Devonte Rashawn Coppage, 22, was fatally shot on January 3, 2014, in Saint Paul while attempting to buy marijuana outside a gas station at White Bear and Maryland avenues. He was a college student and father of a young son. According to a criminal complaint, Coppage had arranged the purchase by phone and went to the meeting with his brother; Coppage entered the back seat of a car that already held three young men while his brother waited nearby. Moments later multiple gunshots were heard and Coppage was found lying in the parking lot.

Ramsey County charged 18-year-old Antonio Ray Seals with unintentional second-degree murder. Seals was also wounded, sustaining a gunshot to his arm; a homicide investigator concluded that the bullet in Seals’ arm indicated he had shot himself. Police recovered a .22-caliber handgun, two sandwich baggies with 24.7 grams of marijuana, blood evidence, and later recovered a .38-caliber handgun believed to have fired the bullet that hit Seals. Two other men, 21-year-olds Alfonso Ray Seals and Derrick Anthony Parker, were arrested after arriving at Regions Hospital. Coppage had reportedly shown his brother a handgun on New Year’s Eve but left it with someone else before the shooting.

If anyone knew Devonte Coppage or has information about what happened that night, please come forward.