Robert Bob Wedel, 68, was working at a private birthday party at the Rose Event Center on South Main Street in Broken Arrow when gunfire erupted shortly after 10:45 p.m. on Saturday, January 16, 2021. The venue’s crowd of about a hundred people had been watching a heated confrontation near the dance floor that escalated into a physical altercation before shots were fired. Wedel was found with a gunshot wound to his torso, treated at the scene and rushed to a hospital, but he died a few hours later. Two women were also injured — one with a gunshot wound to the back and another struck by possible shrapnel — and several people scrambled for the exits as bullets flew.

Investigators linked the shooting to the earlier fight and focused on individuals believed to have brought guns into the melee. Within days, arrests were made: 21-year-old Ziare McDonald and 19-year-old Quinton Watson were booked on first-degree murder complaints on January 21, and on January 22 two more men, 19-year-old Tyler Smith and 20-year-old Larry Grumbles Jr., were taken into custody on related complaints. Detectives described Wedel as a random, innocent victim struck in the line of fire.

Did anyone at the Rose Event Center that night notice details that could clarify who fired or how the confrontation escalated?