A life sentence, plus an additional five years to be served consecutively, was handed down to Davon Griffin-Curry on Monday for the fatal shooting of his neighbor, Rickey Jemore Lathan, in July 2022. The violence erupted in the Wells-Goodfellow neighborhood, on Semple Avenue, tearing apart the thin fabric of the community that night.

Details outlined by the Circuit Attorney's Office recount how the incident began with a simple Fourth of July celebration gone awry. Lathan, alongside his young son and daughter, were setting off fireworks when a rogue bottle rocket inadvertently sparked a deadly confrontation. It was reported that the firework struck the house belonging to Griffin-Curry's grandparents, which led to a heated dispute that quickly escalated far beyond a neighborly argument.

In the midst of the altercation, both Davon Griffin-Curry and his younger brother, Devin Griffin-Curry, emerged, armed with 9 mm guns, from their grandparents' home. The sequence of events that followed left Rickey Jemore Lathan dead from ten gunshot wounds. His tragic demise occurred before the eyes of his children, adding yet another layer of trauma to the already gruesome scene.

Devin Griffin-Curry, who was just 16 at the time of the shooting and later tried as an adult, has previously been convicted of second-degree murder and armed criminal action. He is currently serving a 22-year sentence. Both cases were aggressively prosecuted to secure convictions, signaling the community's intolerance for such grievous acts of violence. Special Assistant Circuit Attorneys Hal Goldsmith and Jennifer Szczucinski, who are also Assistant U.S. Attorneys in the Office of U.S. Attorney Sayler A. Fleming, led the legal proceedings against the Griffin-Curry brothers.