On the late afternoon of June 3, 2015, a dispute in the parking lot of the A2B Budget Hotel on Ember Drive in Panthersville, Georgia, ended when 32-year-old Thearon Lee Almond was shot during an altercation with a hotel security guard. The guard, 25-year-old Deontray Cooper, had become involved in a verbal confrontation and, although hotel policy prohibited armed guards, retrieved a personal handgun and shot Almond. A witness recorded the moments before the shooting on a cellphone. Almond was taken to Grady Memorial Hospital, where he died.

Cooper was arrested and charged with murder and held in the DeKalb County Jail. Almond’s family later filed a lawsuit against the hotel, alleging the company knew guards were armed despite a no-weapons policy and that employees failed to render aid after the shooting. Friends and relatives described Almond as having a good heart; his girlfriend said they had been staying at the hotel and that guards had been harassing him, and loved ones left a makeshift memorial in the parking lot.

Does anyone have information about the confrontation that led up to the shooting or the cellphone video taken by the witness?