Long Branch Man Indicted For Attempted Murder

LONG BRANCH, NJ — A Long Branch man and a Neptune woman were indicted Wednesday in connection with three attempted murders that took place over a span of four days, said Acting Monmouth County Prosecutor Lori Linskey.

Kahniaha X. Dean, 25, of Neptune Township and Ishawn A. Collazo, 26, of Long Branch are both charged with three counts of attempted murder in the first degree, plus numerous other charges.

At approximately 12:30 a.m. on Wednesday, December 29, 2021, Neptune police officers responded to a report of shots being fired on the 400 block of Fisher Avenue and located several spent 9mm shell casings. Moments later, they discovered an adult man nearby in a parked car; he had been shot. He was taken to Jersey Shore Regional Medical Center.

Then, shortly after 10 p.m. on Saturday, January 1, 2022, Neptune Police responded to the 300 block of Neptune Boulevard for another report of shots being fired, and upon arrival, they discovered another adult male shooting victim. Additional 9mm shell casings were recovered at the scene, and the victim was transported to Jersey Shore Regional Medical Center.

Investigators determined that another shooting had taken place only minutes earlier at a nearby apartment on the 2000 block of Milton Avenue, where an assailant attempted to shoot the same adult male who had been shot days earlier. The assailant’s gun jammed, however, and the masked shooter fled the scene – leaving behind a live 9mm round that had been ejected from the gun.

A joint investigation by the MCPO Major Crimes Bureau, the Neptune Township Police Department, and the Long Branch Police Department resulted in Dean and Collazo being identified as suspects in all three incidents.

Dean and Collazo were arrested shortly after 11:45 p.m. on Friday, January 14, 2022, when members of the Woodbridge Police Department (Middlesex County) responded to a report of a man brandishing a gun outside a nightclub on Lafayette Road and conducted a traffic stop of their vehicle. A search of the car revealed a loaded handgun under a seat, and the investigation subsequently determined that it was the same weapon used in each of the shooting incidents.

Also recovered from the car was a large amount of cocaine, drug distribution paraphernalia, and a loaded submachine gun with a folding stock.