As family prepared to lay his victim to rest, the man authorities believe killed a Belleville man who owned and operated a bodega in Newark was hauled into custody while he was in Kearny last week, Essex County Prosecutor Theodore N. Stephens II and Interim Newark Public Safety Director Raul Malave said over the weekend.
Quadree Richardson, 24, of Newark, was arrested and charged with the murder of Rabel Ramos-Gomez, Stephens said.
On July 17, Ramos-Gomez, 46, of Belleville, was fatally shot on the 200 block of South 10th Street, Newark, while working at the corner store he and his wife owned and operated . Richardson has been charged with first-degree murder and two weapon offenses.
The investigation, still ongoing, is being handled by the Essex County Prosecutor’s Office Homicide/Major Crimes Task Force, which includes detectives from the Newark Police Department. Anyone with information is asked to contact the task force at (877) 847-7432, where all calls are kept confidential.
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The funeral for Ramos-Gomez, meanwhile, was to be conducted Sunday, July 24, at the Thiele Family Funeral Home in Kearny. An obituary posted on the Thiele website was extremely raw and spoke of a man who was violently taken away from this world entirely too soon.
“He went to work on a Sunday morning and will never return home to his family,” the obituary reads. “He was working at the bodega when suddenly, bullets were fired into the store from an outside drive-by shooting. One bullet killed an innocent victim, a good man.”
Ramos-Gomez was born in the Dominican Republic and dreamed of moving to America to have a better life for his family and himself. He and his wife, Alicia, took over the bodega in 2019.
When the pandemic hit, he actually kept the doors to the bodega closed one day a week so he could serve the underprivileged residents of the area near the store.
“Since then, he became part of the community,” the obituary says of Ramos-Gomez. “During the pandemic, he closed one day a week to cook and feed so many in the area during a time of need. He was giving and everyone he met became a part of his family. Rubel was a loving and giving soul that took care of all of his family, friends and his customers.”
Ramos-Gomez will soon be buried next to his dad in the Dominican Republic.
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Kevin A. Canessa Jr. is the editor of and broadcaster at The Observer, a place where he has served on and off since 2006. He is responsible for the editorial content of the newspaper and website, the production of the e-Newspaper, writing several stories per week (including the weekly editorial), conducting live broadcasts on Facebook Live, including a weekly recap of the news — and much more behind the scenes. Between 2006 and 2008, he introduced the newspaper to its first-ever blog — which included podcasts, audio and video. Originally from Jersey City, Kevin lived in Kearny until 2004, lived in Port St. Lucie. Florida, for four years until February 2016 and in March of that year, he moved back to West Hudson to return to The Observer full time. Click Here to send Kevin an email.