Antonio Sparks, 22, known as Jappy, was shot and killed during a late-night exchange of gunfire on the 2600 block of Cannon Avenue in Chattanooga on Monday, December 6, 2021. According to later detective testimony, Sparks and another man, Vincent Mays, went to a residence and fired multiple rounds into the home. A man inside the house emerged and returned fire; Sparks was hit in the head, taken to a hospital in a private vehicle, and did not survive. A 42-year-old woman inside the residence was also struck and expected to recover.

Investigators said several people fired weapons that night, and initial charges were not filed while police sorted the sequence of events. Mays was arrested in March 2022 on outstanding warrants and charged with criminal homicide, attempted first-degree murder, felony reckless endangerment, and possession of a firearm during the commission of a dangerous felony. On December 18, 2021, a related shooting at Taylor Funeral Home wounded Mays; Antonio Sparks’s uncle, Nautica Goldthreat, was later charged in that attack and, as of November 2023, those charges were bound over to a grand jury. Police continue to seek information about Sparks’s death; anyone with tips was asked to contact the Homicide Tip Line.