On a Monday afternoon in Staten Island, New York, the life of 21-year-old Prince Edmonds was brought to a violent and abrupt end. It was around 1 p.m. on September 14, 2020, in the Mariners Harbor neighborhood, when gunfire erupted on Richmond Terrace near Harbor Road. Edmonds, a male resident of the borough, was struck by multiple bullets. He was rushed to Richmond University Medical Center, but his injuries proved to be fatal.
A second individual, a 22-year-old man, was also wounded in the shooting, sustaining a gunshot to his leg.
The investigation into the brazen daytime shooting quickly pointed towards a larger, ongoing conflict between street gangs in the area. Edmonds himself was known to be a reputed member of the Bloods gang, and his past was marked by violence. In a grim twist of fate, just two years prior, Edmonds had been behind the wheel of a car during a gang-related brawl outside the Staten Island Criminal Court. In that incident, he ran over and killed a 26-year-old man. Though initially charged with murder, he later pleaded guilty to leaving the scene of an accident and was released on parole in November 2019, less than a year before he would meet his own violent end.
Authorities identified 19-year-old Godkhaliq Daugherty as the primary suspect in Edmonds' slaying. Daugherty, an alleged member of a rival gang, was captured on surveillance footage near the scene of the shooting. In the moments after the shots were fired, he was seen wearing a distinctive hoodie adorned with a skull image and holding a firearm. Following his arrest, Daugherty reportedly confessed to the shooting, but claimed that Edmonds was not his intended target. He was subsequently charged with murder and attempted murder and held without bail. While another man was also taken into custody, he was only charged with weapon possession and was not believed to be connected to the homicide. The motive for the shooting is suspected to be rooted in the persistent gang violence that plagues the community.
