Fatal Encounters record · Independent third-party dataset
Keyshon "Key Pretty" Chitty
October 30, 2002 · Paterson, Passaic County
Details as recorded
Every value below is shown exactly as Fatal Encounters recorded it.[1]
- Name as recorded
- Keyshon "Key Pretty" Chitty
- Age as recorded
- 19
- Gender as recorded
- Male
- Race as reported
- Race unspecified
- Date of the injury resulting in death
- October 30, 2002
- Location as recorded
- Paterson, Passaic County681 E. 18th St. Paterson NJ 07501 Passaic
- Highest level of force as recorded
- Gunshot
Where the dataset places it
The marked point is the dataset's own geocoded location for this record, as recorded. Every other New Jersey record in the dataset is shown in gray. A point on a map is where a death was recorded, not a finding about anyone.
Agencies as recorded
Agency or agencies involved, as recorded: Passaic County Sheriff's Office, Paterson Police Department
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)
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.
A warrant squad and six sheriff's detectives went to Simply the Best Barber Shop after receiving an anonymous tip that Keyshon Chitty was headed there for a haircut, police said. The informant told officers that Chitty carried a .357-caliber handgun. Chitty also was wanted for drug crimes and charges of aggravated assault with a handgun. When detectives entered, Chitty hid in a restroom and shot and killed himself.
Source reported by Fatal Encounters: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1fm8b9obzcGhrLq96OaRVbr_TZio-EeUKu3lBro2c9cc/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 is one of 22 New Jersey records the dataset dates to 2002, and one of 36 it holds for Passaic County across 2000 to 2021. Browse every New Jersey Fatal Encounters record by year.
Records from the same county and year
- Detrick Barker (2002) July 10, 2002
- Wyatt Wilds (2002) April 7, 2002
Questions and answers
What does the Fatal Encounters dataset record about this incident?
Fatal Encounters records that Keyshon "Key Pretty" Chitty died on October 30, 2002 in Paterson, Passaic County, with "Gunshot" 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 Sheriff's Office, Paterson Police Department". 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 October 30, 2002. The address as recorded is 681 E. 18th St. Paterson NJ 07501 Passaic.
Sources
- [1]Fatal Encounters, New Jersey subset. Fatal Encounters (fatalencounters.org). Row 28904. Derived from the public Fatal Encounters national dataset (coverage 2000-2021; collection ended December 2021), https://fatalencounters.org/. Retrieved July 10, 2026. ↩