When Hassan Sharif first stepped inside the Charlie Dew Drop Boxing Club in Newark, New Jersey, he was a young dad with a hulking frame. But what stood out more than his size, his former boxing coach said, was the quiet, dignified way he carried himself outside of the ring.
“He was all muscle,” said John “Brother Yahya” Thompson, who trained Sharif for a handful of amateur bouts in the late 1990s. “But he was a peaceful guy. I’ve never even heard him argue.”
Sharif went on to become the imam of one of Newark’s most storied mosques. He developed a reputation as a tireless community leader who fed the needy and fought gun violence.
But Sharif, 52, was fatally shot outside the Masjid Muhammad mosque on Jan. 3, a still-unsolved murder that has stunned and baffled those who knew him well.
“When I heard what happened, I was like, ‘Who’d want to do something to him?’” Thompson said.
Newark detectives are investigating whether a family member is behind the killing, three law enforcement sources have told NBC News. It wasn’t clear what may have motivated the attack.
A spokesperson for the Essex County Prosecutor’s Office, which is leading the investigation, said it remains ongoing. He declined to comment further.
The revelation that the killing may have been carried out by a relative came as a shock to some of Sharif’s close friends and family.
“If it was somebody in the street world, I could understand that, because he was trying to put a stop to the crime around the neighborhood,” his cousin Andre Little said. “But for the life of me, I couldn’t even begin to understand why somebody in his family would want to hurt him.”
“Whoever did this,” Little added, “they’re not safe anywhere they go.”
The incident wasn’t the first time an imam who led the mosque was killed. It also wasn’t the first time that someone had pulled a gun on Sharif outside his house of worship.
‘He always showed up for us’
Sharif was raised in Newark,…
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