Newark police are searching for a 47-year-old man they want to question after a shooting Saturday left a vehicle riddled with bullets in the city's North Ward, though no victim was found at the scene. Investigators are asking the public to help locate Joseph Hernandez, a Newark resident, as they try to piece together what happened on Mt. Prospect Avenue.
Officers responded to the 300 block of Mt. Prospect Avenue at approximately 2:06 p.m. Saturday after receiving a ShotSpotter notification, according to information released by Newark Public Safety Director Emanuel Miranda, Sr. and reported by rlsmedia.com. When officers arrived, they found a vehicle that had been struck by gunfire, but no shooting victim was located at the scene, the outlet reported. As Newport Dispatch also noted, Hernandez, 47, is the man detectives want to speak with as the investigation continues.
Miranda urged anyone with information about Hernandez's whereabouts to contact Newark's 24-hour Crime Stopper tip line at 1-877-NWK-TIPS, per the same rlsmedia.com account. No further details on a possible victim, motive, or Hernandez's connection to the incident have been released.
A String of ShotSpotter Calls Across Newark
The Mt. Prospect Avenue incident is one of several recent Newark ShotSpotter activations that turned up damage but no injuries. Earlier this month, officers responded to Broad Street near Rector Street on October 2 after a ShotSpotter alert but did not locate any victims, the station's report noted. The very next day, a ShotSpotter activation sent officers to the 100 block of Highland Avenue, where again no victims were located.
That same day, October 3, a separate ShotSpotter notification led police to Weequahic Avenue and Aldine Street, and officers later found a shooting victim in the 200 block of Lyons Avenue who was transported to University Hospital and reported in stable condition, per the same account. A man was also shot near Broad and Market streets on a Monday night and later died at University Hospital, according to the outlet's reporting.
In a separate case, Newark police investigated an early Sunday morning shooting in the city's South Ward that left a vehicle damaged by gunfire, with no injuries reported, according to a separate rlsmedia.com report. Investigators determined that vehicle was struck in the 40s block of Miller Street, and the motive behind that shooting remains under active investigation with no arrests reported.
Shootings Down Statewide Even as Incidents Continue
Despite the recent run of ShotSpotter calls, Newark officials have reported that overall crime is down in the city, and police continue to lean on patrols and gunfire-detection technology to investigate shootings as they occur. That local trend lines up with statewide numbers released by officials and reported by New Jersey Monitor: shootings statewide fell to a record low in 2025 for the third consecutive year, with 559 people shot in 487 incidents, down from 778 in 2024 and 924 in 2023.
Newark was among the cities — along with Atlantic City, Camden, Paterson, and Trenton — that saw their shooting numbers drop last year, New Jersey Monitor reported. Statewide, gun-violence fatalities totaled 107 in 2025, a 31 percent decline from 2024, with officials crediting real-time crime centers and gunfire-detection technology for helping identify shootings and rapidly deploy resources.
A separate analysis cited by Patch put the statewide shooting-victim decrease at 28 percent from 2024, with fatal shootings down more than 60 percent from the state's 2016 peak of 273 killed. Newark was specifically named among major cities that saw declines of between 23 and 31 percent in shooting victims during 2025, according to Patch, even as individual incidents like Saturday's on Mt. Prospect Avenue continue to draw police response and public appeals for help.
