In the winter of 2015, a fatal encounter unfolded on a Newark street, forever altering the lives of two families. On the evening of December 22nd, 36-year-old Abner Dominguez, a male from Jersey City, was discovered lying on the ground next to his running vehicle in the vicinity of 93 Roseville Avenue. He had sustained a gunshot wound and was immediately transported to University Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 10:56 p.m.
The initial investigation into the shooting was launched by the Essex County Prosecutor's Office Homicide/Major Crimes Task Force in conjunction with the Newark Police Department, though the motive was not immediately clear, and no suspects had been identified. Dominguez, a father of two sons, Jean-Batiste Nathaniel and Jean-Paul Gabriel, was a well-known DJ in his hometown of Jersey City.
The investigation into the death of Abner Dominguez pressed on, and in the following months, a significant breakthrough occurred. On February 26, 2016, authorities arrested 35-year-old Rakeem Johnson of Irvington in connection with the fatal shooting. Johnson was subsequently charged with murder, felony murder, robbery, unlawful possession of a weapon, and possession of a weapon for an unlawful purpose. He was taken to the Essex County Correctional Facility, with his bail set at $1 million. The theory presented by the prosecution was that Dominguez was the victim of a robbery.
The legal proceedings against Rakeem Johnson culminated in a guilty verdict delivered by an Essex County jury in June 2018. Johnson, who was 37 at the time of the conviction, was found guilty of first-degree armed robbery, felony murder, unlawful possession of a weapon, and possession of a weapon for an unlawful purpose. Evidence presented at trial included witness testimony identifying Johnson fleeing the scene with a gun, a palm print found on Dominguez's vehicle, and surveillance footage capturing Johnson touching the car as he entered it. It was revealed that at the time of the murder, Johnson was on parole for an aggravated manslaughter conviction from 1998, for which he had served a 17-year sentence. Having been out of prison for just over two years, he was sentenced to life in prison for the murder of Abner Dominguez in August 2018.
