On a summer night in Baltimore, a promising young life was tragically cut short. Fifteen-year-old Deshaun Jones, a male, was killed on August 24, 2013, in a burst of gunfire that erupted in West Baltimore. The incident, which occurred around 9:15 p.m. in the 1500 block of W. Fayette Street, also left six other people wounded, marking it as the city's largest mass shooting since 2009.
Police believe the violence stemmed from an illegal dice game.
When officers arrived at the scene, they found Deshaun with a gunshot wound to the head. He was rushed to a local hospital where he was pronounced dead. It remains unconfirmed whether he was a participant in the dice game or an innocent bystander caught in the crossfire. Friends and family described him as not being involved in the game, but rather sitting on nearby stairs when the shooting began.
Deshaun was on the cusp of a new chapter in his life, scheduled to begin his freshman year at Frederick Douglass High School just two days after he was killed. Known by the moniker 'Lor D'shaun,' he was a budding rap artist with a passion for music, a talent his teachers and peers recognized. His mother, Shanika Harris, remembered him as a positive force who dreamed of using his music to build a better life for his family. Tragically, violence had already touched his life before his birth; his father was also shot and killed while his mother was pregnant with him.
In the wake of the shooting, Baltimore's then-Police Commissioner Anthony Batts and Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake condemned the violence, urging the community to come forward with information. Deshaun's mother made a public plea for witnesses to speak up and help bring her son's killer to justice. Despite these appeals and an ongoing police investigation, no arrests have ever been announced in the case. The gunman, or gunmen, responsible for the death of Deshaun Jones and the wounding of six others has never been publicly identified.
