On October 11, 2022, 19-year-old Ethan Holder was shot in the head while walking home in the Flatlands neighborhood of Brooklyn shortly before 3 p.m. He had just finished his shift that day as a substitute paraprofessional at Public School 203. The assailant fired multiple shots from across the street on Avenue M without any words exchanged. Mortally wounded, Holder stumbled into a nearby deli and collapsed; he was taken to a local hospital and died the next day.

Those who knew Holder remembered him as kind and always smiling and said he had no criminal record. His family donated his organs, which saved the lives of six people. Surveillance footage led investigators to a suspect, and 19-year-old Javier Oates of Brooklyn was arrested; he was seen on video wearing a red hoodie, red sweatpants, a red do-rag and a black coat with a fur-trimmed collar, and was charged with murder, criminal possession of a weapon and criminal use of a firearm. Authorities described the attack as targeted; no motive has been publicly disclosed.

Does anyone who knew Ethan or who was in the Avenue M area that afternoon have information to share?