Scott Hawkins Jr., age 22, male, was gravely wounded in the predawn hours of Saturday, July 5, 2025, when gunfire erupted around the Shoppes at Buckeye near East 115th Street and Buckeye Road in Cleveland. Police described a “large, chaotic” car meetup with more than 100 vehicles when ShotSpotter alerts and 911 calls drew officers to the scene at about 4:15 a.m.
As officers began clearing the crowd, they discovered a 22-year-old male with multiple gunshot wounds; several others between 18 and 21 later arrived at hospitals with injuries. Detectives recovered shell casings from various caliber weapons, two guns hidden in nearby bushes, and towed a vehicle from a hospital that contained additional firearms.
Scott Hawkins Jr., age 22, male, succumbed to his injuries on July 9, 2025, in Cleveland. His death is memorialized in public victim records listing his name, age, and city with the date of loss, aligning with the timeline of the Buckeye Plaza shooting four days earlier.
In the days following, officials said the investigation remained active, with no arrests immediately announced. Police leadership publicly noted that officers had yet to identify or apprehend a suspect and urged anyone with information to come forward, while local outlets reiterated that detectives were still piecing together what happened across a sprawling crime scene that stretched for blocks. As of those updates, authorities had not publicly named a suspect or described a motive connected to the killing of Scott Hawkins Jr., age 22, male.
Scott Hawkins Jr., age 22, male, is remembered among the roll of Cleveland residents lost to gun violence in 2025, a year marked by multiple high-profile shootings that taxed investigators and traumatized neighborhoods. The Buckeye Plaza case—its surge of fleeing vehicles, the cache of recovered firearms, and the absence of swift arrests—left a lingering sense of unease, with detectives appealing for tips as they worked to identify who fired the shots that ended the life of Scott Hawkins Jr., age 22, male, on July 9, 2025.
