In the summer of 2015, a violent encounter at a north Tulsa car wash claimed the life of 28-year-old Elon Shaw. On the evening of July 2nd, Shaw was sitting in a vehicle with a friend at the Suds N Go, located near Apache Street and Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, when an assailant approached and opened fire. In a desperate attempt to escape the gunfire, Shaw fled on foot towards a nearby gas station but ultimately collapsed from his injuries.
He was rushed to a local hospital where he was pronounced dead. His friend, who was also in the car at the time of the shooting, was not harmed in the incident.
The investigation into Shaw's death quickly pointed towards a larger, more complex issue plaguing the city: a long-standing and violent feud between rival gangs. Police officials publicly stated their belief that Shaw's murder was not a random act of violence, but rather another casualty in an ongoing war between several local gangs. This conflict, which had its roots in a homicide that occurred years prior, had already resulted in numerous shootings and at least one other death. In the wake of Shaw's killing, the Tulsa Police Department's Gang Unit executed at least 13 search warrants and recovered a number of firearms in connection with the escalating violence.
Despite the police department's assertions about the motive behind the shooting, no arrests were immediately made in Elon Shaw's case. A friend of Shaw's suggested to homicide detectives that he, not Shaw, may have been the intended target of the shooting. While investigators explored this possibility, the suspect in the shooting managed to evade capture, disappearing into a nearby neighborhood after the attack. As of several months after the incident, the case remained unsolved, with no charges filed and no suspects publicly identified, leaving a grieving family and a community on edge.
