Jarid Anthony Smith, a 16-year-old Black male from Newark, was one of two teenagers killed in an afternoon shooting on December 23, 2010. The violence unfolded just after 4:00 p.m. outside the Stop 1 Meat Market near South 12th Street and Avon Avenue, where gunfire erupted and left multiple people wounded.
Witnesses and first responders described chaotic scenes as people scrambled for cover and medics tended to the wounded; five people were struck in that first incident, and Smith and another 16-year-old, Allen Best, died of their injuries while three others were wounded and expected to survive. News accounts from the time reported that the shootings were part of an especially violent evening in Newark that included a second, separate shooting about an hour later just a few blocks away, which together left three dead and several injured.
Police investigators canvassed the neighborhood and interviewed witnesses in the days that followed, but initial reports did not identify a suspect publicly or announce arrests tied directly to the Avon Avenue shooting. The case was covered as an active investigation in contemporaneous reports, and follow-ups in public crime databases and memorial listings reiterate the location, timing, and that Smith succumbed to his wounds at the scene or shortly thereafter.
Families and neighbors spoke afterward about the shock and sorrow of losing two teenagers so suddenly on a weekday afternoon, and the deaths left a bruise on the community as law enforcement pursued leads. Public records and retrospective compilations of the incident preserve the facts of the shooting and the names of the victims, but readily available public reporting from the time does not show a resolved arrest tied to Jarid Smith’s killing.
