In the fall of 2017, the city of Bridgeport was unsettled by a series of violent events that would ultimately claim the life of an 18-year-old male named Jeri Kollock Jr. Deeply distraught over the recent murder of his best friend, 19-year-old Eric Diaz, Kollock was consumed with finding the person responsible. Believing his friend's death was tied to a rivalry between the city's East Side and the Greene Homes housing project, he went to a parking lot near the complex on October 11, 2017,
seeking information. It was a search for answers that would lead to his own tragic end.
Witnesses later reported that a despondent Kollock confronted a group of people in the parking lot of the Columbus School, even daring them to kill him. While most in the group seemed uninterested, a young man named Jahmari "Wack" Cooper engaged with Kollock. Surveillance video captured the two meeting; Cooper is seen patting down Kollock for weapons before they walked together toward Building 1 of the Greene Homes. What happened next was an act of brutal violence. Inside the building, on a third-floor stairwell landing, Cooper forced Kollock to strip naked and then shot him multiple times in the head and torso.
Despite being gravely wounded, Kollock fought to survive. Bleeding from numerous wounds, he managed to drag his body down the stairwell to the basement and across the room to an outside doorway, where he finally collapsed. He was discovered there, having succumbed to his injuries before medical help could arrive. The investigation that followed quickly identified Cooper as the primary suspect, especially after video showed him leaving the building alone shortly after entering with Kollock. Though initially questioned, Cooper denied the shooting and was released. However, police later found the. 45-caliber handgun used in the murder at his residence.
By the time police moved to arrest him, Jahmari Cooper had fled the state. For nearly a year, he remained a fugitive from justice until he was apprehended by U.S. Marshals in Riviera Beach, Florida, in September 2018. After being returned to Connecticut, he stood trial for the murder of Jeri Kollock. In February 2023, a jury found Cooper guilty of murder. He was subsequently sentenced to 45 years in prison, a conviction that was unanimously upheld by the state Supreme Court in October 2025, finally bringing a measure of justice for the young man who lost his life while seeking it for his friend.
