Chonce R. Acey, age 28, male, was shot on January 10, 2016, outside the C-Town Market in Allentown, Pennsylvania. Online reports described him as an Easton resident, and authorities said he was found along the road or in the parking lot area near the grocery store after the shooting. He was taken to a hospital, where he died from his injuries. The killing was reported as Allentown's first homicide of 2016.
Investigators said the shooting grew out of a drug transaction that went wrong.
Surveillance video captured the encounter, and prosecutors later described the fatal confrontation as tied to a botched deal and a fight. The public details suggest a sudden escalation outside the market, turning what began as a street-level exchange into gunfire that left Acey dead and brought attempted-homicide allegations involving another victim or intended victim.
Within days, authorities identified Ulric Daron McKenzie as the suspect. McKenzie was charged with criminal homicide, attempted criminal homicide, and a firearms offense in connection with Acey's death. Prosecutors said he was apprehended by U.S. marshals in the Bronx, New York, on January 15, 2016, after being sought in the killing. He was then brought back into the criminal process in Lehigh County to face the charges.
Reports also noted that Acey had been connected to other criminal matters before his death, but authorities publicly said they had no evidence that those cases were the reason he was killed. One report said he had been charged in a sexual-assault case connected to a 2009 assault, though prosecutors said he was also a witness in that matter. Another report said he had connections to a gang-related 2007 triple homicide, but again, officials did not link those older matters to the January 2016 shooting.
The available online reporting establishes McKenzie's arrest and the charges filed against him, but the sources reviewed did not clearly document a final trial result or conviction in Acey's killing. The case, as publicly reported, began with a shooting outside a neighborhood market, moved quickly to an arrest in New York, and centered on prosecutors' allegation that a failed drug transaction and fight led to Acey's death.
