Charles Coleman Jr., a 32-year-old Black man from Memphis, Tennessee, died on January 21, 2017, after gunfire tore through a Westwood neighborhood street in the middle of the afternoon. Online memorial and obituary records for the death list his name as Charles Coleman Jr. and place the loss in Memphis on that date, marking a life ended suddenly and publicly, with the kind of finality that turns an ordinary day into a before-and-after for everyone nearby.
Investigators later described the shooting as a drive-by attack near 521 Delta Road. The account provided in public documents says several men in a passing vehicle unleashed more than 30 shots, striking four people. Coleman was pronounced dead at the scene. Another victim, Joe Lobbins, was taken to a hospital and later died, while two others were injured. The volley was so heavy that it endangered people who weren't even the intended targets—neighbors and passersby caught in the open while the street erupted.
As the case was discussed publicly in the weeks that followed, authorities framed it in the language of an ongoing feud: investigators said the drive-by was the result of a gang conflict involving the Bloods and the Crips. The same public document described the surrounding area as one where gangs were prevalent, and it emphasized that the double killing remained under investigation at that time. In the sources available, no suspect names were released and no homicide arrests were reported for Coleman's killing.
In the aftermath, law enforcement pressure in the neighborhood focused on the ecosystem that can feed violence as much as the violence itself. A nearby residence at 477 Delta Road was shut down as a public nuisance, and its occupant, Charlie “Loddie” Miller, was arrested on drug charges after an investigation that alleged illegal drug sales from the home; court dates were scheduled in connection with that drug case. The public record describing that arrest did not identify Miller as a suspect in the January 21 killings, and it separately noted that the drive-by case remained under investigation.
