Michael Revis was 20 years old when he was killed on September 25, 2008, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. His death occurred during a period of elevated homicide in Allegheny County; at the time Pittsburgh’s homicide rate was reported at 14.1 per 100,000 compared with the national rate of 4.7 per 100,000. Young African American men were disproportionately affected by gun violence in the city, and roughly 86% of those murdered in Pittsburgh from 2000 to 2012 were African American, the majority under age 30.

Investigators faced the same challenges present in many Pittsburgh homicides of that era: motives and offender information were often scarce, over half of the city’s homicides involved people who knew each other, and a lack of witnesses and reliable evidence left many cases unsolved. Michael Revis’s death is described as part of this broader pattern of systemic violence that has left families and communities searching for answers. Anyone with information about Revis’s killing is asked to come forward.