A former security guard will spend the rest of his life behind bars for the murder of an unarmed Black man at a supermarket gas station in Memphis, Tennessee.
Gregory Livingston was found guilty of first-degree murder after fatally shooting 48-year-old Alvin Motley, Jr. on Aug. 7, 2021, after the pair had a heated altercation over loud music playing from Motley’s car.
Livingston worked as a contract security guard for Kroger at the time. Motley was visiting Memphis with his girlfriend, Pia Foster. Livingston was patrolling the grocery store’s gas station when Motley and Foster pulled up to a pump. He confronted Motley and yelled at him to turn the music down.
They argued for a short time before Foster ushered Motley back into the car. As Foster started pulling away from the station, Motley got out and approached Livingston, telling him he wanted to “talk like men.”
Livingston had his gun drawn and told Motley to “back up” before shooting him once square in the chest. Motley was only carrying a cigarette in one hand and a beer in the other. He died at the scene.
Surveillance videos caught the shooting from multiple angles. Several witnesses, including Motley’s girlfriend, were also present at the shooting scene.
Livingston’s trial took less than one week to complete. His attorneys built his trial defense on a self-defense claim, asserting that he feared for his life and had no idea what Motley was going to do when he approached him. Prosecutors showed jurors the videos and maintained that Motley wasn’t a threat, noting the items he was carrying when he approached Livingston.
One prosecutor told the court that Motley was also legally blind and may not have seen the gun Livingston was carrying. After the shooting, Livingston called the police but never rendered medical aid.
One witness testified and said it didn’t look like the music playing from Motley’s car was disturbing anyone. During Foster’s testimony, she described Livingston’s behavior as hostile, stating it felt like he was picking on her and Motley during the dispute.
Livingston was sentenced to life in prison. Court records show his attorneys filed a motion for a new trial, ABC News reports.
He was initially charged with second-degree murder, but a grand jury indicted him on a first-degree murder charge in December 2021 after reviewing cellphone and surveillance videos.
“They said what this family has been feeling the whole time — that this was not only unnecessary, not only unjustifiable, but it was a heartless killing of a young man who was armed only with a can of beer and a cigarette,” civil rights lawyer Ben Crump said after a 2021 hearing, the Atlanta Black Star previously reported.
Before becoming a security guard, Livingston worked as a police officer in Horn Lake, Mississippi, for nearly three years. He resigned in 2001.
Motley, who lived in Chicago and owned a clothing business, was visiting Memphis to do business and meet with family members. He had just arrived in the city before he was shot. He was an aspiring actor, entertainer, and media personality.
“My God tells me I am to forgive, and I forgive him,” Alvin Motley, Sr., said of Livingston to WREG. “But for every day for the rest of my life, every morning I wake up, I want him to be in prison and wake up the same morning, and we both think about what he did.”
Like Motley, Jordan Davis was also fatally shot for playing loud music at a gas station in Jacksonville, Florida, in 2012. The 17-year-old’s death happened just eight months after Trayvon Martin was killed by George Zimmerman and ignited protests across the country, furthering a national reckoning over racial profiling and the deaths of Black teenagers. Michael David Dunn, the man who shot Davis, is serving a life sentence for the teen’s murder.
