On the late morning of October 7, 2018, a dispute that began on social media turned deadly in the Red Lion Hotel parking lot on North Columbia Center Boulevard in Kennewick, Washington. Twenty-eight-year-old Hakim Omar Ward, a Black man, was punched through the open driver’s side window of a parked silver Nissan Rogue during an altercation with Devan L. Thompson, 31. Thompson fired a .40-caliber handgun; he told investigators he intended a warning shot into the ground, but the single bullet struck Ward in the leg.

A friend drove Ward across the street to the Payless ShoeSource and Chipotle parking area, where emergency services were summoned. Ward was taken by ambulance to Trios Southridge Hospital and died there a short time later; an autopsy found he died from blood loss caused by the gunshot wound to his leg. Thompson, an Everett resident with a prior felony conviction that made firearm possession illegal, later contacted police admitting involvement and claiming self-defense. Investigators issued a nationwide arrest warrant for first-degree unlawful possession of a firearm.

Did anyone witness the confrontation in the Red Lion parking lot or see Ward and his companions that morning?