On the afternoon of July 1, 2020, tragedy struck in Gary, Indiana, claiming the life of 30-year-old Steven Cordell Rice. At approximately 3:10 p.m., gunfire erupted near the intersection of 15th Avenue and Cleveland Street, leaving Rice with fatal injuries. He was subsequently transported to Methodist Hospital Northlake by private means rather than an ambulance. Despite the efforts of medical personnel, he succumbed to his wounds and was pronounced dead about 40 minutes after his arrival.
His death was ruled a homicide by the Lake County Coroner’s Office and marked one of two fatal shootings in the city that same day.
The murder of Steven Rice was the grim conclusion to a violent saga that had begun nearly a year prior and had already devastated his family. Steven was the son of a Gary police sergeant and the brother of Kerry Rice Jr. In September 2019, both brothers were involved in a shooting incident that resulted in the death of 32-year-old Kerry Rice Jr. and another man, Aaron Scott. Steven Rice had survived that initial attack, which also left a woman injured. The violence that ultimately claimed Steven’s life in 2020 was described by investigators as a separate shooting incident from the one that killed his brother, yet the events were inextricably linked by the ongoing pursuit of justice for the previous year's crime.
Shortly after Steven Rice was killed, authorities made a significant breakthrough in the case regarding the 2019 attack. On July 21, 2020, federal marshals located and arrested 35-year-old Michael Sherrod Smith in Oakland, California. Smith had been a fugitive wanted for the double homicide of Kerry Rice Jr. and Aaron Scott, as well as the attempted murder of Steven Rice during the September 2019 shooting. When law enforcement approached a residence in Oakland to apprehend him, Smith attempted to flee on foot and discarded a firearm before being taken into custody. He faced extradition back to Indiana to answer for multiple felony charges, including two counts of murder and attempted murder, closing a chapter on the violence that had targeted the Rice family for months.
