On the evening of December 1, 2019, in Richmond’s Mosby Court neighborhood, 17-year-old J-mari R. Saunders was fatally shot. Officers responded around 7:02 p.m. to reports of a shooting in the 2000 block of Accommodation Street and found the teenager with a gunshot wound. He was taken to a local hospital with life-threatening injuries and died several hours later.

Friends and family remembered J-mari as a funny, cool young man who wanted to become a U.S. Marine. Investigators determined he was an innocent victim caught in crossfire during gang-related violence; the person identified in connection with the shooting was a teenage gang member named Travis Thomas. J-mari’s mother described her devastation over her son’s death and called the defendant remorseless.

If anyone in Richmond’s Mosby Court area has information about that night or J-mari’s life, please share what you know.