On the evening of January 10, 2017, Kansas City police responded to a reported shooting at 12th Street and The Paseo. Officers arrived about 8:45 p.m. and found a black vehicle stopped in the street with its engine running and the passenger-side door open, suggesting a rapid exit by at least one occupant.

Inside the car was 20-year-old Donald E. Coty Jr., in the driver’s seat, suffering multiple gunshot wounds. Medical personnel tried to save him but he was pronounced dead at the scene. The department recorded this as the city’s first homicide of 2017.

Investigators determined a second person had likely been in the vehicle and may have been wounded before fleeing on foot. The vehicle and scene evidence were recovered, but no arrests were announced and the case remained unsolved. If anyone has information about Donald Coty Jr. or that night at 12th and The Paseo, please come forward.