In the fading light of a December evening in Tacoma, Washington, a plan set in motion by a group of young men culminated in a tragic and fatal encounter. On December 9, 2018, Deonte Mitchner, a 21-year-old Black male, was shot and killed in an incident that began as a robbery he and his friends had orchestrated.
Earlier that day, Mitchner, along with 19-year-old Evitan De Biaso, 19-year-old Jeremy Phillip Dubois, and a 16-year-old accomplice, devised a scheme to rob a 13-year-old boy.
The plan was to lure the teenager with the promise of selling him a gun. Dubois drove the group to the arranged meeting spot in the 1300 block of East 35th Street, where he remained in the car with Mitchner's two young children. Mitchner and De Biaso hid in some nearby bushes, lying in wait to ambush their target.
The 13-year-old, however, did not arrive alone. He was accompanied by a friend, a detail that would prove to be a fatal miscalculation for Mitchner and De Biaso. When the two emerged from their hiding spot and began to assault the 13-year-old's companion, the situation escalated with unforeseen violence. The friend of the intended victim, who was also a 16-year-old male, was armed. As the intended victim fled, his friend opened fire on Mitchner and De Biaso. Both men were unarmed and were struck by the gunfire. When police responded to a "man down" call around 4:50 p.m., they found Mitchner and De Biaso deceased at the scene.
In the aftermath of the shooting, two of the original planners of the robbery were arrested. Jeremy Phillip Dubois was charged with attempted first-degree robbery and conspiracy to commit first-degree robbery. He later pleaded guilty to second-degree robbery and was sentenced to a year in prison. The 16-year-old who was part of the robbery scheme was also charged in juvenile court.
The 16-year-old who shot Mitchner and De Biaso was also arrested. However, prosecutors ultimately declined to press charges against him. The decision was based on a claim of self-defense and a lack of conclusive evidence to refute it, a situation complicated by rainy weather at the scene which hampered the investigation. As a result, the shooter was not prosecuted for the deaths of Deonte Mitchner and Evitan De Biaso.
