Zyemontae Redd, a 15-year-old Black male, was killed in the early hours of October 26, 2014, when gunfire tore through the Mosby Court area of Richmond, Virginia. Just before 1:30 a.m., police were called to the 1400 block of Coalter Street for reports of shots fired, and they arrived to a scene that was already beyond saving—Redd, who was from the Henrico area, had been hit and died at the scene.
Two other males were also found wounded nearby and rushed to the hospital with injuries that authorities said were not life-threatening.
Accounts that surfaced afterward painted the shooting as sudden and overwhelming: a car pulled up near where Redd and others were gathered, and multiple shooters got out and opened fire. Dozens of rounds were reported to have been fired, and one struck Redd in the back, puncturing a lung. As word spread, the block filled with onlookers and responders—flashing lights, taped-off sidewalks, and the familiar hush that settles over a neighborhood when everyone knows something irreversible has happened.
Within days, investigators announced they had made an arrest: a 16-year-old male who lived in the 1300 block of Coalter Street, only a short distance from where the shots rang out. The teen was charged with aggravated malicious wounding, shooting into an occupied building, burglary while armed, and two counts of use of a firearm in the commission of a felony. Even as those charges were filed, police cautioned that the case might not be that simple, saying they believed there could be more than one suspect and urging the public to continue providing tips.
Later reporting identified the murder charge in the case as being brought against Jermaine L. Noble, who was described as being the same age at the time of the shooting. That reporting also described the killing as rooted in tensions among youths connected to a neighborhood group, with a dispute that escalated into retaliation on the street. According to that account, Noble ultimately pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and received a 10-year prison sentence, a resolution prosecutors linked to the difficulties of securing cooperation from witnesses in gun-violence investigations.
