Father, son fatally shot at Birmingham gas stations five years apart

Like father, like son took a dreadful turn in Birmingham this week.

Demetrius Davis Jr., 25, was shot and killed at a gas station on Sunday, the police department said, in the Alabama city known as an integral part of the American Civil Rights Movement in the mid-1900s. He played football for the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

What’s eerie is that Davis’ life came to a tragic end in a way that mirrored his father’s killing almost five years ago. Demetrius Davis Sr., was fatally shot in October 2018 at another gas station, at M & N Groceries, on the city’s west side, according to Birmingham Real-Time News.

The 37-year-old father left behind a wife and three children, including Demetrius Jr., who was his eldest.

Police have said that both men were targeted. While there have been no arrests in the 2018 slaying, a 51-year-old is now in custody in Sunday’s killing. Byron Steele, the suspect, was arrested on Monday, booked into the Birmingham City Jail and charged with capital murder, according to jail records.

Davis was pumping gas at a Circle K Gas Station on Sunday evening when he was approached and shot. He returned fire before collapsing and dying at the scene, police said in a news release.

He was one of eight people killed in eight days in Birmingham, the Real-Times News reported.

The report said authorities believe Davis was shot in retaliation after one of the suspect’s family members was shot in a separate incident.

“This is to bring no shame to our victims from Sunday, but since Sunday, our detectives have uncovered that the victims in each homicide case have been involved in some type of activity prior to the homicide which contributed heavily to their death,” Officer Truman Fitzgerald said, according to the news outlet.

“We want to get the message out to the public that we have to be really mindful of our behavior because we have seen just the lengths people will go to target you if they have something out for you,” he added.

The suspect’s arrest might bring some resolve to the Davis family, but the pain left behind is all too familiar to the feeling from years ago, and that case remains open.

Family members in 2018 described Davis Sr. as a go-to man who was loving and had no enemies.

“He was the most loving person I know,” his sister Erica Johnson told the Real-Time News. “I could always depend on him. He didn’t deserve this.”

“He was a fun-loving person,” his wife La’Kresha Davis said, the outlet reported. “He was very playful, just a big kid.”

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