CINCINNATI — A father and son have been indicted on murder charges in the fatal shooting of a man in the parking lot of a North College Hill sports bar last month, according to Hamilton County court records and the Hamilton County Prosecutor’s Office.
Aaron Peavy, 44, and his son Brian Peavy, 22, were indicted on Friday, Oct. 16, on charges including murder, felonious assault and abduction. They are accused of striking Donald Jamar Hales with a gun in the parking lot of Fricker’s Bar and Grill in North College Hill before Hales was fatally shot six times. The Peavys are being held at the Hamilton County Justice Center.
The shooting happened on Sept. 27. According to the prosecutor’s office, Aaron Peavy got into an argument with Hales inside the bar, and police were called to the business around 5 p.m. Aaron Peavy is accused of pulling out a gun, forcing Hales into the parking lot and beating him with the firearm, before bar staff briefly broke the pair apart.
“Aaron’s son, Brian, took Aaron’s gun and pointed it at the victim,” the prosecutor’s office said in a statement. “The victim, still bleeding, pulled out his own gun.” All three men then struggled over Hales’ gun, causing it to discharge, officials said, and Brian Peavy stepped back and fired six shots into Hales, emptying the magazine of his firearm.
Hales died at a hospital later that night, officials said. A second person was shot in the arm during the incident. A woman who called 911 told operators she saw at least two people fighting in the parking lot and that both pulled out guns. “They’re shooting,” she said. “Somebody just got shot out there.”
The gunshots caused panic inside the bar, where the men had been moments earlier, officials said. A friend of Hales told a local television partner that the altercation began as a disagreement over a football game, according to reporting on the case.
The indictments, filed more than two weeks after the shooting, move the case into Hamilton County Common Pleas Court, where Aaron and Brian Peavy face the murder counts together. As of the morning of Saturday, Oct. 17, court appearances for the father and son had not yet been scheduled, according to court records.
For North College Hill, a small city just northwest of Cincinnati, the case follows a late-September evening that began as a dispute inside a neighborhood bar and grill and ended with one man dead and another wounded. Further details, including future court dates, will be set as the case proceeds through the Hamilton County court system.
