Zachary Hawthorn was a 55-year-old Black man living in Phoenix, Arizona, whose path through life had taken him from Memphis, Tennessee, to military service and years of hard work before retirement. In memories shared by those who knew him, his name sometimes appears as Hawthorne, a reminder of how people’s stories are preserved in fragments across different records.
Loved ones describe a devoted father and grandfather who had one daughter named RaSheena and three grandchildren, a man who once served in the Army National Guard and later worked in warehouses until health problems forced him to stop. He was remembered as caring and dependable, having graduated from Melrose High School in Memphis before building a life that ultimately led him to Arizona.
In the early morning hours of Sunday, October 31, 2021, Halloween night in Phoenix, the quiet near downtown was shattered by gunfire. Around 2:00 a.m., police were called to the area near Ninth Avenue and Jackson Street, close to the heart of the city. Officers arrived to find Hawthorn lying in the roadway near 316 South 9th Avenue, suffering from at least one gunshot wound. He was rushed to a nearby hospital, but despite efforts to save him, he was pronounced dead a short time later, and the case was immediately treated as a homicide.
In the first days after the shooting, investigators had no clear answers about who had opened fire or why. A Silent Witness flyer was issued naming “Victim Zachary Hawthorne,” giving his age and the exact address where he was found, and offering a reward of up to $2,000 for information leading to an arrest or indictment. The flyer listed the suspect only as “Unknown,” underscoring how little was certain beyond the stark facts that he had been shot in the street and did not survive. Community-focused memorial sites soon added his name to the long roll of people lost to gun violence, inviting friends and family to share tributes and light virtual candles in his honor. On one such memorial page, contributors wrote brief, heartfelt notes describing him as a great person who cared deeply and highlighting his role as a father, grandfather, and veteran.
Within a few days, the investigation moved forward in a decisive way. By November 3, 2021, Phoenix police publicly identified a suspect: 56-year-old Anthony Dickerson. According to police statements reported in local news coverage, Dickerson was arrested and booked into jail on suspicion of second-degree murder in connection with the shooting that took Hawthorn’s life, along with other felony charges related to the case. Detectives at the time continued working to determine what had led up to the confrontation near Ninth Avenue and Jackson, but available public reporting does not spell out a clear motive or describe a full narrative of the moments before the shots were fired. Nor do widely accessible records detail the final outcome of the court proceedings, leaving the later chapters of the legal case largely outside the public view, even as Hawthorn’s family and community continue to live with the loss marked by that Halloween night in Phoenix.
