Jaquarrie Garrett, a 22-year-old male, traveled from his home in Georgia to Grand Rapids, Michigan, in early March 2023. He had returned to the area to celebrate a joyous occasion: his son's first birthday. The celebration was being held at the Delta Hotel on 28th Street SE in Kentwood, a suburb of Grand Rapids, where family had rented rooms and were enjoying the hotel's pool area. However, the happy event took a tragic turn on the evening of March 4, 2023.
As Garrett was walking from the pool to one of the hotel rooms, he was ambushed in a second-story hallway and shot multiple times. An autopsy would later reveal he had been shot five times, with wounds to his pelvis, back, and shoulder.
The investigation into the homicide quickly pointed to gang-related violence. Before the shooting, a gang-affiliated social media account had been making threats towards Garrett. Surveillance footage from the hotel captured a suspect in a ski mask leaving the lobby shortly after the gunshots rang out. The man seen in the video was identified as Ateivise Jaquez Smith, who was 21 at the time. Authorities alleged that Smith was associated with a local gang. The case against him was solidified in May 2023 during an unrelated incident where Grand Rapids police were pursuing him. During the chase, Smith dropped a. 40 caliber Glock 23 handgun. Ballistic testing by the Michigan State Police crime lab linked this firearm to the six shell casings recovered from the hotel hallway where Garrett was killed. Smith was later arrested in Chicago and extradited to Kent County to face charges.
Ateivise Jaquez Smith was charged with open murder, gang membership, and a felony firearm charge. In a turn of events, Smith accepted a plea deal. In Kent County Circuit Court, he pleaded guilty to second-degree murder. The court sentenced him to 13 to 40 years in the Michigan Department of Corrections for the murder, with an additional two years for the felony firearm conviction. During the sentencing, Jaquarrie Garrett's mother and sister addressed the court, expressing their profound grief and their disappointment with the length of the sentence. His mother, Lasayethia Garrett, lamented that the court's decision seemed to value her son's life at only thirteen years, and spoke of the pain of him being killed in his hometown after moving away to create a better life for his child.
