In early February 2016, Trevonte Hakeem Young, a 22-year-old Black man from Verona, Mississippi, was caught up in a burst of gunfire that would end his life and ripple through his community for years. He was spending time in south Tupelo when violence found him at Barley Courts Apartments, a low-income complex on Barley Street that has long been a dense cluster of families, friends, and intertwined histories. On February 8, 2016, he was shot there, an attack that left him mortally wounded.
The bullets fired that day did not kill him immediately. Emergency responders rushed him from the apartment complex to North Mississippi Medical Center in Tupelo, where doctors tried to save him. Despite those efforts, he died on February 9, 2016, with official records noting his death at the hospital and listing his home as nearby Verona. His funeral was held at New Bethel Missionary Baptist Church in Plantersville, with burial at Red Oak Cemetery in Shannon, the traditional rituals of mourning tracing the same stretch of Lee County roads he had traveled in life.
Even as his family prepared for the funeral, investigators were already piecing together what happened at Barley Courts. The case quickly produced a suspect: Xzavious Jamar Johnson, then in his late twenties, was identified by authorities as the man believed to have shot Young. Gun violence tracking data lists Young as the victim and Johnson as the subject who was arrested in connection with the killing, tying both men to the February 8 incident at the Barley Courts Apartments in Tupelo.
What began as a single shooting in a south-side courtyard evolved into a long, grinding court process. Johnson was initially charged with first-degree murder and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon for the February 2016 shooting death of Young at the south Tupelo apartment complex. Years later, in 2024, he stood before a judge and admitted guilt to a reduced charge: he pleaded guilty to manslaughter instead of going to trial on the original murder count, while still facing the firearm charge tied to his status as a felon.
State prison records now reflect the outcome of that plea. Johnson was convicted in Lee County of manslaughter and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon and received a 15-year sentence for the manslaughter conviction, with his total term recorded as 15 years. He entered state custody in mid-2024 and is currently housed in a Mississippi Department of Corrections facility, with a tentative release date in the early 2030s.
Taken together, the paper trail left behind—gun violence databases, court and prison records, and obituary notices—tells a stark story. A young man from Verona was shot at a south Tupelo apartment complex on a February day in 2016, died at the regional hospital the next, and was mourned by family and friends across several small Mississippi communities. Another man from the same region was arrested, charged, and ultimately sent to prison for manslaughter in connection with the shooting. The years between the gunfire and the final sentence stretched out with delays and legal maneuvering, but the resolution on paper does not soften the central fact: a single act of violence at Barley Courts ended Trevonte Young’s life and left his family and community to live with the loss.
