On the night of October 18, 2021, Deonta Sewayne Pickett, 40, a Black man, was killed in Birmingham, Alabama after gunfire erupted near an apartment complex in the Kingston area. Just after 10 p.m., alerts from a gunshot-detection system drew South Precinct officers to the 1300 block of 44th Street North, where the sound of shots had been reported in quick succession.
When police arrived, they found Pickett slumped over in the driver’s seat of a vehicle parked in the complex’s lot.
He had been struck by at least one gunshot and was unresponsive. Birmingham Fire and Rescue personnel came to the scene and pronounced him dead there, leaving the vehicle where it sat and turning the parking area into a sealed-off crime scene as investigators began documenting what they could in the immediate aftermath.
Early official information about what led up to the shooting was scarce. Police indicated that details were limited while the investigation was still in its preliminary stages, with detectives working through witness interviews and evidence collection. In the days surrounding the homicide, authorities continued asking anyone who knew what happened—or who saw or heard anything unusual around the complex that night—to come forward, emphasizing that tips could be provided through the homicide unit or through Crime Stoppers.
As of the publicly available reporting and summary records that later cataloged Birmingham’s 2021 killings, no suspect or suspects were identified in connection with Pickett’s death, and no arrests were listed for the case. The killing was recorded among the city’s homicide investigations for that year, but the trail of publicly released case updates did not reflect charges, court proceedings, or a named person being taken into custody for the shooting.
