A 9-year-old boy was fatally shot Friday evening in Newark about three blocks from where a 36-year-old man who had been wounded by gunfire was found, the authorities said.
The child was killed near the intersection of Yates Avenue and Osborne Terrace, said Carmen Martin, a spokeswoman for the Essex County Prosecutor’s Office. The shootings took place shortly before 6 p.m., she said.
The man and child did not appear to be related, Ms. Martin said on Saturday.
The boy, identified as Yasin Morrison by his aunt Lataisha Morrison, had taken an Uber that night to his grandparents’ house with his father and sister, she said. He was shot and killed as he was leaving the vehicle, Ms. Morrison said.
When Yasin’s father heard the shots, she said, he pushed his son back into the sedan and tried to press him and his sister to the floor to shield them. It did not work. A bullet hit the back of Yasin’s head, Ms. Morrison said.
“I couldn’t fathom why this would happen to my nephew,” Ms. Morrison said, standing on the steps of her parents’ home, mere feet from where Yasin was shot.
Ms. Martin declined to say on Friday whether the two shootings were connected or whether any arrests had been made. The older victim has not been publicly identified, and Ms. Martin said the investigation was continuing.
The Newark Police Department declined to comment.
Ras J. Baraka, Newark’s mayor, said in a statement Friday night that he was “outraged” by the boy’s killing and asked for people with information to call the prosecutor’s office.
“It is sickening to me that anyone would be so deranged to recklessly endanger an innocent child,” Mr. Baraka said. “And that the child lost his life is just infuriating to me as a father myself.”
Newark, New Jersey’s largest city, has struggled with crime for years. Statistics released last month showed that the number of homicides in the city had dropped more than 20 percent last year, although violent crime rose overall.
Amid that increase, Newark officials said last June that the city would begin enforcing a nightly curfew for people under 18 that had been on the books, but largely ignored, since 1992.
Yasin, who attended public school in Newark, had been sick for roughly two weeks and terribly missed his beloved grandparents, Ms. Morrison said. He loved playing with his two brothers, his three sisters and other members of his large, close-knit family. He was also nonverbal and autistic, his aunt said.
“He was a very special kid,” Ms. Morrison said. “When you knew Yasin, you knew Yasin.”
On Friday night, he was excited to finally be well enough to travel to his grandparents’ house with one of his sisters to spend the weekend, she said.
Elijah Smith, who lives across the street with his mother, Elizabeth Smith, had gone to his door to pick up a food delivery Friday evening when he noticed a black sedan pull up across the street to drop off passengers.
As he walked up the stairs, Elijah, 17, heard shots and ran to his window. He said he saw a man standing in front of the car shouting, “Help! Help!”
Ms. Smith also heard the shots.
“Just boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom!” she said.
Ms. Smith said she rushed outside as her daughter called 911. When police cars with flashing red and blue lights raced into view, Ms. Smith directed them across the street to where Yasin had been shot.
Elijah and his mother watched a police officer lift up Yasin’s body, load him into a squad car and speed away.
“A little boy just lost his life,” Ms. Smith said, shaking her head and blinking back tears. “That was so sad to see.”
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