On the evening of July 17, 2016, 21-year-old Otavious Brown was fatally shot outside a residence on Logan Avenue in Waterloo, Iowa, when occupants of a passing SUV opened fire on a group of people. Two other men, Dewon Campbell and Aundrey Roberts Jr., were wounded in the same attack. Prosecutors later charged three people—Shavondes Martin, Doncorrion Spates, and Armand Rollins Jr.—alleging they were inside the vehicle when the shots were fired. The vehicle’s driver, Jacques Williamson, pleaded guilty to a lesser charge.

In February 2018 a jury found 17-year-old Doncorrion Spates guilty of murder, attempted murder and intimidation with a weapon. That jury acquitted 22-year-old Shavondes Martin of the same charges and later found 18-year-old Armand Rollins Jr. not guilty of murder and attempted murder.

Two years after Brown’s killing, Shavondes Martin was himself found shot to death in a Waterloo alley on May 31, 2018. Prosecutors described that slaying as a revenge killing; they alleged Martin had been lured there by his cousin Danaesha Martin at the direction of her ex-boyfriend, Raymond Birden Jr., who was Otavious Brown’s brother. If anyone has information about Otavious Brown, the shooting that killed him, or events that followed, please come forward.