On the afternoon of July 1, 2020, 30-year-old Steven Cordell Rice was shot near 15th Avenue and Cleveland Street in Gary, Indiana. The shooting happened about 3:10 p.m.; Rice was taken to Methodist Hospital Northlake by private vehicle and died roughly 40 minutes after arrival. The Lake County Coroner’s Office ruled his death a homicide. His killing was one of two fatal shootings in the city that day.

Steven Rice was the son of a Gary police sergeant and the brother of Kerry Rice Jr. The family had been devastated nearly a year earlier when Kerry Rice Jr., 32, and another man, Aaron Scott, were killed in a September 2019 shooting that also wounded Steven. Investigators described the 2020 slaying as a separate incident but tied it to the ongoing efforts to resolve the 2019 attack. On July 21, 2020, federal marshals arrested 35-year-old Michael Sherrod Smith in Oakland, California; he was wanted in connection with the 2019 double homicide and the attempted murder of Steven Rice.

Did anyone in Gary have information about Steven Rice’s movements or who he was with on July 1, 2020?