Detective Joseph Asona grips the wheel of an unmarked car as it weaves through the streets of Newark. This isn’t a routine patrol. He’s on edge, fully locked in because moments earlier, someone from his elite intelligence unit flagged something serious. It began the way so many modern crimes do with a post online.
First, a short video with a heavy unsettling caption, then a photo. A 14-year-old boy trying hard to look fearless staring into the camera while holding a gun. The post was meant to send a message to scare a rival, but instead it triggered a chain reaction that no one could stop. That single post would set off a domino effect, one that spiraled fast and ended in tragedy on March 7th, 2025.
Rewind to about 5:50 that evening, just 40 minutes before everything fell apart. The teenager stepped out of the North N Street house he shared with his mother and aunt. He told them he was heading to meet friends at the White Castle near Carterette in Broadway. Nothing about that sounded unusual.
But once he got there, he made a decision that changed everything. He went live on Instagram. On that live stream, he flashed a ghost gun. These are homemade firearms pieced together from kits or parts bought online. No serial numbers, no paper trail, practically invisible to law enforcement.
And they’re not hard to get. Some kits cost around $800 and can be assembled at home with basic tools. This one was even more dangerous. It had a conversion device attached, turning it into a fully automatic weapon capable of firing multiple rounds with a single pull of the trigger. What the teen didn’t know was that police were already watching him.
Newark officers working alongside the ATF had been monitoring his social media in real time. The moment the live stream went up, they pinpointed his location, the White Castle. Unmarked cars rolled out immediately. This wasn’t a suggestion. It was a call to action. Two young detectives, Joseph Asona and Emanuel Hayford, joined roughly 20 officers, all focused on one goal, getting illegal guns off the streets.
For them, this kind of work wasn’t rare. A few nights a week, they tracked faces from blurry photos, chased digital clues, and patrolled neighborhoods they knew by heart. Both were born and raised in Brick City. Even as they raced toward danger, their conversation stayed easy, familiar. This was home.
Then everything changed. Their car screeched to a stop near an elementary school on Broadway in the north ward. Hayford was the first to jump out. He clearly identified himself as police. His badge was visible. He did everything by the book. It didn’t matter. Gunfire erupted almost instantly. It happened in seconds.
A sudden, overwhelming burst of bullets tore through the air. Police haven’t released the exact number of rounds fired, but the damage told the story. Hayford was struck in the arm and the back. As Kona never even got the chance to exit the vehicle, still seated behind the wheel, the 5-year veteran was hit with fatal wounds as officers returned fire. The chaos was deafening.
When it was over, nothing was the same. And then came the detail that made the entire scene even harder to process. The shooter wasn’t a hardened criminal. He wasn’t a seasoned gang member. He was 14 years old. Rise Sor was also hit, wounded in the arm and leg, but he was by all accounts an outsider. A transplant from a struggling city roughly 60 mi away, someone who likely never should have been in Newark at all.
What led him there and how he ended up with a fully automatic ghost gun opens the door to a much darker story, one tangled in illegal weapons, gang influence, and systemic failures. It’s a story about two paths colliding, a dedicated local officer and a displaced kid pulled into something far bigger than himself.
It’s the summer of 2010 and Joseph Anthony Asona is just a 12-year-old kid from Newark. Buzz cut, mischievous grin. If he’s not locked in on Halo or FIFA 10 with a controller in his hands, he’s thinking about the next time he will be. just a regular kid from the city. Growing up fast, but still holding on to childhood. That July, Anthony leaves Newark behind and heads north to the Aderondac Mountains for a week-long soccer camp with Ironbound SC.
City streets turn into tall trees and open fields. The air is thick with heat, sweat, and exhaustion. After a long match, Anthony peels off his yellow jersey and sprints toward the messaul, beating everyone else to the front of the line. Then he freezes. No pizza, no burgers, just a sad looking tray of salad waiting for him.
Confused and disappointed, he looks to his coach, Joel Lasano, searching for answers. What he gets instead is a reality check. This isn’t junk food camp. This is about discipline, health, growth. That moment sticks. Out there, away from home, something starts to change. Coach Lasano notices it first. The kid who lived on sugary cereal and fast food starts eating his greens.
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Lettuce, tomatoes, croutons. Not because he has to, but because he wants to. Anthony isn’t stubborn. He isn’t scared of change. He’s willing to try, to adapt, to push himself. That mindset would define him. Soccer stays part of his life through his early years, right up until she’s high school.
But the real shift comes earlier during a tournament that forces him to look at himself differently. At the time, Anthony weighs about 213 pounds. For a kid his age, that weight feels like a limitation, a wall between who he is and who he wants to become. So, he makes a decision. Every day, he hits the gym or heads to Week Park. No shortcuts, no excuses.
He breaks his meals into smaller portions four times a day. He runs, he lifts, he sweats day after day, month after month. It doesn’t happen fast. It takes nearly 2 years of grinding. But eventually, the results show 60 lbs gone from 213 down to 160. For a teenager, that kind of transformation feels like winning a war with himself.
And once he proves he can do that, his vision gets bigger. Anthony grows up in a family where law enforcement isn’t just a job, it’s a calling. His uncle, Wayne Vargas, is a longtime New York police officer with more than two decades on the force. That influence is heavy. It matters. By high school, the path feels clear.
Friends, remember how serious he was about it. Before graduation, the push was already there. Take the tests. Commit early. Don’t wait. This wasn’t a phase for Anthony. This was purpose. As a teenager, he’s obsessed with police work. He watches videos constantly, studying how officers move, how situations unfold.
By the time he takes the oath himself, he knows exactly what he’s signing up for. The danger, the risk, the weight of the badge. None of it scares him off. And once he’s in, he doesn’t just blend in, he stands out. In just 5 years, as Kona rises fast. He earns a spot in the criminal intelligence section. An elite unit working handinand with federal agencies to take illegal guns off the street.
It’s high pressure, high stakes work. The kind that demands sharp instincts and zero hesitation. That’s who he is. By 2024, he’s part of the New Jersey State Police Weapons Trafficking North unit, a hybrid team of troopers and Newark detectives using technology to hunt down illegal firearms.
It’s digital street work, social media videos, online clues, and as Kona is in his element. One Wednesday evening in January, while on duty, he’s scrolling through social media when something catches his eye. A video of two men rapping and dancing. Then a flash of metal, a handgun, red laser sight attached.
As Kona recognizes them immediately, they’re known to hang around the Tibberon supermarket on Bergen Street. The response is instant. Unmarked cars race through the North Ironbound neighborhood. When detectives pull up, the group is still there. Same faces, same clothes from the video as officers close in one man bolts, clutching something tight against his body. Esconer doesn’t hesitate.
He chases him down. What he finds is exactly what he expected, a loaded semi-automatic handgun, the same weapon that had just been paraded online. Searches of the rest of the group turn up even more. Five additional semi-automatic pistols pulled off the street in one sweep. This is what the unit does.
Six men, one mission, reduce the bloodshed in New Jersey’s largest city. And it’s working. Murders drop, shootings decline. City leaders credit this team for going where others won’t, facing what others avoid. They’re known for running toward the danger, not away from it. That same mindset carries into the evening of May 7th, 2025.
Around 6:30 p.m., police encounter Razai and several others at the corner of Broadway and Carter Street. It’s an uneasy spot. An elementary school on one side, a church on the other. According to witnesses, Raz is still inside the car when gunfire erupts. The vehicle keeps moving, rolling forward until it slams into the front gate of Christ Assembly Lutheran Church.
The injuries are severe. Detective Emanuel Hayford is struck in the lower back, the bullet tearing through his stomach. Another round hits his right arm. The chaos unfolds in seconds. Later, Hayford struggles to piece it together. The moment is fractured, blurred by shock and pain. He doesn’t even realize Raz has been shot until he reaches the hospital.
And that leaves one question hanging in the air. Who exactly was Ros? Picture a chubby kid with a grin so wide it filled the room before he ever said a word. Fresh air Jordans on his feet, chest out, chin high. If you ran into him at the Eastern Area Community Center, he’d tell you exactly who he was and where he claimed to be from.
Newark every time. To Raz, Newark wasn’t just a place on a map. It was an image, a badge. in that quiet Pennsylvania valley. Saying you were from Newark meant you were tougher, sharper, built different. It was his way of standing out, of letting people know he wasn’t just another kid from East. But his father saw it completely differently.
To Terrell, Newark represented everything they thought they had escaped when they moved. The violence, the influence, the pull of the streets. People who knew the family say Ros was always trying to play a role, leaning into a version of himself that felt harder than the reality.
His father shut that down every chance he got, reminding him that he wasn’t from Newark, no matter how badly he wanted to be. Still, Raz lived split between two worlds. He was being raised in Easton by his father’s side of the family, but Newark was always calling. Just a 90-minute drive away sat his mother and a large network of relatives.
That back and forth shaped him, and over time, it blurred his sense of where he truly belonged. In Easton’s Westward, Ros was a regular at the community center. It’s a gritty working-class part of a small city of about 30,000 tucked along the Delaware River across from Philipsburg.
Life there isn’t easy, but it’s not the war zone Razi like to hint at either. Back then, he looked like a normal kid. He wrestled. He played basketball. He stayed busy with afterchool programs and summer camps, zoo trips, science center visits, long days at the pool. The kind of childhood adults hope keeps kids out of trouble.
Someone who knew him well described him as well-liked and easy to redirect. If he stepped out of line, it didn’t take much to straighten him out. Just the mention of calling his dad usually did the trick. Court records show that custody technically belonged to his grandfather, Terrell Sory, Senior. People close to the family say Ros was mostly raised by his paternal grandparents in the Eastn area.
They made sure he looked good. Clean clothes, sharp haircuts, new sneakers on his feet. On the outside, he appeared cared for. But even then, there were cracks. That same source said Raz wanted badly to be seen as tough. The image mattered to him. The reality didn’t quite match and beneath the surface, the stability just wasn’t there.
His father’s troubles started early. When Rise was still a baby, Terrell Sori Jr. was already on law enforcement’s radar in the Lehi Valley. In 2012, police identified him as a member of the Crips after a major drug bust involving crack cocaine and heroin. He was only 19 at the time. He later pleaded guilty to a felony drug conspiracy charge and served 9 months in prison. Today, Sori Jr.
is in his early 30s, working as a longhaul truck driver. He and Quai Springer have seven children together, from an 11year-old down to a toddler, not yet two. But court filings paint a troubled picture behind closed doors. Protection from abuse and custody records describe a relationship plagued by accusations of violence, drug use, and neglect.
Rosai’s school history is unclear, but what is known is that he had already crossed paths with the juvenile system. The Northampton County District Attorney confirmed that Rise was on their radar. Nothing extreme, nothing publicly detailed, but enough to be noticed. From the DA’s perspective, it was minimal involvement.
No major red flags. Others didn’t see it that way. Robert Licks, the brother of Raz’s father, was troubled enough by his behavior that he kept his own daughter away from him. He believed Rosé needed structure, discipline, and guidance that just wasn’t there. In his view, Rosai had no real boundaries.
When he acted out, there were no consequences, no grounding, no correction. He was left to figure things out on his own. Over the last couple of years, Raz bounced constantly between Eastn and Newark. People in Easton noticed the shift. the trips became more frequent, but what he was doing in New Jersey remains largely unclear, and some of what’s been reported publicly hasn’t held up.
What is clear is that his mother, Qui J Springer, lived in Newark and had her own legal troubles. In January 2024, police say she assaulted another woman, then followed her down the street in a car and sprayed her in the face with pepper spray. Later that year in November, she was arrested again after allegedly stabbing a man in the back of the head with a fork during a confrontation.
Both cases were initially charged as aggravated assault, then later reduced to simple assault. As of now, they remain unresolved in municipal court. The family’s name popped up again in April when the state attorney general announced the takeown of a violent drug operation on North 9th Street in Newark. This time, prosecutors pointed to Rabia Sori as the leader, working alongside her twin sister, Hadia.
But Rabia’s history with law enforcement didn’t start there. It goes back to 2010 when police raided her own home during a drug investigation. That arrest wasn’t a one-off. It was the start of a longunning pattern. According to authorities, she would go on to be arrested dozens of times, repeatedly linked to the sale of cocaine, crack, and other narcotics.
Rabia wasn’t a low-level dealer. She was identified as the leader of Double Two, a Bloods affiliated street gang accused of running an open air drug market on the 200 block of North 9th Street in Newark. The stretch sits just minutes from Branchbrook Park, but on the street it was known as control territory.
In court filings, prosecutors refer to this crew as the Newark set. To understand how deep this runs, investigators trace Double Second’s roots back more than three decades. Court records from a separate case paint a picture that starts in California in the early 1990s. Two members of the Queen Street Bloods from Englewood traveled across the country to East Orange, New Jersey, known locally as Illtown.
Once there, they began meeting with local crews, pushing the idea of officially joining the Bloods. The pitch worked. Several East Orange gangs, including the Gutter Rats, the Drama Lords, the Steel Click Crew, and the Chain Gang, agreed to unite. That merger gave birth to Double Two. Over time, the group became known as the East Coast Bloods and formally aligned itself with the United Bloods Nation, expanding its influence throughout New Jersey and into New York.
At the center of it all, prosecutors say, were the Sori twins. Rabia and her sister Hadia are accused of running the operation side by side. One law enforcement source described them as inseparable in business, effectively controlling the drug trade in that neighborhood. Decisions flowed through them. Orders came from them.
Nothing moved without their say so. Investigators believe the group even operated a drug production site out of a home in Elizabeth shared by Sori and Nicole Jones. From there, the organization funneled product back into Newark. Inside Double Two, everyone had a role. There were supervisors and advisers at the top, street dealers handling sales, and enforcers making sure no one stepped out of line.
Those enforcers were known on the street as the nine creepers. According to authorities, these were double two members and allied associates whose job was to move heroin, fentanyl, and cocaine. But the drugs were only half of it. They were also the muscle. If someone disrespected sorry, fell behind on payments, or started causing problems, the creepers stepped in.
Violence wasn’t a last resort. It was part of the system, a way to keep people in line, spread fear, and protect the operation. And like most street violence, it didn’t start big. It started small, then escalated. On April 19th, 2023, a simple traffic dispute on Grove Street in Irvington turned into something much darker.
Rabia Sor and an associate, Nicole Jones, got into a heated argument right in the middle of the road. Surveillance cameras caught it all. What began as shouting quickly escalated when two men pulled up in a car. According to investigators, Sori didn’t walk away. She allegedly gave the order. Seconds later, gunfire erupted.
Two people were targeted. One of them was hit. That wasn’t an isolated moment. It was a preview. A few months later, on July 21st, 2023, Newark police rushed to a shooting near 4th Avenue and North 9th Street. A woman had been shot in the face. Court documents identify her only as IH, but investigators knew exactly who she was, an associate within Sor’s double second circle.
At first, the motive was unclear. Why would someone inside the crew get hit? The answer didn’t come until August 2024 when another Double2 member, Eugene Sparrow, was arrested in an unrelated shooting. When detectives searched his phone, they found a screenshot of a text exchange between Sorre and IH.
The messages told the story plainly. The two had been arguing over drug money. IH allegedly owed Sor proceeds from narcotic sales. According to investigators, that debt may have cost her her face. By the spring of 2024, the violence wasn’t slowing down. It was getting louder. On April 21st, surveillance cameras captured another explosive moment on North 9th Street.
This time, it was a domestic dispute between Sorre and her twin sister, Hadia. The argument spilled into the street, drawing a crowd. According to police, Sorre took a handgun from Jasmine Henderson, pointed it toward the onlookers, and fired a shot straight into the ground. A warning shot, a message. Everyone scattered.
Just weeks later, on May 9th and 10, members of Double Two began flooding social media with videos. In them, Sori openly talked about a serious feud with someone known as KW. One clip showed her standing beside KW’s brother, KJ, who appeared to be restrained while Sori issued threats. The message was clear.
KW was no longer welcome on her turf. Other videos followed. Sori and several associates showed up at an apartment complex where they believed KW lived. In the clips, she made it clear she knew exactly where he was and that she was coming for him. No filters, no hesitation. Then came July 22nd, 2024.
Sori arrived on North 12th Street with a group of double two members and associates including Jacquand Doier, Jasmine Henderson, Inari Hobbs, and Karen Johnson. At some point during that encounter, either sorry or someone acting on her behalf opened fire. The victim identified as AC was hit three times.
Surveillance footage captured the aftermath. AC collapsed as people ran in every direction. One camera showed him crawling down a driveway, wounded and desperate. Another picked up the sound of gunshots and caught him trying to flee, blood streaming down his arm. When detectives compared evidence from multiple shootings, a pattern emerged.
Ballistics tied the same Black Springfield Armory XD30 subcompact handgun to several attacks, including the Irvington shooting in April 2023 and the North 9th Street incident in April 2024. Investigators believe that weapon was used against multiple victims before turning up again days later in yet another shooting.
That gun finally resurfaced on September 8th, 2024. Police found it inside a car driven by Inari Hobbs. Another firearm was recovered as well along with drugs matching those sold by the New York set. Jasmine Henderson was inside the vehicle when officers made the discovery. Between April 2023 and June 2024, investigators say sorry illegally possessed both that handgun and a revolver.
Given her prior convictions, she was barred from owning any firearm at all. By December, the operation was unraveling. On December 4th, 2024, Sori allegedly contacted Latif Holly, another Double Two member, and ordered him to move a firearm to a new location. What she didn’t know was that law enforcement had a wire tap on Holly’s phone.
Every word was recorded. After the call, Holly went to the Newark sets location and walked out carrying a black bag. The next day, he dropped it off at a U-Haul storage facility. When authorities executed a search warrant there, they found exactly what they feared, a loaded 9mm high-point semi-automatic rifle with a 21 round high-capacity magazine.
The endgame came fast. On March 24th, 2025, detectives from the Division of Criminal Justice and New Jersey State Police executed a search warrant at the home shared by Sori and Nicole Jones. Sori was caught just outside. Jones was found inside. Both were arrested on the spot. Inside the house, police uncovered the backbone of the operation.
91 grams of raw heroin stamped with names like exit 5, Route 21, Body Bag, and Passion. About $17,000 in cash, digital scales, rubber bands, tape, and stacks of empty glassene folds. Everything investigators expected to find was right there. Sori wasn’t alone in cuffs. She was arrested alongside her twin sister, Hadia, and two dozen other alleged members and associates of Double Two.
Just days before the takedown, reporters had encountered Hadia on North 9inth Street. She spoke openly about the money flowing through the neighborhood and didn’t hide her frustration over family tensions, particularly her sister’s decision to bring a teenager into Newark. According to her, the concern wasn’t safety, it was attention.
Police pressure was bad for business. On April 22nd, 2025, the state finally made it official. Attorney General Matthew Plattkin and the Division of Criminal Justice announced charges against 26 people connected to the Double2 Queen Street blood gang. And right at the center of it all was Robbie, named by prosecutors as the group’s alleged leader.
Officials were careful to draw a line here. They said the investigation didn’t directly tie the drug operation to the officer’s killing, but the bigger picture still mattered. Illegal drugs, illegal guns, and a culture of intimidation don’t exist in a vacuum. They seep into neighborhoods, wear them down, and leave damage that doesn’t disappear when the arrests are made.
And regardless of how he ultimately crossed paths with police, Rise was already on their radar. According to sources close to the case, investigators had connected him to at least one other shooting just days before Detective Asa was killed, even if they weren’t yet certain what role he played.
Newark Mayor Ros Baraka was walking into a meeting when his phone buzzed. One glance was all it took to know this wasn’t routine. A police involved shooting, officers down, the kind of call every city leader dreads. As he rushed toward University Hospital, the phone rang again. This update hit harder.
One of the officers had been shot in the head. Baraka later said that was the moment everything shifted inside him. The weight of it settled in his chest. By the time he arrived at the hospital, the place was overwhelmed. Doctors moved fast. Voices echoed. Tension hung thick in the air. Baraka saw Detective Joseph Asona lying on a hospital bed as medical staff fought to save him.
One look told him what he didn’t want to accept. This wasn’t going to end well. As Connor’s family stood nearby, frozen in shock, officers packed the hallways shouldertosh shoulder. Baraka would later describe the scene as unbearable, just horrible from every angle. On the way to the hospital, he had already heard a disturbing rumor that the shooter might be a child.
Inside the trauma center, that rumor became real in the most unsettling way possible. In one room lay Detective Asa. On a separate bed right next to him was the wounded suspect. 14-year-old Razai, victim, and shooter side by side. A moment so surreal it only makes sense in the chaos of a major city emergency room.
The night ended in heartbreak. Detective Escona was pronounced dead at 2:34 a.m. surrounded by his family. His parents were there, loved ones who never imagined this would be the way they’d say goodbye. His cousin Rosa, also a police officer, remembers the exact moment her world stopped. She had just finished her own shift when her uncle called to tell her Asona had been shot.
The shock hit instantly. She rushed straight back out the door, heading for the same hospital she had just left, praying she wouldn’t be too late. As Kona’s mother, Narida Vargas, still struggles to talk about her son without breaking down. In interviews, the pain pours out of her. She says they’re trying to stay strong, but the emotions overwhelm her.
Her son loved his job. Being a police officer wasn’t just work to him. it was who he was. One of the crulest twists came afterward. Detective Emanuel Hayford, Asa’s partner, had survived but was badly wounded. After surgery, he kept asking about Escona. No one answered him.
For two full days, he was left in the dark. When police leadership finally came to his bedside and told him the truth, the reality hit all at once. Waking up from surgery only to learn your partner is gone is a kind of pain that doesn’t fade. Hayford later said it was devastating being unable to get answers then finally hearing the words that change everything.
The teen’s family tells a very different version of events. According to Raz’s aunt, he had been shot at just the day before. She says that fear is why he was carrying a gun at all. From her nephew’s point of view, she claims the people approaching him were in unmarked cars wearing ski masks holding shotguns.
In that moment, he believed the attackers from the previous day had come back to finish the job. She says he never knew they were police. She claims that even as he was being taken into custody, he told officers he didn’t realize who they were. In her view, if he had known they were law enforcement, he never would have fired.
Police strongly dispute that version. Law enforcement sources say the officers clearly identified themselves. They were wearing ballistic vests labeled police with badges visible. From their perspective, there was no confusion. To the aunt, the legal outcome almost doesn’t matter anymore. In her eyes, the damage is already permanent.
She believes no 14-year-old wakes up wanting to kill a police officer. She describes her nephew as a good kid who made a catastrophic mistake, one that destroyed his future in a single moment. Whether he ever sees freedom again or not, she believes his life is effectively over. She insists he wasn’t in a gang and blames social media for pulling kids toward dangerous images and bad decisions.
To her, the situation is nothing but tragic. Two families shattered at the same time. Still, the deepest loss belongs to the Econa family. Law enforcement sources describe them as completely devastated. They remember Asa as a dedicated officer and an even better person, someone who genuinely loved the job and the city he served.
His mother, Martha Vargas, remembers him simply as her baby. She says he talked about becoming a police officer from the time he was a little boy. As soon as he was old enough, he took the test. There was never another plan. My bad. When she got the call to go to the hospital, she thought it was something minor.
Maybe an injury, maybe a scare. Then she learned the truth. He had been shot in the head. In one night, a family lost a son, a city lost a young officer, and another family watched the child’s future disappear forever.
