In the autumn of 2011, the life of 17-year-old Devearl Singletary Jr. was tragically cut short on a Monday night in Baltimore, Maryland. A Black male and a student at the Augusta Fells Savage Institute for Visual Arts, he was gunned down around 10 p.m. on October 10th in the 1400 block of Kuper Place. The shooting occurred just steps from his own front door, a place that should have been a sanctuary.
Wounded, Devearl managed to make his way around the corner to the 200 block of South Calhoun Street, where he knocked on a door seeking help. The resident inside promptly called the police. Emergency services arrived and transported the teenager to a local shock trauma center, but his injuries proved to be fatal. His death marked the second time in a month that a student from his high school had been killed, shaking the school community and his loved ones to their core. His family, still grieving the loss of his grandmother earlier that same year, was plunged into another profound tragedy.
In the immediate aftermath of the shooting, a neighbor reported seeing two young individuals fleeing the scene, but their identities remained unknown. The Baltimore police investigated the homicide, but at the time, they had no suspects. Despite the passage of time, publically available information and news reports have not indicated that any arrests have been made or that any suspects have been officially identified in the killing of Devearl Singletary Jr. The case, filled with the sorrow of a promising life extinguished too soon, remains without a resolution, leaving a family to grapple with an unanswered question of who was responsible for their loss.
