On the evening of October 26, 2016, 17-year-old Amarai Roper Smalls of North Charleston was found outside a home on the 2600 block of Ranger Drive, mortally wounded by gunfire and pronounced dead at the scene. The neighborhood had been shaken by recent drive‑by shootings, including a homicide the month before and another person wounded, and sirens were reported when calls came into Consolidated Dispatch shortly after 8 p.m.

Police announced the arrest that same night of a 15-year-old juvenile, charged with murder and held in the South Carolina Department of Juvenile Justice; the juvenile’s name was not publicly released because of his age. Investigators also identified 17-year-old Deomontae Shamarious Wallace, who was charged as an accessory in the killing and denied bond at a hearing two days later. Wallace was already facing separate charges from a 2015 shooting incident.

Amarai’s family held a funeral service in early November 2016 that remembered him as a son, grandson, and brother who loved new experiences and cared for rescue animals. Does anyone have information about that October 2016 shooting or recollections of the neighborhood around Ranger Drive that night?