2021 Muskogee shooting

On February 2, 2021, at approximately 1:30 a.m. CST, police responded to a shooting at a residence in Muskogee, Oklahoma, where Javarion Lee and his family lived. Officers arriving at the scene encountered an armed man; an officer fired his rifle once and missed, after which the man fled on foot but was later captured following a brief pursuit.

The shooting killed six people: Javarion Lee, 24, and his five nieces and nephews, who ranged in age from one to nine years old. The children's mother was seriously injured in the attack and was airlifted to a local hospital, where she survived. Three other children present in the home at the time were uninjured. The case was described as the deadliest mass shooting in Oklahoma since the 1986 Edmond post office shooting.

The suspect was identified by law enforcement as Jarron Deajon Pridgeon, born March 21, 1995, who was 25 years old at the time of the shooting and had lived occasionally with Lee and his family. The victims included Pridgeon's brother and his nieces and nephews. Pridgeon had a prior criminal record, having been charged with assault and battery in 2019 after throwing concrete at a woman; he pleaded guilty to that charge and was placed on three years' probation, with a court-ordered mental health evaluation. In connection with the shooting, Pridgeon was also charged with possession of a firearm after a felony conviction.

In August 2021, Pridgeon was charged with six counts of first-degree murder in Muskogee County. Prosecutors initially sought the death penalty. As a result of violating his earlier plea agreement, Pridgeon's deferred sentence for the 2019 assault was accelerated, and he began serving a 10-year sentence for that conviction immediately. Pridgeon later entered a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity.

The case saw pretrial disputes over public access to court records: in 2022, the Muskogee Phoenix newspaper sued for a copy of trial hearing transcripts, and a court reporter was initially held in contempt and fined for failing to produce them. The contempt finding was later dropped after it was revealed the court reporter had been in hospice care. The trial, originally scheduled for November 2023, was delayed to May 2024; a request to delay the trial was heard by a judge in early 2023. On October 4, 2024, Pridgeon pleaded guilty to the shooting and was sentenced to life in prison.

In the aftermath, grief counseling was provided to students at local schools attended by some of the deceased children, as well as to police officers who responded to the scene. Muskogee Mayor Marlon Coleman announced plans to sign a proclamation establishing March as "Community Care Month for First Responders." Local clergy groups, assisted by the mayor's office, established a monetary fund to support the surviving mother of the child victims.