On the evening of September 16, 2024, law enforcement officers were dispatched to the Bootlegger Party Store, previously known as Vintage Pointe Liquor & Wine, located at 418 South Michigan Avenue in the Old Town district of Saginaw, Michigan. Inside the establishment, they discovered Romel Keyon Montgomery, a 29-year-old African American male resident of the city, suffering from multiple gunshot wounds. Investigation revealed that Montgomery was a customer at the store when a suspect entered, drew a handgun from a pocket, and fired upon him at close range while other witnesses were present.
Emergency medical personnel transported Montgomery to a local hospital for urgent treatment, but he succumbed to his injuries and was pronounced dead. The incident, captured on surveillance cameras, launched a homicide investigation that identified a teenager as the primary shooter. The suspect, Miguel M. Ramirez Jr., was sixteen years old at the time of the fatal shooting.
More than a year later, on December 16, 2025, Ramirez, now eighteen, appeared in Saginaw County Circuit Court. He pleaded no contest to charges of second-degree murder and felony firearm in connection with Montgomery's death. Prosecutors agreed to a sentencing cap that would limit Ramirez’s prison term to seventeen years. By entering a no-contest plea, Ramirez accepted the legal consequences without formally admitting guilt, ostensibly to mitigate potential civil liability.
