On a summer evening in Covington, Kentucky, a dispute over a dice game escalated into a tragedy that claimed the life of 25-year-old Antonio Bandy, a Black/African American male. The events of August 1, 2017, unfolded on the 300 block of East 13th Street, where an argument had broken out involving a group of people. Responding to a call about a verbal dispute that quickly turned into a shooting, police arrived to find Antonio Bandy and another man, Marcus Broadus, with gunshot wounds.
Both men were rushed to the hospital, but Bandy succumbed to his injuries.
The investigation into the shooting revealed a tense confrontation rooted in a debt from a previous dice game. Marcus Broadus had called his son, Antonio Bandy, to the scene. Though tensions initially seemed to cool down, the situation took a deadly turn. As Bandy turned his back, Damondre Williams, then 20 years old, drew a gun and shot him in the back of the head. Williams then turned the gun on Broadus, shooting him multiple times before fleeing. Broadus survived the attack.
In the days following the shooting, the Covington Police Department worked to piece together witness statements and evidence, which included surveillance footage from two different cameras that had captured the incident. On August 28, 2017, with the assistance of multiple law enforcement agencies, Damondre Williams was arrested in Cincinnati. He was subsequently charged with the murder of Antonio Bandy and the first-degree assault of Marcus Broadus.
During his trial in July 2018, Williams claimed self-defense. However, under cross-examination, he admitted that Bandy did not have a gun drawn and was not a threat when he was shot. After a three-hour deliberation, a jury found Williams guilty of first-degree manslaughter for the death of Bandy and attempted murder for the shooting of Broadus. The jury recommended a total sentence of 35 years in prison, with Williams required to serve 20 years before becoming eligible for parole. A judge later upheld this sentence.
