Demonte Ricks, 17, a male Black / African American from the Butner–Stem community of Granville County, North Carolina, was shot on the evening of May 19, 2025, in a drive-by attack near Little Pond Road outside the small town of Stem. Deputies were dispatched at about 8:28 p.m. and arrived to find neighbors and bystanders attempting lifesaving measures before EMS took over; despite those efforts, Demonte Ricks, 17, male, was pronounced dead from gunshot wounds at the scene.
The Gun Violence Archive and regional memorial listings mark the date and place of the killing, tracing it to that Monday night on Little Pond Road.
Within days, investigators with the Granville County Sheriff’s Office identified a suspect vehicle and the people believed to have been inside during the shooting. According to the sheriff’s office, their preliminary investigation determined that 19-year-old Jose Antonio Flores-Rodrigues fired multiple rounds from a car and struck Demonte Ricks, 17, male, before fleeing. Detectives also concluded that the parties knew one another, a detail that shaped the early picture of motive while authorities continued to gather evidence.
Two arrests followed. Flores-Rodrigues and one juvenile who was allegedly in the car with him were taken into custody without incident in Duplin County around 8:53 a.m. on Wednesday after the shooting. Both were charged with murder; the juvenile, according to the sheriff’s office, was charged as an adult. Agencies credited with assisting included the Stem Police Department, Granville County EMS, the U.S. Marshals Service, the Durham County Sheriff’s Office, the Duplin County Sheriff’s Office, and the local school system, reflecting a multi-agency effort to quickly locate the suspects tied to the killing of Demonte Ricks, 17, male.
Public records and memorial posts that followed captured the shock to the community. A GoFundMe organized on behalf of the family described Demonte Ricks, 17, male, as an “amazing kid” and honor-roll student, and the national Gun Violence Memorial listed him among those lost to gunfire on May 19, 2025, in Stem. Those accounts underscored the immediate human toll even as the criminal case moved forward against the arrested suspects.
As of the latest updates available from local reporting, the investigation remained active after the arrests, with authorities seeking any additional footage or information related to the shooting that claimed the life of Demonte Ricks, 17, male, on May 19, 2025, near Little Pond Road in Stem, North Carolina.
