Xavier Patrick McCollough was a 28-year-old Black man from Topeka who died on July 23, 2016, after a shooting and a subsequent vehicle crash into an apartment building. First responders found McCollough unresponsive alone in his vehicle; he was taken to a hospital and pronounced dead. Police concluded the wreck followed gunfire rather than being an ordinary traffic accident.

Investigators and prosecutors said McCollough had been drawn to a parking lot where people he knew were waiting. Authorities arrested Shane Edward Sibert on July 25 and Use David Laeli Jr. and Joseph G. Cooney the next day; prosecutors charged all three with premeditated first-degree murder by August. A judge later ordered Laeli and Cooney to stand trial on felony first-degree murder; prosecutors also accused Laeli of directing someone to dispose of the pistol used in the shooting. In October 2017 Laeli pleaded guilty to reduced charges of reckless involuntary manslaughter and admitted to an unrelated drug offense.