In a tragic turn of events that stemmed from a prior altercation, 15-year-old James Tyrese 'Tee' LaShawn Townsend, a male student at Mae C. Jemison High School in Huntsville, Alabama, was fatally shot in March 2017. The incident occurred inside a Taco Bell on North Memorial Parkway on a Sunday night. Townsend was waiting in line when an individual approached him, pulled out a gun, and shot him before fleeing the scene.
Townsend was transported to a local hospital in serious condition with gunshot wounds and ultimately succumbed to his injuries on Thursday, March 23, 2017. The shooting was not a random act of violence but rather an apparent retaliation for a previous incident. Investigators believe the motive was connected to a shooting that had occurred in August 2015, in which the suspect in Townsend's death had been the victim, and Townsend had been charged with first-degree assault.
Shortly after the shooting at the Taco Bell, 19-year-old Donovan Little of Huntsville turned himself in to the Huntsville Police Department. Following Townsend's death, the charges against Little were upgraded from attempted murder to murder. Little was subsequently held in the Madison County Jail.
