Garion X. Johnson was 19 when he was killed in Omaha on August 8, 2015. The fatal shooting was the climax of a targeted campaign that began three days earlier when someone opened fire on him while he sat in a car on Pinkney Street; he escaped on foot as the shooter chased him. A witness to that first attack, Deprecia Neelon, was murdered outside her home on August 6, and investigators believed she was killed to silence her.

On August 8 Johnson was ambushed in his white Chevy Impala near his home on Fontenelle Boulevard. Two people in black hooded sweatshirts fired into the driver’s side; Johnson sustained seven gunshot wounds, lost control of the car and died after it crashed into a garage. Ballistics linked shell casings from all three shootings to the same .45-caliber handgun. A .357 Magnum revolver produced projectiles recovered from Johnson’s body and bore Preston Pope’s palmprint. Both Pope and Marcus Short were charged with first-degree murder in the deaths of Johnson and Neelon.

Pope was convicted by a jury of both murders and received two life sentences; his convictions were upheld by the Nebraska Supreme Court. Short’s first trial ended in mistrial in May 2018; he was later retried and convicted in February 2019 for Johnson’s murder but acquitted in Neelon’s killing.

Did anyone in Omaha have information about Johnson’s movements or the shootings in early August 2015?