Three summers ago, what began as a parking lot fight turned into a shooting where one man was killed and one woman was injured.
Trevione Robinson, a 20-year-old man, shot and killed 20-year-old Jahiem Law and injured a 21-year-old woman on July 13, 2023. Champaign police records, obtained in a Freedom of Information Act request, showed details previously undisclosed by media coverage of the shooting.
According to witness reports, a group of women began fighting in a parking lot of the 1700 block of South State Street nearby Taco Bell and Smitty’s, and two men began arguing close by. One man, later identified as Robinson, was wearing a black ski mask, orange shorts and a dark hoodie when he began threatening to shoot the other man.
People on the scene attempted to break the men up and then separated and began walking away. Shots were fired moments later, and Robinson fled.
The shooting occurred approximately five miles away from Robinson’s address on Prairie Green Drive on the east end of Urbana.
He was arrested one week later and sentenced in April 2024 to a 20-year prison sentence.
Overall in Champaign, police records show 607 shootings from Jan. 1, 2021 to Dec. 31, 2025.
In the last five years, 40 people have been shot and killed in Champaign, with another 213 sustaining injuries. Property damage was reported in 340 incidents. When considering Urbana, nearly 60 people have died in a shooting in the same period.
Most fatal shootings in Champaign occurred in the Springfield and Kenwood blocks in west Champaign, between Neil Street and Lincoln Avenue north of Campustown, and close to Parkland College in northwest Champaign.
Champaign Police Deputy Chief Greg Manzana said the department has not identified a specific pattern or correlation based on the locations of shootings.
“Are we in a position where, yes, we’ve noticed that there have been a few homicides over here, a few homicides over there? Certainly,” Manzana said in an interview with CU-CitizenAccess. “There have been issues in some of these neighborhoods that have escalated to the point where people have lost their lives. But, to go so far as to say, ‘hey, there’s a pattern that correlates this specific location with homicides and gun violence,’ — I don’t know if I would go that far.”
Although the reasons why perpetrators shot their victims are often not immediately clear, case reports showed factors like retaliation, group violence, drug deals, mental illness and domestic violence have played a role in several cases.
“Most of the homicides, they have to do with conflict, whether that’s related to competition and drug sales, personal beefs, any type of thing,” Manzana said. “As far as gang-related violence, there are instances where we’ll have groups. The old school definitions of gangs … that’s not as prevalent as it used to be. What you have are folks that are affiliated, either through old relationships, growing up together, or they’re in some sort of criminal enterprise together, something along those lines.”
Manzana said untargeted instances where shooters have shot people at random, with no specific intentions or exchanges beforehand, are very rare.
“Somebody just walking down the street, and you have somebody just shoot them for no reason — it’s not a common thing,” Manzana said. “I’ve seen, more often, mistaken identity, or they just shot at the wrong house but they had intentions on a specific person, a specific place.”
Last year, the city approved an agreement with a nonprofit violence prevention organization to continue reducing the level and impact of gun violence.
Police reports reveal conflicts before shootings occur
While the location of the shooting is routinely reported, the address of the shooter and victim are not always immediately known.
A CU-CitizenAccess review of ten homicide cases with an arrest since 2021 revealed more details, including where the shooter was arrested and charged. The full police reports for six of these cases, released in a Freedom of Information Act request, were also reviewed.
The review of those ten cases found the majority of shooters and victims are from Champaign and Urbana. In some cases, shooters and victims live in the same neighborhood. In others, shooters will travel across town on one of the major streets to the location where they kill their victim.
The Champaign Police Department does not typically factor travel distance into their investigations, officials said, but would focus on it in certain circumstances, such as long-distance travel.
“It’s nothing for somebody to drive 10 minutes from east Urbana into Champaign,” Manzana said. “We’re not talking two hours south from Chicago, that type of thing. So, for travel … that’s not really something that we’re terribly focused on or concerned about. I think where we start getting red flags is if we start having a bunch of people come in from outside the county.”
Four of those charged in Champaign fatal shootings resided in Urbana, with a cluster north of University Avenue and south of Interstate 74. Perpetrators have also been clustered on the opposite side of town in northwest Champaign around Prospect Avenue.
Bar manager killed in downtown Champaign
On Feb. 8, 2024, Fidele Tshimanga, a 24-year-old Black man, shot and killed Brandon Hardway, a 45-year-old white man and the manager of Pour Bros. Taproom on University Avenue in downtown Champaign.
Tshimanga lived on West Park Street in Urbana, two miles east of the bar in almost a straight line down University Avenue.
According to witness reports, Tshimanga asked Hardway for a cigarette outside the restaurant and, when Hardway told him “no,” shot Hardway in the back.
The shooting occurred two days after Tshimanga held the same gun, which he claimed to have stolen from a parked car, at a woman and her 13-year-old son at the Illinois Terminal in downtown Champaign.
Tshimanga did not fire the gun but stole the woman’s cellphone, believing she was talking about him and that others were spreading information about him online.
Tshimanga was later found not guilty of Hardway’s death on account of insanity and was committed to a mental health facility until he shows signs of mental improvement or until 60 years pass.
Father killed in van in front of apartment complex
Anthony Miller, a 31-year-old Black man, was sitting in his van parked at the Oakwood Trace Apartments on Burr Oak Court, off East Bradley Avenue, with his three children on March 16, 2025 when Zaire Herman, a 22-year-old Black man, fired 19 rounds from a stolen AR-15 rifle at the vehicle.
Miller was killed while his children were not physically harmed. Herman previously shot at another individual in the area who fled the scene and avoided injury.
Herman lived at 1206 Garden Hills Dr. in Champaign, a few blocks west of Prospect Avenue and 2.2 miles west down Bradley Avenue from the location of the shooting.
Herman was previously arrested and charged in January 2023 for shooting and killing Jalen Williams, a 21-year-old Black man, in the road in front of Herman’s house. However, Herman was acquitted 18 months after the incident due to a lack of evidence.
In August 2025, Herman was sentenced to 80 years in prison for first-degree murder and for possessing a gun as a felon.
Man shot by two security guards in retaliation
In a shooting that occurred on Aug. 24, 2025 by Springfield Avenue and Kenwood Road, one of the charged perpetrators, Tyson Moore, a 32-year-old Black man, lived four miles northeast on Moreland Boulevard in Champaign. The other perpetrator was Deandre Newbill, a 37-year-old Black man, and lived five miles away in northeast Urbana on Oakland Avenue.
Glenn Selvie, a 35-year-old Black man, was in a parking lot with an unidentified woman when both Moore and Newbill arrived in a vehicle, got out and began interacting with Selvie. The men then pulled out handguns and fired repeatedly at Selvie, striking him multiple times.
Moore and Newbill had been working as security guards at a video gaming establishment that night when there was a fight between two individuals that Moore broke up using pepper spray, after which Selvie flashed a firearm.
The establishment was then closed down for the night, and Moore and Newbill drove around the area, ending up at the Country Brook apartment complex where Newbill pointed out Selvie, the individual that displayed a gun at the video game establishment.
Moore and Newbill fled the area after the shooting, but were arrested a short time later. Proceedings are underway.
Man killed by teen at Halloween party
On the morning of Oct. 31, 2021, Tony Brock, a 17-year-old Black man, shot and killed Brandon Kelly, a 20-year-old Black man.
At a Halloween party in the parking lot of an apartment complex on the 2000 block of West Bradley Avenue, Kelly, along with a group of people, encountered another group that included Brock, who opened fire and hit Kelly five times.
In the police report, it is noted by a confidential source that the people involved were allegedly part of separate street gangs, with a feud between the groups allegedly intensifying at the juvenile correctional facility in Harrisburg, Illinois.
Brock resided at 401 W. Curtis Rd. in Savoy, 5.4 miles from the location of the shooting.
Brock was tried as an adult and sentenced to 20 years in prison after reaching a plea deal.
Man killed during drug-deal-turned-fight
Marcus Catchings Jr., a 27-year-old Black man, was shot and killed inside his apartment on Springfield Avenue and Kenwood Road on July 3, 2023.
The shooter, William Wesley, a 24-year-old Black man, was tracked down by the U.S. Marshals Service and arrested in Atlanta, Georgia on Aug. 25, 2023. He lived at 2512 Heritage Dr. in northwest Champaign near Parkland College, less than two miles from the location of the shooting.
During the trial, Wesley did not deny shooting Catchings, claiming it was an act of self-defense.
Wesley said he purchased nearly $500 worth of marijuana from Catchings and arranged to meet him on July 3 to pay what he owed and exchange another drug for more marijuana.
Wesley claimed that while looking down at his phone, Catchings pointed a gun at him, demanding more money and an expensive chain Wesley was wearing. Wesley said he tossed some money and the chain and while Catchings picked up the items, he pulled out his own gun and fired. He said that it was meant to be a warning shot, but he didn’t aim when he pulled the trigger.
Assistant State’s Attorney Joel Fletcher said Catchings was texting his girlfriend within minutes of the shooting, and the texts did not imply an escalating fight.
The jury found Wesley guilty of first degree murder and he was sentenced to 60 years in prison in July 2025.
Two teenagers killed near apartment complex
Shooter 22-year-old Corey Butler resided in the southwest corner of Champaign in an apartment at 1903 Nancy Ct.
Butler approached a gathering of people in a vehicle, along with two other unidentified individuals, exited it and shot four people on July 28, 2024. The incident occurred in an apartment complex parking lot in northwest Champaign on Cynthia and Anita Drives, which was about four miles directly north of his residence.
Two people, 18-year-olds George Dorris-Rodgers and Daniyjah Staples, were killed.
Butler was sentenced to 25 years in prison in July 2025.
The Champaign Police Department does not typically factor travel distance into their investigations, officials said, but would focus on it for shootings that happened where perpetrators lived, for example.
“It’s nothing for somebody to drive 10 minutes from east Urbana into Champaign,” Manzana said. “We’re not talking two hours south from Chicago, that type of thing. So, for travel … that’s not really something that we’re terribly focused on or concerned about. I think where we start getting red flags is if we start having a bunch of people come in from outside the county.”
Bloomington woman killed by Chicago man in Champaign
In one case, both the shooter and victim resided outside of Champaign County.
Carl Tribble Jr., 24, lived in the west side of Chicago and killed Heaven Hope, a 21-year-old Black woman, on Springfield Avenue and Kenwood Road — 140 miles away from his home address — in a Dec. 9, 2024 shooting.
Heaven Hope’s home address was in Bloomington, Illinois, but she was in Champaign, entering Black Hawk Liquor Store with her brother and another individual, when she was killed by Tribble.
Tribble was already inside the business with an acquaintance and shot Hope as she was stepping inside the store. Her brother fled the area and Tribble fired at him before shooting Hope again and then fleeing the area on foot.
Tribble was arrested days later after a car chase, which began in southern Illinois and ended in Farmington, Missouri, and was sentenced to 25 years in prison.
Teen killed at gas station gathering
On June 19, 2022, Quentin Hymon, a 20-year-old Black man, shot and struck multiple people at a Mach 1 gas station parking lot near Prospect Avenue and Bloomington Road.
There was an impromptu gathering of people in the parking lot before 2 a.m., and 18-year-old Prentiss Jackson was shot and killed in the vehicle he was a passenger in while two women with him were shot and injured.
Hymon had also been a passenger in another vehicle in the lot when he got out, drew a handgun and approached the car with Jackson and fired multiple times.
Hymon lived at 4019 Tallgrass Dr. near the western edge of Champaign, about four miles west of the location of the shooting.
He was sentenced in 2024 to 20 years in prison.
Woman killed by father in domestic violence dispute
One instance of domestic violence that led to a fatal shooting occurred in 2022.
Raymond Gwin, a 70-year-old Black man, shot and killed his 34-year-old daughter, Latoya Gwin, on July 14 in his home at 413 E. Beardsley Ave. in Champaign.
Gwin claimed he shot his daughter in self-defense after she hit him with a hammer in a domestic violence dispute. However, in an audio recording from Gwin’s cell phone discovered during the investigation, Latoya is heard yelling that it was her father who hit her with the hammer. She then said she was going to call the police before a shot was heard.
Gwin was sentenced in late 2023 to 50 years in prison.