On a Monday afternoon, February 1, 2016, Julian Jay Thomas, a 23-year-old Black male, was fatally shot while sitting in his car at a busy Arco gas station in Tacoma, Washington. Just days after his girlfriend had given birth to their child, Thomas was at the gas station at 3601 Center Street when a man walked up to his Chevrolet Impala and opened fire. The gunman unleashed a barrage of approximately 48 bullets, stopping to reload multiple times. Thomas was struck at least 10 times.
Two women who were with him in the vehicle managed to get out and hide, physically unharmed but witnesses to the terrifying event. The shooter, after emptying multiple clips, retrieved a skateboard he had left at a nearby bus stop and fled the scene. The daylight attack shattered the glass front of the crowded AM-PM convenience store, but miraculously, no one else was injured.
The investigation quickly identified the suspect as Robert Deshawn Grott, then 29 years old. The motive appeared to stem from a dispute that had started months earlier over a missing handgun that Grott believed Thomas had stolen. The feud had reportedly escalated when someone shot into Grott's home, an act for which Thomas had allegedly taken credit. Within days of the shooting, prosecutors charged Robert Grott with first-degree murder and issued a warrant for his arrest. His younger brother, Rashaad Dominque Grott, was also charged with rendering criminal assistance, accused of driving his brother out of the state to California, where they had previously lived. Following the public release of his identity, aided by witness photos and video, Robert Grott eventually turned himself in to authorities in Los Angeles.
Robert Grott, a former Marine, stood trial for the murder of Julian Thomas. His defense argued that he acted in self-defense, believing Thomas was reaching for a gun, and that his actions were influenced by Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder from a deployment to Afghanistan. Prosecutors, however, painted a picture of a vengeful and calculated attack. In April 2017, a jury found Grott not guilty of first-degree murder but convicted him of the lesser charge of second-degree murder, as well as seven counts of first-degree assault for endangering the lives of others present at the scene. In May 2017, a judge sentenced Robert Grott to more than 50 years in prison for the killing. During the sentencing, Thomas's mother addressed the court, describing the devastating loss of her son and calling the act a cowardly one that she could not forgive.
