On the evening of February 3, 2021, Braxton Cooper, a 22-year-old male, drove to the Berkshire Place Apartments located at 1500 Porter Road in Nashville, Tennessee. He was there with the intention of purchasing a handgun, an arrangement he had made through an online advertisement. Accompanying him was another individual. In the parking lot, they were met by the seller who entered the backseat of Cooper's vehicle to complete the transaction.
During the exchange, an altercation broke out,
and Cooper was fatally shot while sitting in the driver's seat of his car. Police responded to a call of shots fired at the apartment complex and discovered Cooper critically wounded. He was quickly transported to Skyline Medical Center, where he succumbed to his injuries and was pronounced dead. The individual who had been with Cooper initially left the scene but later returned and cooperated with detectives, providing an account of the events that transpired.
Homicide Unit detectives began an investigation into the fatal shooting, describing the suspect as a young Black man in his late teens or early twenties, approximately six feet tall with a slender build, and last seen wearing a black jacket with a fur hood.
The investigation, led by Detective Chris Dickerson, progressed over the following weeks. On March 10, 2021, detectives with the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department's Homicide Unit arrested 17-year-old Dewaun White in connection with the murder. White was taken into custody by TITANS detectives at his residence on Brookdale Drive. Following an interview with investigators, he was charged with the murder of Braxton Cooper and booked into juvenile detention.
