Trevon McKoy, a former Bellevue College student, was killed the morning of Sunday, April 1, after performing at the Vera Project at the Seattle Center. He was a 21 year old rapper who also went by JuiceTheGod. He died of a single gunshot wound to the head, according to the King County Medical Examiner’s Office, and his death was ruled a homicide.
Seattle police were called to the scene at the intersection of 1st Avenue North and Republican Street, according to the Bellevue Patch. Seattle police said McKoy had been leaving a party at the Seattle Center and that nearby resident witnesses had tried to revive him after he was shot. McKoy was pronounced dead at the scene by the police.
“There was a person laying right, right on that sidewalk right there,” said Dan Christian to Kiro7 that night. Christian also mentioned he was asleep when the shooting started just after 2:00 a.m. on Easter Sunday, and the commotion woke him up.
“All I know is that the people there were saying that he got shot,” said Kendall Dillingham, a former Franklin High School classmate of McKoy, to Kiro7. “I didn’t believe it was true at first, because there was no way he would be in a position to be shot like that.” He described McKoy as a promising young rapper and he speculated that someone may have gotten jealous of his recent success and responded poorly to it.
McKoy was featured in the Seattle Weekly last August, and in that publication he talked about wanting to be a role model for his peers. In a conversation with The Blow Up last July, he said “we’re all in the same positions and we’re different in some ways, but we all got one main goal, that’s to put the city on,” calling local artists to “work together.” He followed with advice for the youth: “If you have a dream, aspiration, hobby, whatever you do, go hard and put your all into that. Don’t let anybody tell you that you can’t do something or tell you what you can do.”
He was an active part of the local hip-hop community with a prolific output, and his last official release appeared on SoundCloud just 8 days before he passed away.
According to last summer’s Seattle Weekly feature, McKoy was a student at Bellevue College studying business with a goal to transfer to Centralia College to play basketball. Bellevue College’s basketball coach, Donald Brady, said to Kiro 7, “My team listens to him quite a bit, so that was kind of where I found out about his music from my players playing his music videos in our team room and things like that. He absolutely has a following.”
Seattle police are still investigating the case, and they did not have a description of the suspect by April 2 according to Kiro7. Seattle police are looking for tips, so anyone who thinks they might know something is encouraged to share anything they know about this case. Anybody with information can call the Homicide/Assault Tip Line at (206) 233-5000.