On the night of June 15, 2023, Natalie Marie Classen, 30, was walking home with friends in Reading, Pennsylvania, when an argument erupted at 10th and Greenwich Streets after the two groups crossed paths. During the verbal confrontation, a young man identified as Henry Mendoza produced a Taurus 9mm semi-automatic pistol and fired one shot, striking Classen in the lower abdomen. She managed to flag down a taxi and was taken to Reading Hospital, but died from the wound while officers were still securing the scene.

Police quickly focused the investigation on Mendoza, who was nine days shy of his 18th birthday at the time. He was arrested and charged as an adult; the firearm used in the shooting was recovered the next day in the basement of Mendoza’s residence on Greenwich Street. The district attorney suggested Classen may have simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time, caught in a fatal encounter with another group.