TULSA, Okla. — Angie Pitts lovingly remembers her nephew, Nicari Owens, as someone who always made others feel good about themselves.
“Nicari was fun. Always laughing, always joking and you would love him around. He loved to dance, a pretty boy. His spirit was just good,” said Pitts.
Police say on Aug. 6, 2023, dispatch received a call about shots fired inside a local nightclub.
“He was at a club, and I don’t know if it was a fight or whatever, but my nephew got shot in the club, and with it being in a club, I know many people saw what happened. Everybody runs from bullets. That’s correct, but there is always two or three people that see something,” said Pitts.
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Tulsa police search for murder suspect after shooting at Kickback Club
When officers arrived at the former Kickback Club located near Yale and Apache, they found 19-year-old Nicari Owens dead inside.
"Nicari was inside the Kickback Club, and it was an after-hours situation as well. He got into a fight with another person inside the bar. Shots were fired and everybody fled after that,” said Tulsa Police Lt. Brandon Watkins.
Tulsa police said the Able Commission later shut the club down because the owner was operating without a license.
Lt. Watkins said the motive for the shooting in this case isn’t clear, but it does appear to be gang-related.
“It was most likely gang-related and from what we are hearing, rival gangs meeting up at a place that kind of spiraled out of control. It just sounds like he was out with some friends and ran into somebody he was not on good terms with, and a fistfight started and the fistfight became a gunfight or actually not even a gunfight, just a straight up murder,” said Watkins.
Officers said there were multiple people inside the club at the time of the shooting, but so far, no one has come forward to identify who the shooter is.
Pitts said it’s hard to understand why anyone would take another person’s life.
“All of us are in the gang of God. That’s where we’re at. When everybody get through, that’s who we belong too. We belong to God. We don’t belong to nothing else. It aint worth taking nobody’s life because I dislike you or you said the wrong thing to me,” said Pitts.
Nicari’s story is just one of two unsolved cases from 2023.
If you have any information about his death, you are asked to contact the Tulsa Police Department.
