on Nov. 14th.
Anderson and his girlfriend had returned to the Kretchmer Elderly public housing complex, where Anderson lived part-time with his mother and stepfather, when they were set upon by at least one gunman, Bradley said.
"He tried to shield her," said Bradley, adding that investigators told the family the shooting might have been a case of mistaken identity.
"My little brother had the same thing on that he had, a hoodie and dreds," she said, referring to Anderson's hooded sweatshirt and dreadlocks hairstyle.
"They're saying it was a mistaken identity."
Thomas S. Fennelly, the Essex County chief assistant prosecutor, declined to identify who it was Anderson had tried to save.
"There were some indications that he may have pushed another person out of the way," Fennelly said.
Fennelly declined to comment on whether it was a case of mistaken identity, or on neighbors’ speculation that the shooting was linked to others in the neighborhood recently, which they say stem from the local drug trade.
"I can't confirm that, other than to say the investigation is contiuing at this time," Fennelly said. "Whenever we have a crime we always look at whether it's connected to another crime or a pattern.”
A tally by The Star-Ledger indicate it was Newark's 94th homicide of the year.
A neighbor, Hassan Taylor, 47, said Anderson was “a real nice cat, real respectful,” who had nothing to do with the young drug dealers who regularly ply their trade along Frehlinghuysen Avenue.
"Some days, he would see me struggling and say, 'What do you need? I’ll go get it for you,’” said Taylor, a former night supermarket manager who moved into the Kretchmer complex two years ago, after one of his legs was amputated. “He was a good dude. He wasn’t one of those cats you see out here hanging out.”
Bradley said her younger brother was a high school senior at the Fast Track Success Academy on Washington Street, an institution for students re-enrolling in school or transferring into the district. She said he was hoping to study engineering in college.
Bradley said her brother split his time between his mother's apartment on Frelinghuysen and the home of his father, Gary Anderson Sr., also in Newark.
In contrast to the otherwise well-maintained courtyard of the apartment complex and the lobby of Anderson’s building, the vestibule where the shooting occurred bore fresh signs of violence: a shattered glass window panel; a bullet hole in the building’s wooden inner door and several dents in its metal framework; drops of dried blood on the linoleum floor, which was littered with blood-splattered leaves.
“This place is like the wild west,” Taylor said of the housing complex, which is run by the Newark Housing Authority. “It’s not a bad place to live. It’s just that these young people, they’ve just got this mind-frame that that’s the way it is."
Anyone with information is asked to contact Task Force detectives at (877) 847-7432 or (973) 621-4586.
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