In the early evening of a Thursday in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, the life of Michael Gene Hodges Jr., a 29-year-old Black or African American male, was cut short. On October 12, 2023, inside his own Volkswagen Jetta in the 2000 block of Wiley Boulevard Southwest, Hodges was fatally shot. Police responded to a call around 5:09 p.m. and discovered his body, marked by five gunshot wounds to his hip, torso, neck, and arm.
The scene painted a grim picture of a life ended abruptly and violently.
The investigation into the shooting quickly led to a suspect. Darnell Rashaun Bays, 28, turned himself into the Cedar Rapids Police Department in the early hours of the following morning. According to a criminal complaint, Bays had arranged to meet with Hodges with the intention of purchasing marijuana. Surveillance footage from the area captured a person getting out of an SUV, entering Hodges' vehicle where the shooting occurred, and then returning to the SUV which then departed the scene. In his initial statement to police, Bays admitted to being inside Hodges' car and shooting him.
However, Bays' account of the events leading up to the shooting presented some inconsistencies. He told a cousin that he was going to buy marijuana from Hodges, but later informed police that his purpose was to deliver marijuana to him. Following his confession, Darnell Bays was charged with first-degree murder, intimidation with a dangerous weapon, going armed with intent, and being a felon in possession of a firearm. At the time of this incident, Bays was already facing a separate charge from January for assault with intent to commit sexual abuse.
This was not Michael Hodges Jr.'s first encounter with gun violence. In 2018, he had been involved in a shooting outside a downtown Cedar Rapids pub. In that instance, an attempted murder charge against him was ultimately dropped after it was determined he had acted in self-defense. More recently, Hodges had been released from federal prison earlier in 2023 after serving a three-year sentence for being a drug user in possession of a firearm and was on supervised release at the time of his death.
