A routine request about a dog turned deadly for 30-year-old Emuel Hardy on May 28, 2022, in Wichita, Kansas. Hardy, who had recently moved to Wichita to be near his mother, and his girlfriend asked a man later identified as Roger Gale Jr. to clean up after his dog. After leaving in the girlfriend’s car they were followed in a Chevy Tahoe to an apartment complex in the 4900 block of East Harry.

Witnesses say that after the vehicles stopped, Gale and Hardy’s girlfriend argued, then Gale produced a gun and used racial slurs. When Hardy stepped out of the car he pushed his girlfriend out of the line of fire and was struck multiple times. He was taken to Wesley Medical Center, where he later died. Police located the abandoned Tahoe and recovered a loaded revolver at a residence; Roger Gale Jr. was arrested and charged with first-degree murder.

What details about that evening or about Emuel Hardy’s life in Wichita might help explain how a dispute over a dog escalated into a fatal, racially charged attack?