In the early hours of Easter Sunday, March 31, 2013, a night that began with celebration ended in tragedy for Lorenzo Duncan, a 23-year-old Black / African American male. Friends had gathered at the Sports Page Tavern in Auburn, Washington, to celebrate a birthday. Inside the bar, an argument broke out between two women on the dance floor, one of whom was with Duncan's group.
This dispute soon spilled out into the parking lot as the tavern closed around 2 a.m.
The verbal altercation outside quickly escalated into a physical fight. Amid the chaos, a woman reportedly fired a warning shot into the air, prompting others to draw their weapons. Multiple shooters began firing, turning the parking lot into a scene of mayhem. When the gunfire ceased, Lorenzo Duncan and his two friends, 26-year-old Nicholas Lindsay and 21-year-old Antuan Greer, lay dead from multiple gunshot wounds. A fourth man was also seriously injured in the shooting. The King County Medical Examiner's Office later ruled all three deaths as homicides. Witnesses described the killings of Duncan and Lindsay as being "execution-style." Accounts suggest that after a fistfight, a man retrieved a gun from his car, returned to the scene, and shot Lindsay and Duncan while they were defenseless on the ground. Duncan was reportedly shot in the back as he tried to run and then shot again after he fell.
The investigation that followed was complex, with Auburn police sorting through the accounts of dozens of people who were in the parking lot. Investigators believed there were as many as four shooters involved. Initially, one person of interest was detained. However, it took two years for charges to be filed in the murders of Duncan and Lindsay. In April 2015, authorities arrested 29-year-old Cleanthony Jimerson in Texas. He was extradited to Washington and charged with two counts of second-degree murder for the deaths of Duncan and Lindsay, as well as unlawful possession of a firearm. It was believed that Greer was likely killed by a stray bullet from an unknown shooter.
Jimerson's first trial ended in a hung jury. However, he was retried and subsequently found guilty of two counts of second-degree murder. For his role in the deaths of Lorenzo Duncan and Nicholas Lindsay, Cleanthony Jimerson was sentenced to 40 years in prison.
