Devante Jones, a 23-year-old Black male and Wayne County Sheriff’s deputy assigned to the jail division, was shot and killed in the early morning hours of September 20, 2021. He had finished his shift the night before and was off-duty when, at about 4:15 a.m., he drove to the Diggs Projects on East Forest Avenue near the Chrysler Service Drive to drop off a passenger. While sitting in his vehicle multiple gunmen opened fire, riddling the car with bullets. Jones fled the vehicle after being struck and suffered severe gunshot wounds; he was privately transported to Detroit Receiving Hospital and pronounced dead shortly after arrival.

Investigators say the shooting was not random. Homicide detectives found that Jones had exchanged text messages with one of the suspects minutes before the ambush. That finding formed part of a multi-agency investigation that included the Detroit Police Department and the FBI and led to coordinated search warrants in October 2021 in Michigan, Georgia, and Ohio, with multiple firearms seized and several people taken into custody. Four men initially were charged in connection with the killing.

Who knew Devante, where he spent time, or has information about the events that night?