What was the man doing there? Who shot him? And why?
Eyewitness News reporter Lucy Yang has the story.
Scores of parents arrived at the school in a panic Tuesday afternoon. First, they had to figure out how to get in the building, given all the police tape blocking the crime scene. But even more importantly, they wanted to see for themselves that their children were safe.
"My son walks home everyday, he's going to school by himself," parent Tanya Fields said. "And what if this had happened while he was traveling?"
At around 1:30 in the afternoon, with classes in high gear, gunshots were fired close to two schools.
Police say a man sitting in the driver's seat of a green Honda, parked on Meeker Avenue, was shot in the head and killed.
"The lesson was going on like every other day," eighth-grader A'Quia Spain said. "And we just heard gunshots."
On Monday, or Orton Street and Chester Avenue, another man was found shot in the head in his car near another elementary school. Police say it is too early to tell if the murders are connected, but the the fact that both happened so close to so many kids is not lost on parents.
"It's terrible that our young people continue to have to grow up in such a violent environment," one resident said.
The victim in Wednesday's shooting lived in Staten Island. His relatives say he went to Newark to look for a place to live, not a place to die.