Breon Deshaun Robinson, a 17-year-old African-American young man from Fort Worth, Texas, was remembered by loved ones as joyful, loving, and caring, a person whose presence could light up a room. A student at Eastern Hills, Breon was born on April 8, 1999. His life was cut short in a violent encounter on the evening of Monday, January 16, 2017.
The night of his death unfolded in two terrifying stages. Breon and his best friend, Jkeiston “Levi” Isham, had arranged to meet two acquaintances, Cedric Ladarius Richardson and Keoddrick Dreshon Polk, to purchase a handgun. The meeting was set for a Conoco gas station on Miller Avenue in Fort Worth. Unbeknownst to Breon and Levi, the sellers had already sold the weapon and planned to rob them of the $200 purchase money. At the gas station, an altercation broke out, and Polk shot Breon in the back.
Despite his severe injury, the confrontation continued. Breon and Levi fled in Levi’s Chrysler Sebring, with the two other men giving chase. The pursuit ended a short distance away in a residential neighborhood on Childress Street. There, Polk opened fire again, striking both young men multiple times. Levi was shot in the face, arm, hand, chest, and neck. Breon, who was in the back seat, was shot again in the head and thigh. The Sebring crashed into a lawn, and the assailants fled.
Fort Worth Police Department officers and first responders arrived at the chaotic scene on Childress Street. They found Levi critically wounded but alive, struggling to breathe in the driver's seat. In the backseat, they discovered Breon Robinson, who showed no signs of life. He was pronounced dead at the scene. The Tarrant County Medical Examiner later determined that both the gunshot wound to his back from the gas station and the shot to his head on Childress Street were independently fatal.
The investigation moved swiftly, aided by the testimony of the surviving victim, Levi Isham, who identified both Richardson and Polk from photo lineups. He specified that Polk was the shooter at both locations. Within days, Fort Worth police, working with other agencies, located the suspects. On January 20, 2017, Keoddrick Polk, 18, and Cedric Richardson, 20, were arrested on the campus of Tyler Junior College, about 100 miles east of Fort Worth.
Both men were indicted for capital murder. They were tried separately in Tarrant County. The case against Keoddrick Dreshon Polk resulted in a conviction for capital murder. In 2018, he was automatically sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. The trial for Cedric Ladarius Richardson on the capital murder charge ended in an acquittal. However, he faced a subsequent trial for the aggravated assault of Levi Isham.
Family and friends gathered to celebrate Breon’s life on January 25, 2017, at the Greater Eleazer Baptist Church in Fort Worth. In an online guestbook, one friend wrote, "Breon was the most joyful person ever when he walked in the room it lite up." Another remembered him as a "very loving and caring young man. Always smiling." The case, which began as a robbery and escalated into a chase and a fatal shooting, concluded with one perpetrator sentenced to life in prison, as of April 2019.
