Taleek R. Smith, 23, was a Black/African American male from Hempstead, New York, whose life was taken in a shooting during the early morning hours of April 26, 2020. Shortly after midnight, the quiet on Olsen Place in Hempstead was broken by gunfire. At approximately 12:19 a.m., the Hempstead Police Department received a ShotSpotter activation directing officers to the area.
When officers reached Olsen Place, they discovered Smith suffering from multiple gunshot wounds.
Later accounts of the investigation said he had been seated in a parked vehicle when he was shot. His injuries were fatal, and a Nassau County Police medic pronounced him dead at the scene. The shooting immediately became a homicide investigation, with detectives appealing to anyone who had seen or heard something around the time of the gunfire to come forward.
In the days following the killing, police publicly identified Smith as the victim but released few details about what had led to the shooting. Authorities did not announce a motive, publicly identify a gunman, or disclose whether investigators believed Smith had been specifically targeted. Police continued asking witnesses and anyone with information about the shooting to contact Nassau County Crime Stoppers anonymously.
The investigation remained unresolved more than two years later. In November 2022, Nassau County officials again brought attention to Smith's death as one of four unsolved homicides for which investigators were seeking additional information from the public. Police Commissioner Patrick Ryder said investigators continued working such cases rather than treating them as forgotten cold cases, while homicide investigators emphasized that information from witnesses could provide the missing evidence needed to move investigations forward.
As part of that renewed effort, the Crime Stoppers reward associated with Smith's homicide was increased to as much as $25,000 for information leading to an arrest. Later public Crime Stoppers reporting continued to list his killing as an unsolved homicide, describing Smith as having been seated in a parked car on Olsen Place when he was killed shortly after midnight.
No publicly available reporting located identifies a suspect as having been charged in Taleek Smith's killing, and no arrest, prosecution, trial, or conviction has been publicly documented in connection with his death. The case has therefore remained an open homicide investigation, with authorities continuing to seek the information necessary to identify and prosecute the person or persons responsible.
