A 35-year-old Missouri mother was shot dead at a Ferguson gas station just before midnight Tuesday while walking back to her car with slushies she'd bought for her 9- and 6-year-old children — who watched her die. Shakeela Martin's murder is the sixth gas station shooting in the St. Louis area in three months, and no one has been arrested for any of them.
Martin was an innocent bystander, according to Ferguson Police Chief Troy Doyle. An argument broke out inside the BP convenience store before she arrived; when she and her children walked out, a barrage of gunfire erupted from a nearby vehicle. A second victim, a man, was critically wounded and remains unable to speak to investigators.
"She was here to purchase some soft drinks for her young kids," Doyle said. "They're physically unhurt but obviously hurt emotionally. You can only imagine what a child would go through watching their mom being murdered in front of them."
WIS10 reported the string of area gas station shootings — a 22-year-old man killed last Saturday inside a QuikTrip in south St. Louis, additional deadly shootings at a Phillips 66 and in Soulard — but noted no broader institutional accountability for the pattern. The outlet framed the story around community grief and police efforts to install a portable camera system that detects stolen vehicles in the BP parking lot. What went unasked: why six gas station shootings in three months, and who keeps letting shooters back on the street?
Martin worked at a Rally's restaurant. A coworker, Renada McGhee, remembered praying with her on a hard day: "She started crying. She said, 'Thank you. I needed that.'" A GoFundMe describes Martin as a devoted mother "full of love and hope for the future." She had no life insurance. Her family was set to move into a new home the day after she was killed.
Ferguson resident Curtis Ware kept it plain: "I just feel like the violence needs to stop, man." Neighbor Sterling Henderson pointed to the children: "Two of the young kids who seen this, they're going to have a hard time. They're going to need some therapy or something."
Five children now grow up without their mother because someone settled a convenience store argument with a gun and faced no apparent consequence — not for the shooting, and not for whatever priors or plea deals put that person on the street. The second victim, who may have been the intended target, lies critical in a hospital bed. Police say they're working leads. Ferguson has heard that before.
The question isn't whether this community is grieving. It's who answers for a system that produces six gas station shootings in ninety days and can't name a single suspect.
