Police said they believe one shooter was involved but they did not have a full description of the suspect.
Trenton police on Beakes Street in the city investigate a homicide.
TRENTON — Sixteen-year-old Marcus Hunter was shot dead in broad daylight on Beakes Street yesterday afternoon, police said.
Police said they believe one shooter was involved but they did not have a full description of the suspect.
Hunter, a city resident, was shot in a homicide whose motive remains unclear, Lt. Steve Varn said last evening. Police who were called out to investigate shots fired at 2:20 p.m. found Hunter on the sidewalk close to the front of a parking lot gate. He was pronounced dead at the scene, Varn said.
As Hunter’s body lay sprawled on the sidewalk, covered by a white sheet, the wailing could be heard throughout Donnelly Homes housing complex yesterday afternoon.
From one end of the crime scene to the other, behind the black metal fence ringing the brick apartments, people openly expressed their sorrow.
One woman stood in the middle of the complex, sobbing, her bags down on the ground on either side of her legs.
Driving her car out of the neighborhood underneath crime scene tape, a more composed woman offered an observation.
“This is so crazy, so tragic,” she said.
Nearby residents said they heard several gunshots, four or five depending on where they had been standing.
Workers at a nearby deli said their security cameras captured the seconds before the killing on tape. They said the video shows, from a distance, a man crossing Beakes Street from Donnelly Homes, trying to intercept a moving figure. It was unclear if the running figure was Hunter, said the workers, who did not give their names for fear of retaliation.
Varn said he has no evidence Hunter was being chased by his killer.
Investigators will be reviewing video from the area to piece together the chain of events.
Detectives did an extensive canvass of the neighborhood, walking through the housing projects and several blocks up from the crime scene seeking evidence and witnesses.
The death is Trenton’s fourth homicide of 2013.
Anyone with information on the killing is asked to call police at (609) 989-4170 or the Confidential Tip Line at (609) 989-3663.
Contact Alex Zdan at azdan@njtimes.com or (609) 989-5705.