Kizer Williams, a 25-year-old Black man, was headed toward what was supposed to be a simple Sunday ritual in Brownsville: dinner with family. Late that afternoon, as he made his way with his mother, aunt, and his baby son in mind, the path took him past the Seth Low Houses on Powell Street, a familiar stretch of public housing where neighbors come and go and kids play within earshot of the street.
Around 4:45 p.m. on Sunday, October 3, 2021, the routine shattered. Williams was shot in front of 180 Powell St., hit in the chest and leg. First responders rushed him to Brookdale University Hospital, but he was pronounced dead not long after. While some records later listed the loss as occurring on October 4, the reports describing the shooting place the attack on the afternoon of October 3 and his death shortly afterward at the hospital.
Investigators quickly treated the killing as more than random violence. Police sources described the shooting as tied to an ongoing gang feud, saying it erupted from a longstanding rivalry involving a group known as the Waves and another gang. In the first days after the homicide, law enforcement sources characterized Williams as a possible gang member, but even with that framework, detectives still lacked the most basic answers that lead to an arrest: a clear motive they could prove, a description of the shooter, or a public identification of any suspect.
As the neighborhood tried to absorb what happened, the violence echoed through the same family in a way that made the earlier loss feel even more brutal. Just weeks later, Williams’ older brother, Daishawn Benjamin, was shot and killed nearby outside a Brownsville deli. In March 2022, police announced an arrest in Benjamin’s homicide, charging Waajid Pierce, but reports at that time emphasized a painful distinction: there were still no arrests in Williams’ death, and the person who shot him had not been publicly identified.
