On December 6, 2018, Dontae Rodruis Drew, an 18-year-old Black man, was driving along Dickerson Pike in Nashville when what police described as a targeted attack unfolded around the gray Nissan Maxima he was in. Witnesses told investigators that a white pickup truck began following the car and then erupted with gunfire, sending multiple shots into the Maxima as it moved near Briley Parkway.
Drew was struck and died at the scene, while the two passengers riding with him escaped without physical injury.
As detectives worked backward through Drew’s final minutes, reports described the encounter as more than a random drive-by. Investigators said Drew and two friends had met up with two men near the intersection of Dickerson Pike and Broadmoor Drive, and the meeting was connected to an attempted marijuana purchase. Police said the buyers used fake money, grabbed the marijuana, and quickly drove off; the sellers pursued in a pickup truck, caught the Maxima as it approached Briley Parkway, and opened fire into the car, killing the driver.
In the days that followed, the case turned into a public search. Police identified Demontez Johnson, 19, as a suspect and said Johnson was considered armed, urging anyone who spotted him—or knew where he was staying—to contact investigators. A murder warrant naming Johnson was released on December 18, 2018, and the search stretched on for months as the homicide investigation tracked the alleged seller who, police believed, had been in the pursuing pickup truck when the shots were fired.
The manhunt ended on April 15, 2019, when Johnson was arrested in Fayetteville, with reporting also placing the capture in Lincoln County. After months as a fugitive, Johnson was taken into custody and held in Metro Jail on a charge of criminal homicide, with reports noting a $1 million bond. The arrest marked a turning point, but it did not undo the suddenness of the violence that investigators said followed Drew’s car down Dickerson Pike and into the fatal stretch near Briley Parkway.
Later that year, prosecutors moved the case forward in court. Johnson was indicted by a grand jury on seven counts tied to the shooting: first-degree murder two counts of attempted first-degree murder two counts of employing a firearm during a dangerous felony, and two counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon—charges reflecting not only Drew’s death but the danger to the passengers who survived the barrage. Reporting at the time said Johnson was scheduled to be arraigned shortly after the indictment.
In the midst of the criminal case, Drew’s family prepared to say goodbye in ways that were both public and intimate: visitation services were announced for December 12, 2018, at Lewis & Wright Funeral Directors, followed by family visitation and a funeral on December 13 at Mt. Zion Baptist Church in Antioch. The arrangements, set just days after the shooting, reflected the abrupt pivot from an ordinary night on Nashville roads to a community gathering around a life cut short.
