In the first hours of New Year's Day 2020, the life of Josiah Woods, a 14-year-old Black / African American male, was cut short by gunfire in Des Moines, Iowa. Josiah was an eighth-grade student at McCombs Middle School. His father, the Reverend Ron Woods, described him as a gifted kid who played the drums, loved his family, was full of energy, and had a big smile.
His father also shared that Josiah was a "troubled youth" and that he had been planning to move him to Dallas, Texas, just days later to give him a fresh start.
Just before 4:00 a.m. on January 1, Josiah was with friends and family at a gathering on the 1400 block of 17th Street. He was on the home's enclosed front porch when he was shot. The shooting, which became the city's first homicide of the year, was preceded by an altercation between two groups of young people at a downtown hotel. After the groups dispersed, one of them traveled to the house where Josiah was. A car carrying five individuals pulled up, and one or more of the occupants walked toward the residence and fired several shots into the porch where the group had gathered. Police stated that Josiah was not believed to have been the intended target.
In the immediate aftermath, Des Moines police investigators expressed frustration with a lack of cooperation from potential witnesses at the scene. Josiah's father made a public plea for anyone with information to speak with police and urged against any form of retaliation. "Let the justice system do their jobs," he said, asking that no other family lose a child to gun violence. For a year and a half, the investigation continued without an arrest.
A breakthrough came in June 2021, when police arrested 17-year-old Eliza L. Sackie and charged her with first-degree murder. Investigators alleged that Sackie was the driver of the vehicle that transported four accomplices to the scene of the shooting. Police said that after her accomplices fired the shots, Sackie drove them away from the area. At the time of her arrest, authorities stated that more arrests were expected.
In December 2022, Eliza Sackie received a deferred judgment and was sentenced to two years of probation. Under the terms of the judgment, she will have the option to have the crime expunged from her record after completing her probation. Josiah's parents, Ron Woods and Rachel Lyons, expressed their feeling that the sentence was not steep enough and that justice had not been fully served. As of December 2022, the Des Moines Police Department stated that the investigation into the fatal shooting was ongoing.
