What does the Fatal Encounters dataset record about this incident?

Fatal Encounters records that Detrick Barker died on July 10, 2002 in Paterson, Passaic County, with "Vehicle" as the highest level of force. Fatal Encounters is an independent, crowdsourced dataset of deaths that occurred during police encounters of any kind; a record is not a finding of fault or misconduct.

Which agency or agencies were recorded as involved?

The record's agency field reads "Passaic County Prosecutor's Office". Presence in that field means the agency appears in the record as reported, nothing more; it is not a claim of fault or responsibility by any officer or agency.

Where did this happen?

The record places the death in Paterson, Passaic County, on July 10, 2002. The address as recorded is 721 E. 25th St. Paterson NJ 07504 Passaic.

Does this record mean police caused or were at fault for this death?

No. Fatal Encounters documented deaths that occurred during police encounters of any kind, including vehicle pursuits and crashes, suicides that occurred in police presence, and medical emergencies. This record documents that a death occurred during an encounter; it is not a finding of fault, misconduct, or wrongdoing, and it has no connection to the discipline records elsewhere on this site.

Fatal Encounters record · Independent third-party dataset

Detrick Barker

July 10, 2002 · Paterson, Passaic County

Details as recorded

Every value below is shown exactly as Fatal Encounters recorded it.^[1]

Name as recorded: Detrick Barker
Age as recorded: 30
Gender as recorded: Male
Race as reported: Race unspecified
Date of the injury resulting in death: July 10, 2002
Location as recorded: Paterson, Passaic County721 E. 25th St. Paterson NJ 07504 Passaic
Highest level of force as recorded: Vehicle

Agencies as recorded

Agency or agencies involved, as recorded: Passaic County Prosecutor's Office

An agency appears here because it appears in the record's as-reported agency field, nothing more. Its presence is not a claim of fault or responsibility.

Department pages (matched by this site at high confidence)

Passaic County Prosecutor's Office

The source's account

Fatal Encounters' description of the incident, verbatim. This is the source project's own third-party narrative, not this site's reporting.

Passaic County police were following two men as they rode through city streets on an unregistered dirt bike. Police lost sight of them before the dirt bike hit a curb and a tree, killing driver Dedrick Barker. The surviving passenger, 30-year-old Clarence Smith of Paterson, claimed that a police car followed the dirt bike the entire time, at a distance of only a few feet.

Source reported by Fatal Encounters: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1jRG4qaLKWNtxruSQjwtuddys8JYR5p7M_E5ApMd1L0g/edit?usp=sharing (external link, as recorded in the dataset).

If you are a family member of the person named here, or represent one, and something in this record is wrong, or you want the record removed, requests go through the corrections page. Every request is checked against the source record.

This record is one of the dataset's New Jersey entries from 2000 to 2021. Browse every New Jersey Fatal Encounters record by year.

Questions and answers

What does the Fatal Encounters dataset record about this incident?: Fatal Encounters records that Detrick Barker died on July 10, 2002 in Paterson, Passaic County, with "Vehicle" as the highest level of force. Fatal Encounters is an independent, crowdsourced dataset of deaths that occurred during police encounters of any kind; a record is not a finding of fault or misconduct.
Which agency or agencies were recorded as involved?: The record's agency field reads "Passaic County Prosecutor's Office". Presence in that field means the agency appears in the record as reported, nothing more; it is not a claim of fault or responsibility by any officer or agency.
Where did this happen?: The record places the death in Paterson, Passaic County, on July 10, 2002. The address as recorded is 721 E. 25th St. Paterson NJ 07504 Passaic.
Does this record mean police caused or were at fault for this death?: No. Fatal Encounters documented deaths that occurred during police encounters of any kind, including vehicle pursuits and crashes, suicides that occurred in police presence, and medical emergencies. This record documents that a death occurred during an encounter; it is not a finding of fault, misconduct, or wrongdoing, and it has no connection to the discipline records elsewhere on this site.

Sources

[1]Fatal Encounters, New Jersey subset. Fatal Encounters (fatalencounters.org). Row 29183. Derived from the public Fatal Encounters national dataset (coverage 2000-2021; collection ended December 2021), https://fatalencounters.org/. Retrieved July 10, 2026. ↩