A Union County grand jury has returned a four-count indictment against a Somerset County man accused of carrying out a fatal gang-related shooting outside of a Plainfield restaurant in 2010, acting Union County Prosecutor Grace H. Park announced Wednesday.
Richard Culver, 26, of North Plainfield is charged with murder, attempted murder, and two related weapons offenses in connection with the shooting that killed 25-year-old Sahaad Monroe-McCoy.
It was approximately 2:15 a.m. on December 11, 2010 when gunshots rang out at the Kennedy Fried Chicken on East Fifth Street and Park Avenue in downtown Plainfield, according to the investigation. Monroe-McCoy, a Plainfield resident, was shot and killed while a second man, his cousin, was injured by gunfire.
An intensive joint investigation by the Union County Homicide Task Force and the Plainfield Police Division ultimately revealed that Culver, a confirmed member of the Crips street gang, was the shooter– he had been targeting Monroe-McCoy’s cousin, a high-ranking member of Plainfield’s G-Shine set of the Bloods street gang.
Culver was arrested without incident in June 2015 at his home on Mercer Avenue in North Plainfield. Members of the Homicide Task Force, North Plainfield Police Department, Plainfield Police Division, and Union County Sheriff’s Office Warrant Squad assisted in making the arrest.
Convictions on murder charges commonly result in penalties of 30 years to life in state prison.