Gerard Labbe, a 50-year-old white male, was a father and grandfather living in the Phoenix area whose life was closely intertwined with his extended family. Born on January 24, 1971, in Los Angeles, California, he is remembered in obituary and memorial notices as a much-loved son, brother, father, and grandfather. He left behind his father, Gerard Labbe II, his stepmother Shirlet McKinley, four sisters—Tracy Garrett, Wendy Labbe, Lourie Wagner, and JoLisa Nixon—three children, Heather,
Jessica, and Bradley Labbe, and two grandchildren, Donovan and Nyiema. Online tributes describe him as loyal and funny, someone whose absence is keenly felt by those who knew him.
On the night of May 19, 2021, Labbe was sitting in a white Cadillac sedan parked near the intersection of 22nd Avenue and Indian School Road in central Phoenix with his friend, 29-year-old Adrien Lopez, and two women in the back seat. It was around 10 p.m. when, according to police, another man approached the car on foot. Witnesses reported that the man walked up to the parked Cadillac and an argument began between him and the occupants inside the vehicle.
As the confrontation escalated, the man opened fire into the car at close range. Investigators later stated that the shooter fired multiple rounds into the front of the vehicle, including through the front passenger window where Lopez was seated. Both Lopez and Labbe were struck by the gunfire and suffered fatal wounds, while one of the women in the back seat was shot in the hand and the other woman was physically unharmed. The attack transformed what had been a routine evening in a parked car into a sudden, deadly ambush that left two families devastated.
Officers were called to the area around 10 p.m. after reports of shots fired and found two men and two women in the Cadillac. Both male victims had been critically wounded and did not survive their injuries, while the injured woman’s gunshot wound to her hand was described as non–life-threatening, and the second woman was evaluated but not reported as physically injured. In the days that followed, the intersection of 22nd Avenue and Indian School Road became a reference point in local news coverage, noted as the scene where the two friends were killed inside their car.
Detectives quickly began piecing together what had happened by interviewing witnesses and reviewing surveillance camera footage from the area. Court and media reports indicate that security cameras captured the confrontation, showing a man approaching the parked Cadillac and then being present during the gunfire. Phoenix police later identified the suspect as 25-year-old Javier Urueta and said he was known to the victims and had been involved in an earlier argument with them before the shooting. According to investigators, he is accused of walking up to the vehicle, arguing with the group, and then firing several shots into the car before fleeing on foot.
On June 7, 2021, Phoenix police arrested Urueta in connection with the attack. Police and media accounts report that during questioning he allegedly admitted to being the person seen in surveillance images near the scene that night and acknowledged being in the area to buy and use drugs, but he denied having a gun or carrying out the shooting itself. Despite his denial, detectives recommended serious charges, including two counts of first-degree murder tied to the deaths of Labbe and Lopez, and his bond was set at $2 million while the case moved into the court system. Public homicide databases now mark Labbe’s case as solved based on this arrest, though available open-source records do not detail the final outcome of any subsequent trial.
For Labbe’s family, the legal steps could not erase the emotional impact of the loss. A fundraiser organized shortly after his death by his daughter described the family’s urgent need to pay for memorial services for “our father who was fatally shot & killed on May 19, 2021,” noting that he left behind three children, his father—who was facing health issues—and three sisters. Obituaries and online memorial pages, accompanied by photos of him smiling in casual clothes and Raiders gear, emphasize how deeply he is loved and missed, reflecting a man whose life, though ended violently in Phoenix, continues to resonate in the memories of his family and friends.
