On the evening of December 11, 2021, 16-year-old Avonte ’Fats’ Dewitt George was shot in the head while visiting a residence in the 600 block of North Westwood Drive in Independence, Missouri. First responders found him shortly before 7:00 p.m.; he was taken to a local hospital and died from his injuries just days before his seventeenth birthday. The family had already lost Avonte’s mother earlier that year.

Court documents name 19-year-old Elijah L. Soliz as a person present at the scene and initially holding the firearm. Soliz told officers at different times that the gun accidentally discharged while he held it, and later that he dropped it and it fired when he tried to catch it; he also admitted to smoking marijuana before the shooting. A witness told police Soliz pointed the pistol at Avonte’s head for about 30 to 45 seconds before it fired and said another person had manipulated the slide of the gun and handed it to Soliz, though it was unclear whether Soliz knew the weapon was loaded. Jackson County prosecutors charged Soliz with first-degree involuntary manslaughter and armed criminal action.

Avonte was a junior at Lee’s Summit North High School, employed at Whataburger, and remembered by family and community as a protective presence and a glue for his large family after his mother’s death. Does anyone have information about Avonte, his last hours that night, or the people who were at that residence?