Abidine Boye, 30, Named After Early Morning Death at North Avenue Vape Shop in Richmond

 Before sunrise on Richmond’s North Side, a passerby noticed something was wrong inside a neighborhood business. That discovery led police to 30-year-old Abidine Boye, who was found fatally shot while working at a vape shop on North Avenue. By morning, a workplace had become the center of a homicide investigation, and a family was left confronting the sudden loss of a loved one before the day fully began.

Richmond police were called at approximately 5:29 a.m. Saturday, September 26, 2026, to a business in the 4200 block of North Avenue near Moss Side. The passerby had reported seeing someone lying inside the establishment, prompting officers to respond. When they arrived, they found Boye, an employee of the business, unresponsive with an apparent gunshot wound. He was pronounced dead at the scene. The early response underscored the seriousness of what officers had encountered that morning.

Police later identified the victim as Abidine Boye of Richmond. Detectives with the Richmond Police Department’s Major Crimes Division are handling the investigation as they work to establish what happened. Authorities have not publicly released additional details explaining the circumstances of the shooting, leaving important questions about the events before officers arrived unanswered. Investigators must examine the available evidence and determine how the shooting unfolded. Investigators must reconstruct the moments immediately before his death.

For people who knew Boye through the business, the loss has a personal dimension that cannot be captured by the police response alone. Customers remembered him as kind and hardworking, describing positive interactions with the man they encountered while visiting the store and remembered him warmly during visits to the shop. Those everyday exchanges now form part of the memories people carry after his sudden death. His presence at the business had become familiar to those who returned there regularly.

The shooting has left coworkers and others connected to the business facing an absence. Those everyday routines can create relationships over time, making the sudden death of an employee especially difficult for people who shared them. For Boye’s family and friends, the loss is more profound still, as they mourn someone whose life extended far beyond the workplace where he was killed. His loss therefore reaches well beyond a single location or morning.

Investigators are now seeking information that could help identify a possible suspect and clarify the circumstances surrounding the shooting. The available account does not establish a motive, identify a suspect, or explain what led to the fatal encounter. Those details remain matters for investigators to determine, and unconfirmed claims should not be treated as established facts while the case remains active. The case remains at an early stage, and official findings are still developing as investigators gather information.

Authorities have asked anyone with information about the shooting or a possible suspect to contact Richmond Police or Crime Stoppers. Public assistance can be important in an investigation when witnesses may have seen something before, during, or after an incident. At the same time, Boye’s loved ones are left to process a loss that came suddenly and under circumstances that remain under investigation. The search for answers continues alongside the grieving process as the investigation moves forward.

Abidine Boye’s death has left an empty place in the lives of people who knew him, from family and friends to coworkers and customers who remember his kindness. The investigation may eventually provide more answers about what happened that September morning, but those closest to Boye will remember more than the circumstances of his death. His warmth, hard work, and everyday connections will remain part of his lasting memory.