Arkeen Jessie Lafaye Brumfield, known as A.J., was an 11-year-old Black boy from Garden City, Georgia, who was shot inside his home on 2nd Street on the evening of April 12, 2020. Police were called about 7:45 p.m. and found him in a back bedroom with a gunshot wound to the forehead, lying on a bed with blood on the pillow beneath his head. He was transported to Memorial Hospital in critical condition and died on April 20, 2020.

Early in the investigation police said initial statements were false or misleading. Arkeen’s mother, Shameka Brumfield, was arrested on April 15, 2020, and charged with possession of a firearm by a convicted felon and false statements; she maintained she had been asleep when her son was shot and denied killing him. Investigators later said they believed someone else had been inside the residence at the time of the shooting, and in early May police named 48-year-old William Kenny McDonald as a person of interest. McDonald was arrested on July 6, 2020, in Savannah and was charged with murder; reports also tied court counts including cruelty to children and failure to appear, and mentioned outstanding warrants for aggravated assault.

The police chief described the case as full of conflicting stories and said the exact circumstances remained disputed and would have to be decided in court. Did anyone in the Garden City area have information about who was in that home the night Arkeen was shot?