In the winter of 2022, the life of a Des Moines teenager was cut short, an event that would ripple through the community and tragically connect to another violent incident weeks later. Trevontay Lee Jenkins, a 16-year-old Black male, died on December 26, 2022, after being shot by Des Moines police officers. The officers were responding to a domestic dispute call. According to police, when they arrived, Jenkins was armed and ran from them.
Authorities stated that when officers confronted him, he pointed the gun in their direction, prompting three officers to fire their weapons after giving numerous commands to drop the gun. The Iowa Attorney General's office later determined the officers' actions were legally justified.
However, the family of Trevontay Jenkins has contested the official account of his death. His mother, Monica Woods, filed a federal lawsuit against the Des Moines Police Department, asserting that her son never pointed a gun at the officers. The lawsuit, which is partly based on body camera footage that has not been publicly released, argues for better de-escalation training for officers. The family's legal action claims that while Jenkins was holding a gun, he did not aim it at the officers before they fired more than a dozen shots. The lawsuit also revealed that during the confrontation, Jenkins had made comments about a brother who had been killed the month before and had expressed a desire to die.
The tragedy of Trevontay Jenkins' death was compounded by another fatal shooting that prosecutors say was a direct result of online comments made after his passing. Disparaging remarks about Jenkins that surfaced on the internet allegedly motivated his half-brother, Bravon Tukes, and another teenager, Preston Walls, to carry out a shooting on January 23 at the Starts Right Here alternative school in Des Moines. That incident resulted in the deaths of 16-year-old Rashad Carr and 18-year-old Gionni Dameron. In connection with the school shooting, Preston Walls was convicted of murder and manslaughter, while Bravon Tukes was acquitted of a murder charge that accused him of helping to plan the attack and acting as the getaway driver.
