On the evening of September 17, 2022, in Plainfield, New Jersey, David Michael Buck, a Black / African American male from nearby Somerset, made his way into the 700 block of Kensington Avenue as daylight was fading. The neighborhood, a residential stretch lined with homes and familiar evening routines, was suddenly shaken by the sound of gunfire around 6:38 p.m. Neighbors called for help, and Plainfield police officers raced to the scene, following the reports of shots fired that cut through what should have been an ordinary Saturday night.
When officers arrived, they found Buck lying wounded on the street, suffering from gunshot injuries. The urgency of the situation was unmistakable; first responders moved quickly to stabilize him and rush him to a nearby hospital. Despite those efforts, the injuries were too severe. Not long after he arrived, Buck was pronounced dead, his death immediately treated as a homicide.
The contrast between the quiet residential block and the violent end he suffered left a stark impression on the community and on those who had to work the scene, marking yet another life lost to gun violence in Plainfield.
In the days that followed, detectives from the Union County Prosecutor’s Office Homicide Task Force and the Plainfield Police Department began piecing together what had happened on Kensington Avenue. They canvassed the area, gathered physical evidence, and followed leads that gradually pointed toward a young man from the same city. As the investigation unfolded, attention focused on 20-year-old Michael Cruz of Plainfield, who authorities came to identify as the person responsible for the shooting that left Buck dead. The case, which began with a frantic 911 call, was now defined by the painstaking work of reconstructing the moments before and after the gunfire.
On October 3, 2022, a little more than two weeks after the killing, the search for the suspect reached beyond New Jersey’s borders. Members of the U.S. Marshals Service Fugitive Task Force located and arrested Michael Cruz in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Taken into custody without publicized incident, he was held there while extradition proceedings were arranged to bring him back to New Jersey. Prosecutors announced that Cruz had been charged with first-degree murder and multiple weapons offenses in connection with Buck’s death, emphasizing the collaboration between local, county, and federal agencies that led to his capture.
Public statements from authorities framed the arrest as a crucial step toward justice for Buck and solace for those who mourned him. Officials spoke of the hope that seeing a named suspect charged in the case might offer at least a small measure of comfort to his grieving family and friends, even as the legal process—hearings, potential trial, and the possibility of a life sentence if Cruz were convicted—still lay ahead. At the same time, they reminded the public that the charges remained accusations, and that Cruz was presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty in court. As of the latest publicly available reports and case summaries, no additional suspects had been identified, and the story of that September evening in Plainfield remained centered on the single, deadly encounter that took David Michael Buck’s life and the one man authorities say pulled the trigger.
