On the evening of April 20, 2023, in Hartford, Connecticut, 12-year-old SeCret Pierce, a Black female, was a passenger in a parked car when she was tragically struck by gunfire. The seventh-grader at Milner Middle School was caught in the crossfire of a drive-by shooting and was hit in the head. She was rushed to a nearby hospital in critical condition and succumbed to her injuries the following morning.
Authorities believe the shooters, who were in a speeding vehicle, targeted three
males standing on the sidewalk. Those three individuals, ages 16, 18, and 23, were wounded in the attack but were expected to survive. Police described SeCret as an innocent bystander who was tragically in the wrong place at the wrong time. The incident was captured on surveillance video, though the footage was described as grainy.
In the aftermath of the shooting, Hartford police arrested two of the wounded individuals. Eighteen-year-old Jeremy Francis was charged with unlawful discharge of a firearm, carrying a pistol without a permit, risk of injury to a minor, and first-degree reckless endangerment. Police allege that after being shot, Francis returned fire at the fleeing vehicle. A 16-year-old who was also wounded was arrested for violating his house arrest conditions, as he was on probation for prior firearm charges at the time of the shooting. The individuals in the car who fired the initial shots that killed SeCret have not been publicly identified or apprehended.
The tragedy of SeCret's death was compounded by the fact that her father, Shane Oliver, was also a victim of gun violence, having been shot and killed nearly 11 years prior when SeCret was just two years old. Her death sparked outrage and grief within the Hartford community, leading to vigils and calls for an end to gun violence.
