On the evening of August 22, 2020, 61-year-old Danny Buckley was shot in the parking lot of a Trader Joe’s on Perkins Road in Baton Rouge. Buckley, a Black man known to panhandle in the area, had a brief verbal exchange with a car’s occupant, walked away, then approached two young women to ask for money. The car’s driver, 24-year-old Jace Boyd, got out armed and — after an initial misfire, according to police reports — reloaded and shot the unarmed Buckley once in the abdomen. Buckley was taken to a hospital and later died of his wounds.

Boyd was questioned the night of the shooting and released, then arrested days later and charged with second-degree murder and illegal use of a weapon. The case went to trial; in April 2024 a jury convicted Boyd of manslaughter. In June 2024 a judge sentenced him to 18 months in prison; the jury had been unable to reach a verdict on the weapon charge. The sentence prompted public criticism and Buckley’s family left the courtroom in protest.

Are there witnesses who remember the sequence in the parking lot or who can clarify what happened during the confrontation?