Abnerd Joseph, a 32-year-old Black man, was killed on September 14, 2023, inside the Loop high-rise where he lived at 60 East Monroe Street in Chicago. By nearly every public account, he was known first as an educator and mentor, an assistant principal at Intrinsic Schools’ downtown campus whose death sent shock waves through students, coworkers, friends, and relatives in both Chicago and Atlanta.
That night, though, his life narrowed to a frightening and chaotic stretch of hallway, where neighbors reported that he appeared to be in emotional distress, knocking on doors and acting erratically while wearing a bathrobe, boxers, and socks. What should have become a medical or psychiatric emergency instead turned into a fatal confrontation in the building corridors.
Police and news reports say a resident of the building, described at the time as a 45-year-old concealed-carry license holder, confronted Joseph during the disturbance. Accounts circulated in the immediate aftermath said Joseph had moved through the building and that several tenants and a doorman had become involved before gunfire erupted on the 48th floor. Joseph was shot multiple times and later died, and the Cook County medical examiner ruled the death a homicide. In the days that followed, the case drew intense attention not only because of who Joseph was, but because of the terrible contrast at its center: a beloved school leader in visible crisis, and a heavily armed response from a neighbor inside a supposedly secure residential tower.
The man who shot him was taken into custody after the killing, but he was released without criminal charges. As the family pressed for answers, the name Garrett Mark Smith emerged in later civil filings and coverage as the neighbor accused of shooting Joseph. By 2024, Joseph’s relatives had turned their grief into a public campaign for accountability, saying he had been unarmed and in the midst of a mental health crisis when he was shot seven times. They argued that building personnel and residents failed to handle the emergency properly and that the decision to meet his distress with armed force stole a future from a man who had devoted himself to young people.
That campaign led to a wrongful-death and negligence lawsuit filed in Cook County in May 2024 against the property management side of the building, the condominium association, and Smith. The civil case did not amount to a criminal conviction, but it marked the family’s determination to force the facts into the open after months of waiting. Public reporting through August 2024 said the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office still considered the investigation ongoing, and relatives continued to demand that criminal charges be filed. Based on the online sources located here, there is no public indication that anyone had been convicted in Joseph’s death, and the most consistent reporting says there had been no criminal charges filed against the shooter as of the latest widely available updates.
