Derrick Mack was a 46-year-old Black man described by his family as a kind outdoorsman and a painter who loved his family. He was the father of one son, Quindarius. On the evening of Sunday, January 7, 2024, a dispute between neighbors on Boyd Street in Canton, Mississippi, that family members say was over about $60 escalated to gunfire just after 7:30 p.m. Both Derrick and his 25-year-old son were shot.

Derrick managed to get inside his mother’s house, sat in her recliner, told her he had been shot and was gasping for air; he was taken to Merit Health in Canton and died of his injuries. Quindarius was transported to the University of Mississippi Medical Center with life-threatening injuries and later released. Canton’s first homicide of 2024 prompted a police investigation that initially named a neighbor, Micheal Morment, as a person of interest; Morment turned himself in for questioning. On January 10 authorities arrested 16-year-old Rantelvin Dajuan Richardson at school and also took his 34-year-old mother, Masheka Gibson, into custody; Richardson was charged with murder and aggravated assault, and Gibson was charged with accessory after the fact.

What can readers who knew Derrick or who were in the Boyd Street area that night add to the picture?