Daveon Smith was shot and killed in the early hours of August 13, 2024, while at a birthday party in Lawton, Oklahoma. A 24-year-old Black man known to some as Dab, he was found in the front seat of a parked car on Northwest 29th Street with multiple gunshot wounds. First responders took him to a local hospital, where he later died; his death was the city’s tenth homicide of the year.

Investigators recovered eleven spent casings at the scene and the medical examiner found five rounds in Smith. The Lawton Police Department identified three men connected to the shooting: Michael Ramone Epps, who appeared on home security video; Dejean Shannon of Kennedale, Texas, placed at the scene by data from a court-ordered ankle monitor; and Michael McKenzie, who was accused of helping the others avoid arrest. Charges were filed against all three, including first-degree murder and using a vehicle to discharge a weapon for Epps and Shannon, and accessory after the fact for McKenzie.

Shannon was tried in April 2026; a jury acquitted him of murder and assault with a dangerous weapon but convicted him of using a vehicle in the discharge of a weapon and a separate gang-related offense, with the jury recommending 25 years and five years respectively. Anyone with information about Smith or the shooting is asked to come forward.