In the Newhallville neighborhood of New Haven, Connecticut, the life of 16-year-old Maleak Sweets, a Black/African American male, was cut tragically short on the evening of January 29, 2024. Around 7:30 p.m., the city's ShotSpotter system detected the sound of gunfire in the vicinity of the 200 block of Newhall Street, prompting a police response. First responders discovered Sweets on the sidewalk, having sustained a gunshot wound.
He was swiftly transported to Yale New Haven Hospital, but his injuries proved fatal, and he was pronounced dead. At the time of his death, Sweets was a student at Achievement First Amistad High School and was eagerly anticipating the birth of his first child.
The investigation into the death of Maleak Sweets led authorities to 21-year-old Gabriyel Fraser of Waterbury. Fraser, a former member of the National Guard, was identified as a suspect through a combination of video surveillance footage and license plate readers that tracked a 2001 Ford Focus seen leaving the scene of the shooting. This technological evidence proved crucial in connecting Fraser to the crime. According to a friend who was with Sweets at the time, the two had arranged to meet with individuals under the pretense of robbing them of marijuana.
In May 2025, more than a year after the fatal shooting, Gabriyel Fraser was arrested and charged with murder and carrying a pistol without a permit in connection with Maleak Sweets' death. His bail was set at $2 million. The arrest brought a measure of relief to Sweets' grieving family, who remembered him as a young man with a big heart and dreams for the future, including the fatherhood he would never experience. His grandmother lamented the "unbearable silence" left by his absence and the promising future that was cruelly taken from him.
