On the evening of March 5, 2024, 18-year-old Davin Gregory Kerr was at his grandmother’s home in the 2900 block of Crestline Drive in Lawrence, Kansas, playing video games with a friend, Hunter Gaines, when a 21-year-old acquaintance from Topeka, Dawson Edward Paine, was handling a 9mm pistol in the room. A witness later said Paine had been playing with the loaded gun and pointed it at both Kerr and Gaines. Kerr told him to stop, and the firearm discharged once, the bullet striking Kerr in the lower abdomen.

Gaines called 911 and followed dispatcher instructions while Kerr was taken to a Kansas City-area trauma center with life-threatening injuries. Kerr died on March 6, 2024, ten days before his nineteenth birthday. Lawrence police identified Paine as the suspect, warned the public he should be considered armed and dangerous, and arrested him in Topeka a few days after the shooting. In a police interview Paine admitted to the shooting and said he thought he had unloaded the weapon before pointing it at Kerr.

The shooting is described in the witness account as an accident; legally it has been charged as a violent felony. Does anyone have information about what happened that night or knew Davin Kerr?