In the early morning hours of July 12, 2014, chaos erupted outside the La Guira Bar on Poplar Street and North Clinton Avenue in Trenton, New Jersey. When the violence subsided, 20-year-old Enrico Smalley Jr., a Black male, was found lying on the sidewalk. He had sustained multiple gunshot wounds, including one to the head, and was rushed to Capital Health Regional Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead.
The investigation into Smalley's death quickly focused on Shaheed Brown.
Surveillance footage from outside the bar captured Smalley and Brown walking together just moments before the fatal shots were fired, though the shooting itself was not recorded. Two days after the incident, murder charges were filed against Brown. He was apprehended in Newark about a month later and held on a $1 million bail. Brown maintained his innocence from the outset.
The legal battle that followed was anything but straightforward. The prosecution's case against Brown was largely circumstantial, lacking a murder weapon or eyewitnesses who could definitively place him as the triggerman. Brown's defense attorney argued for a third-party shooter, pointing to another man, Alvie Vereen, as the one responsible for Smalley's death. This defense strategy led to a series of contentious trials. Brown faced a jury three separate times, and each time the jurors were unable to reach a unanimous verdict, resulting in a hung jury and a mistrial.
After the third mistrial, the case took a dramatic turn. In November 2018, the Mercer County Prosecutor's Office announced a superseding indictment, this time charging not only Shaheed Brown but also Alvie Vereen with accomplice liability murder and weapons offenses. This new indictment accused both men of being involved in the shooting death of Enrico Smalley Jr. The prosecution's theory had evolved, now suggesting that both men were responsible for the young man's murder that summer night. After 52 months in jail, Brown was eventually released on pretrial monitoring as the complex legal saga continued.
