Investigation
A security camera in the restaurant filmed the entire scene, but its low quality and lack of audio made it difficult to make out events and hard to identify the murderers. The police began a search for four men, the three who had been involved in the robbery and another who had helped them scout the restaurant earlier. The police were criticized when the descriptions released of the four men was that they were six-feet-tall black men. Many felt that such a vague description would do nothing to help capture the perpetrators and would merely enhance stereotypes of black men being criminals.
A week after the shooting Lawrence Augustus Brown was identified as a suspect and he turned himself in to police. Another of the three, Oneil Rohan Grant, was arrested soon after. That fall Gary George Francis and Emile Mark Jones were arrested. Grant, Francis, and Jones were charged with manslaughter and robbery. Brown, who had fired the shotgun, was charged with first degree murder. The charges against Jones, who was not involved in the robbery itself were later dropped.
Read more about this topic: Just Desserts Shooting