How an NC gang dispute may have cost 9-year-old Z’Yon Person his life
A 9-year-old boy killed in Durham last year as his aunt drove a group of children to get snow cones was a victim of mistaken identify in an ongoing gang dispute, a prosecutor said Tuesday.
Daynell Ragland was driving a green Ford Explorer with her three children, her nephew Z’Yon Person, 9, and his sister on the evening of August 18, 2019, when gunshots rang out near Duke and Leon streets.
Z’Yon was shot in the head and died, and his 9-year-old cousin was shot in the arm.
Ragland had no connection with the three people who have been charged, Assistant District Attorney Kendra Montgomery-Blinn said in court Tuesday. Instead, she said, Ragland was driving a vehicle similar to the one they were looking for.
“It was the wrong car at the wrong time,” Montgomery-Blinn said.
The statements were made during a bond hearing for Antonio “Lil Tony” Nathaniel Davenport Jr., 25. He was the first person charged, two months after the shooting, and he has been held in jail without bail.
Dival “Paco” Nygee Magwood, 22, and Derrick Lamont Dixon, 28, were also charged with murder and other charges about a month later.
All are in the Eight Trey Gangster Crips gang, Montgomery-Blinn said. All also faced federal possession of firearm by felon charges.
83 Babies
Davenport was a member of the three-person rap group 83 Babies, which has 119,000 followers on Instagram. In the months before the shooting, it had signed a deal with Rich Forever Records, a division of Atlantic Records, according to court records.
In April, the group announced on its Facebook page that Davenport was no longer a member.
On Tuesday Davenport sat in court in handcuffs, shackles, red scrubs and a hospital-style mask. His mother, aunt and father sat six feet apart in the front row in the courtroom.
On the other side of the courtroom sat Z’Yon’s grandfather, grandmother and great-grandmother wearing T-shirts with the words “Justice for Z’Yon” surrounding a smiling picture of the rising fourth-grader who attended Penny Road Elementary School in Cary.
“Mr. Davenport denies any involvement in this incident,” his attorney Dawn Baxton said.
Baxton asked Judge Jim Hardin to set a bond of $50,000. Most of the evidence against Davenport relies on statements from his co-defendant Dixon, who claimed he didn’t know Davenport until after he faced a federal gun charge, Baxton said.
“That is when he came up with the miraculous story that he and Mr. Davenport were together when this happened,” Baxton said.
Baxton also said all of Davenport’s cars are blue.
More evidence
But Montgomery-Blinn outlined pieces of evidence that she said connected Davenport to the shooting.
Davenport’s social media indicated that before the shooting, he had been assaulted by rival gang members known as the O-Block at The Streets at Southpoint mall in Durham, Montgomery-Blinn said.
Last year, Davenport’s father shared a video with The News & Observer that he said showed the assault.
The video, which doesn’t show any faces, shows a scuffle in a store. People in the background are heard saying “beat his a--,” and “take his chains.”
Afterward, Davenport began messaging with a member of the rival gang, Montgomery-Blinn said, and then with one of his co-defendants saying they were looking for a jeep or Blue Ford Explorer.
Eight Trey Gangster Crips
Federal court documents released last year said the Eight Trey Gangster Crips based in the Braggtown area in northern Durham was responsible for a significant portion of the violent crime and drug sales in the Bull City.
A regional violent gang task force in 2017 started investigating the gang, which has had a longstanding feud with the Bloods street gang along with conflicts among Crips subsets.
The Eight Trey Gangster Crips grew out of Los Angeles in the late 1960s. It operates locally in the Oxford Manor and Liberty Street public housing communities and has taken over part of McDougald Terrace public housing complex after the arrest of high-ranking Bloods gang leaders, 2019 federal court documents state.
In early 2019, the task force began investigating a feud between the Braggtown-affiliated Eight Trey Gangster Crips and an independent gang known as O-Block or The Food Lions Projects, according to court documents.
The O-Block gang formed following the 2017 killing of Kyle “O” Fisher to retaliate against the Eight Trey Gangster Crips, which they suspect of killing Fisher, according to court documents.
Other evidence
Davenport was seen driving a burgundy Honda accord leaving Southpoint mall after he was assaulted. He was also seen at a Mebane gun store buying ammunition, which matches casings found at the shooting scene, the day before Z’Yon was shot, Montgomery-Blinn said.
Davenport was on pretrial release on four different sets of domestic violence, gun and drug charges from Durham and Wake counties and had been ordered to wear an ankle bracelet by Wake County.
“Every movement was being tracked,” she said.
The ankle monitor information shows Davenport was in the vicinity of the shooting when it happened and at the homes of his co-defendants, she said. It also linked Davenport to a Circle K, where investigators found surveillance video of Dixon getting out of the burgundy Honda a few hours after the shooting.
The day after the shooting, Davenport had the burgundy car painted a matte black, Montgomery-Blinn said.
Before Hardin rendered his decision on bond, he heard from Z’Yon’s grandmother Sandra Person.
“He was just so young to be taken from us,” she said. “All we are trying to do is just get justice for Z’Yon.”
Hardin denied Davenport bond on the murder charge and set a $10 million bond on the other related charges, which include attempted murder and assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill. .
As Davenport was escorted from the courtroom, he tried to wave to his family as best he could with his hands held together with handcuffs.
“I love you,” his mother said.
“I love you,” said his aunt as she blew him a kiss.
This story was originally published November 11, 2020 at 7:30 AM.
