On a Friday evening in March, the life of 18-year-old Vincent Lewis-Coppin Jr., a Black / African American male from Boston, was tragically cut short. Just after 7:30 p.m. on March 20, 2020, police responded to a report of a person shot in the Mattapan neighborhood. They found Lewis-Coppin at 86 American Legion Highway with life-threatening injuries. He had been shot in the chest and was rushed to a local hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
Known to his friends as Swervo, he was awaiting the birth of his first daughter.
This was not the first time that year that Lewis-Coppin had been a victim of gun violence. Just a few weeks earlier, on January 26, 2020, he had been shot in the chest in West Paris, Maine. After that incident, he called the police himself and was flown to a medical center for treatment. He was released from the hospital later that week but did not cooperate with the police investigation into the shooting. Authorities in Maine did make two arrests in connection with that earlier shooting. John Crouch III was charged with attempted murder, and Angelique Henderson was arrested on suspicion of conspiracy, though she was later released due to insufficient evidence.
Despite the arrests in the Maine incident, there is no indication that those individuals were involved in his fatal shooting in Boston. The investigation into Vincent Lewis-Coppin Jr.'s death in Mattapan remains ongoing. To date, there has been no public information released regarding any suspects or arrests in connection with his murder, leaving a case that remains unsolved and a family still waiting for answers.
