Trader Joe’s shooting: Suspect reloaded gun after misfire to kill unarmed Black panhandler, police say

BATON ROUGE, La. — Jace Boyd was seated in his car Saturday night outside a Louisiana Trader Joe’s grocery store when he was approached by Danny Buckley, a 61-year-old panhandler asking for money.

Boyd, 24, of Baton Rouge, turned Buckley away but got out of his car moments later when he saw Buckley, who was Black, approach two young white woman. Boyd is also white.

The unarmed Buckley was fatally shot, but only after Boyd reloaded his misfiring weapon, took aim and fired, according to a police report released Thursday by Baton Rouge officials.

>> Related story: Louisiana authorities seek man who gunned down Black panhandler in Trader Joe’s parking lot

Authorities said Thursday that detectives, with assistance from Louisiana State Police task force members, had taken Boyd into custody following a public search. Details of his capture were not released.

Boyd is charged with second-degree murder and illegal use of a weapon. On Friday, he remained in the East Baton Rouge Parish Jail in lieu of $300,000 bond.

The chilling new details were released Thursday following Boyd’s arrest. According to the arrest affidavit, officers were called around 6:30 p.m. Saturday to the Trader Joe’s in Baton Rouge’s Acadian Village Shopping Center.

They found Buckley in the parking lot, suffering from a single gunshot wound to the abdomen. He was rushed to a hospital but died of his injury.

According to the detective who wrote the report, Buckley had been panhandling in the parking lot, which he was known to frequent, when he approached Boyd in his car and asked for money.

“The suspect and victim engaged in a verbal dispute through the open window of the suspect’s vehicle,” the affidavit states.

Buckley walked away and approached a young woman.

“At this time, the suspect exited his vehicle and yelled at the victim to leave people alone because he was scaring them,” the affidavit states.

According to the woman Buckley approached, that was not the case. The woman, using only her first name of Kaylee, posted details on Twitter this week in which she said she was the last person Buckley asked for money before he was shot.

“I never felt threatened by Mr. Buckley in any way,” the woman tweeted.

Kaylee, 21, also spoke to WAFB in Baton Rouge.

“Yes, he did ask for money,” she told the news station. “Yes, maybe he did come a little into my space to speak to me, but that’s not a death sentence.”

Kaylee said she didn’t have any cash, so she and her roommate walked on without engaging in conversation with Buckley. As she got to her car, she heard another male voice confronting the panhandler, she said.

“I looked over and I could see him, and he said, ‘Hey, leave those girls alone,’” Kaylee told WAFB. “Well, then I got into my car because I don’t like confrontation.”

Moments later, she and her roommate heard the gunshot.

Detective Joshua Brogan, who wrote Boyd’s arrest affidavit, wrote that after Boyd shouted at Buckley, the older man turned around and began walking back toward Boyd.

“As the victim approached the suspect, the suspect armed himself with a firearm from inside his vehicle,” Brogan wrote. “The suspect then pointed the firearm at the victim and attempted to shoot him, but the gun misfired.”

Boyd then “manipulated” the gun by racking the slide to put another round in the chamber.

“At this time, the suspect aimed the firearm at the victim, who was unarmed and out of arm’s reach of the suspect,” Brogan wrote.

Boyd “intentionally and knowingly pulled the trigger,” firing the fatal bullet into Buckley’s lower abdomen.

Read the affidavit for Jace Boyd’s arrest below.

“(My roommate) thought something had fallen to the ground,” Kaylee told WAFB. “She thought she had dropped something. She ends up getting into the car and she says, ‘I think that guy has a gun.’ And I was, like, ‘There’s no way.’”

Kaylee told WAFB Buckley fell to the ground but appeared to be getting up. The women did not realize how badly he had been injured until the police showed up.

Kaylee said that she tried to give Baton Rouge police officers a statement but was rebuffed. She gave a statement the following morning.

“Whenever I gave my statement, I made sure to tell them that I never felt threatened as a young woman,” she told the news station. “I’m 21, (a) white female, so that’s why we were so confused that why this man just felt that this was the necessary action to take. We couldn’t really believe it.”

Baton Rouge police officials faced heavy criticism in the aftermath of the shooting for questioning Boyd, letting him go home and then asking for the public’s help finding him once an arrest warrant had been issued.

“It’s the position of the family that Mr. Buckley was the victim of a hate crime,” attorney Ryan Thompson, who is representing Buckley’s loved ones, told The Advocate.

Thompson told WAFB earlier this week that his clients would like to see a federal investigation launched to determine if Boyd committed a federal hate crime when he shot Buckley.

The attorney and his co-counsel, Ron Haley, are just two of many who have criticized investigators for allowing Boyd to go home the night of the shooting. The gunman, who claimed he fired in self-defense, was questioned and released.

“How in the hell he gets to walk out of Trader Joe’s parking lot a free man is insane,” Haley said in an interview with WAFB.

Thompson agreed and indicated that the race of the people involved contributed to that decision.

“Had the roles been reversed, and had it been Mr. Buckley who had murdered Mr. Boyd, we believe it would not have been 72 hours before this arrest warrant was put out,” Thompson told the news station. “So absolutely we believe that this was a disparity in the way that this case was treated.”

If convicted of second-degree murder, Boyd faces a mandatory life sentence without the possibility of parole.

Cox Media Group