Plainfield murder arrest after dice game shooting

PLAINFIELD -- Authorities say it was a game of dice that led to 24-year-old Rashawn Bryant getting shot and killed last week on a neighborhood street.

Bryant, who was the city's second homicide victim this year in a month filled with gun violence, was shot several times by Johnathan Sylvester, 28, according to Union County Acting Prosecutor Grace Park, whose office charged Sylvester with first-degree murder and several weapons offenses.

Sylvester was being held in Union County Jail on $1 million bail. He faces 30 years to life in prison if convicted.

Park's office said Friday that Bryant was shot about 5:15 p.m. last Friday in front of a home on the 300 block of Evona Avenue. The shooting happened 24 hours after and in the same neighborhood where residents and police marched against violence.

Six days earlier, Dearn Marcano, 20, was fatally shot about 9 p.m. Aug. 16 on West Third Street at Manson Place. Three other residents were shot and injured. Authorities do not believe Marcano was an intended target.

Although Park told residents at a city forum on violence last Thursday that investigators were "working around the clock" on the Marcano case, no arrest has been made.

Authorities, however, have made arrests in other violence-related cases in the city and in neighboring North Plainfield.

Park's office on Friday did not release a police booking photo of Sylvester.