Rhakishon Marquis Pedraza, a 29-year-old Black man, was fatally shot on the evening of September 8, 2017, in an alley between Union and Monroe Streets in Springfield, Massachusetts. The shooting was the city’s 12th homicide that year. A nearby school’s security camera reportedly captured the incident.

Investigators focused on Davon Kelly-Griffin. At trial Kelly-Griffin testified that he had gone to the alley to buy something from Pedraza, that Pedraza made a threatening statement and appeared to reach for a gun, and that Kelly-Griffin then drew his own firearm and fired rapidly. In February 2019 a Hampden County Superior Court jury found Davon Kelly-Griffin guilty of first-degree murder in Pedraza’s death; the Hampden District Attorney’s Office prosecuted the case and expressed sympathy for Pedraza’s family and friends.

Does anyone have additional details about Pedraza’s life in Springfield or the alleyway where he was killed?