Demetrius Antwan Davis

Demetrius Antwan Davis Jr., a 25-year-old Black male who once played football for the University of Alabama at Birmingham, was fatally shot on the evening of Sunday, March 26, 2023. The incident occurred around 6 p.m. at a Circle K convenience store on Tallapoosa Street in Birmingham, Alabama. Davis was at a gas pump when the attack began.

Police were dispatched to the business on a report of a person shot. When they arrived, they found Davis unresponsive in the parking lot with the gas nozzle still in his vehicle's tank. Birmingham Fire and Rescue Service personnel were called to the scene and pronounced him dead.

Investigators quickly determined that the shooting was not a random act of violence, but a targeted ambush. Police stated that a suspect approached Davis and opened fire, and evidence at the scene suggested that Davis may have returned fire during the attack. The motive was believed to be retaliation for a previous incident in which a family member of the suspect had been shot. Davis's death was one of eight homicides recorded in the city of Birmingham in just eight days.

The day after the killing, the Birmingham Police Department arrested 51-year-old Byron Dedric Steele. The Jefferson County District Attorney’s Office subsequently issued a warrant charging Steele with capital murder. He was booked into jail to be held without bond. The case progressed when, in March 2024, a Jefferson County grand jury formally indicted Byron Dedric Steele on the capital murder charge.

Tragically, this was not the first time the Davis family had experienced such a loss. Nearly five years earlier, on a Sunday in October 2018, Demetrius's father, Demetrius Antwan Davis Sr., was also shot and killed at a gas station in the western part of the city. His father's murder, which was also considered a targeted attack, remains unsolved.