On Memorial Day evening, May 31, 2021, a pool gathering at the Fairway View Apartments on College Drive in Baton Rouge ended in a deadly attack. Twenty-year-old Reginald Elroy Thomas and 16-year-old Dewayne Dunn Jr. were confronted by at least two gunmen who entered the gated pool area. A brief struggle preceded multiple rounds of gunfire that struck both men; Thomas and Dunn were pronounced dead at the scene. A one-year-old girl, Ja’Tyri Brown, playing nearby was hit by a stray bullet and later died at a hospital.

Investigators say the gunmen stole a weapon from one of the victims after the shooting. Thomas had previously survived another shooting in Baker. Two brothers, David Williams and Ladarius Coleman, were arrested and charged in connection with the killings; prosecutors alleged the motive was to steal firearms from Thomas and Dunn.

Does anyone have information about Thomas’s life in Baton Rouge or the events at Fairway View Apartments that evening?