Brock Cambell, a 37-year-old Black man from Maybeury in McDowell County, was fatally wounded in a shooting connected to Jay Jay’s Bar/Lounge on Coal Heritage Road in Bluefield, West Virginia. In the early morning hours of September 14, 2024, gunfire erupted outside the establishment after the business had closed. Authorities said the shooting occurred in the parking lot at 1188 Coal Heritage Road sometime before 3:45 a.m. Cambell was struck multiple times by gunfire. The Bluefield Police Department and Mercer County Sheriff’s Department became involved after responding to the WVU Emergency Room in Bluefield, where they learned that the shooting had occurred at Jay Jay’s.
Cambell was initially listed in critical condition as medical personnel treated the numerous gunshot wounds. He was subsequently transferred from Bluefield to Roanoke Carilion Hospital for further treatment. Although September 14 was the date of the shooting, available reporting does not establish that he died that same day. The Mercer County Sheriff’s Department announced on September 23 that Cambell had succumbed to his injuries, and contemporary news coverage described his death as occurring after the transfer to Roanoke.
What happened in the parking lot before the shots were fired has remained largely unexplained publicly. Authorities did not release an account identifying an argument, confrontation, robbery, or other motive leading up to the gunfire, nor did the initial reports describe how many people may have been involved. The sheriff’s department treated the incident as an active investigation and asked anyone who had information about the shooting to contact investigators. Lt. S.A. Sommers of the Mercer County Sheriff’s Department was specifically identified as the investigator to whom information could be provided.
No suspect was publicly named in the available law-enforcement releases or subsequent credible news reporting located for the case. Likewise, no arrest, criminal charge, indictment, trial, guilty plea, or conviction connected to Cambell’s killing was reported in the available coverage. The September 23 reporting continued to describe the investigation as ongoing after his death, with investigators still appealing to the public for information rather than announcing that a shooter had been identified or taken into custody.
The case therefore remained centered on the unexplained late-night shooting outside Jay Jay’s: Cambell was shot repeatedly in the parking lot shortly before 3:45 a.m., reached medical care alive but critically injured, was transferred to a Roanoke hospital, and later died from the wounds. Publicly available reporting leaves unanswered who fired the shots, what precipitated the violence, and whether investigators ultimately developed a specific person of interest. Despite the fatal outcome, no publicly reported arrest or prosecution tied to the shooting was located.
