Jerriel Bates, 26, was shot and killed at his apartment at 8120 Britton Road in Oklahoma City in the early minutes of July 30, 2009. According to contemporaneous reporting, several people came to his door around midnight and called him outside to fight; when he opened the door someone in that group fired a single shot. Neighbors heard the gunfire and commotion and officers found Bates critically wounded at the scene; he died on the property where he lived.

Detectives labeled the shooting gang-related and investigators processed the scene, but the case record available to the public lists his death as unsolved. Bates’s name also appears in older booking records in Oklahoma County on charges including assault and battery on a police officer and a felon-in-possession-type firearms charge, though bookings are not proof of guilt.

Did anyone in the neighborhood or who knew Jerriel hear or see the group that came to his door that night?