Adrell Bennett, 19, of Wade Street near Martin Luther King Drive, was shot dead when at least two people forced their way into an apartment at Arlington and Myrtle avenues in the Greenville neighborhood just after midnight, Hudson County Prosecutor Edward DeFazio said. Investigators think Bennett was targeted. A resident of the building said a teenage girl screamed, "They killed my cousin!" after the gunfire took the life of the man whose photograph was published Saturday in The Jersey Journal. Authorities said last week Bennett was a gang member with the "52 Hoover Street Gangsta Crips." The building resident, who chose not to give her name, said she woke to the sound of gunshots, then heard an apartment door slam, and then what sounded like two people running down the stairs. Bennett was at the apartment with five teenage girls and an 18-year-old man when someone came to the door, DeFazio said. The man was recognized and the door was partially opened when he and at least one other man forced their way in, DeFazio said. Homicide investigators believe more than one gun was fired, DeFazio said, adding that Bennett did not appear to have been armed. The prosecutor said the murder "may be related to his gang affiliation, but we are still trying to determine the motive. It does not appear to be a robbery at this point." No one else in the apartment was hurt, DeFazio said.
Homicide detectives think Bennett may have wound up in the bathtub while trying to run from his attackers. The man who knocked on the door has been identified, but police have not located him, DeFazio said. The building resident said everyone in the apartment was hysterical when she walked in after the shooting. She said the other man in the apartment ran up the fire escape when the intruders broke in, but that he had returned. She was told that Bennett was having his hair braided when the man came to the door and that one of the girls went to the door and recognized him, but Bennett "was saying don't let anybody in because he thought it was the cops. They said he told her to move away from the door, and he looked, and then he opened the door." Bennett was being sought on numerous drug charges, including distribution of cocaine within 1,000 feet of school property, DeFazio said