DES MOINES, Iowa —
The new year arrived quietly in downtown Des Moines, slipping in on cold air and half-lit streets, carrying with it the fragile hope that always follows the final seconds of midnight.
Fireworks had already faded into memory, bars were emptying, and the city seemed ready to exhale after another long year.
But before the clock could reach 2:30 a.m., that calm was shattered.
Not by celebration.
Not by laughter.
But by gunfire.
Just before dawn, an adult man pushed through the doors of MercyOne Des Moines Medical Center, bleeding from a gunshot wound, his face carrying the stunned disbelief of someone who had crossed, in seconds, from ordinary life into violence.
The injury was not considered life-threatening, yet the moment itself signaled something far more serious — that the first hours of the new year had already turned dark.
Police officers were alerted immediately, responding to the hospital and beginning to piece together what had happened, even as questions hung in the air unanswered.
Where had the shooting occurred.
Who had pulled the trigger.
And why violence had chosen this particular hour to announce itself.
They would not have long to wait.
Only moments later, another call came in.
Another address.
Another scene.
This time, an apartment building at 308 Court Avenue, in the heart of downtown, where the night would end far more tragically.
Officers arrived to find 30-year-old Tony Alexander Young suffering from critical gunshot injuries.
The scene inside the residence was tense, chaotic, and irreversible, the kind that leaves first responders knowing instantly that time is no longer an ally.
Des Moines Fire Department medics rushed Young to UnityPoint Methodist Medical Center, where doctors fought to save him.
They could not.
Later that morning, as the city slowly woke to the first day of a new year, Tony Alexander Young was pronounced dead.
Another life cut short.
Another name added to a growing list that no community ever wants to read aloud.
What makes the loss heavier is not only the finality of death, but the proximity of it all — the way these events unfolded within minutes of each other, within the same downtown corridor, while most of the city slept unaware.
Two shootings.
Two separate incidents.
One fatal ending.
According to the Des Moines Police Department, the second shooting was not random.
It was not a stray bullet or an anonymous act of violence in the dark.
Investigators say evidence indicates that during a dispute inside the Court Avenue apartment, 31-year-old Jordan Isaac Carmi used a handgun to shoot Young.
The argument, whatever its origins, escalated into something irreversible, transforming a private conflict into a public tragedy.
In those moments, words were replaced by gunfire, and consequences arrived faster than anyone inside the apartment could have imagined.
Police arrested Carmi later that morning.
He lives at the Court Avenue apartment where the shooting occurred.
He is now charged with first-degree murder, a charge that carries with it the weight of a lifetime — not only for the accused, but for the family left behind by the victim.
As detectives continued their work, another detail emerged that underscored how far the violence had traveled.
Investigators recovered a handgun believed to be connected to the case from Walnut Creek
, near the North Valley Drive bridge.
A weapon discarded, removed from the immediate scene, as if distance alone could undo what had already been done.
But distance offers no absolution.
The creek, quiet and indifferent, now holds its own silent role in a story that will be replayed in courtrooms, police files, and grieving homes for years to come.
The water flows on.
The damage does not.
For downtown Des Moines, the timing of the violence cuts particularly deep.
New Year’s Day is supposed to represent renewal, reflection, and the fragile belief that tomorrow can be better than yesterday.
Instead, it arrived with flashing lights, sirens, and hospital corridors filled with urgency and grief.
Residents who later passed through Court Avenue would see no immediate sign of what had occurred there hours earlier.
No blood on the sidewalk.
No crowd gathered.
Just another building, another street, another place where life had changed forever behind closed doors.
Yet for those connected to Tony Alexander Young, the new year will never begin the same way again.
Birthdays, holidays, and ordinary mornings will now carry the weight of absence.
A phone that will never ring.
A voice that will never answer back.
The unrelated nature of the two shootings only adds to the unease.
They were not part of a single spree.
They were not linked by a shared suspect or a continuous chain of events.
They happened independently, a reminder that violence does not require coordination to leave devastation in its wake.
One man survives his injuries.
Another does not.
Both moments unfold within the same narrow window of time, forcing the city to confront uncomfortable questions about safety, conflict, and how quickly lives can unravel.
Police continue to investigate the first shooting, working to determine exactly where it occurred and what led to the man’s injuries before he walked into the hospital seeking help.
Details remain limited, and officers have not indicated whether any arrests have been made in that case.
What is clear is that the early hours of January 1 were marked not by celebration, but by emergency calls and flashing lights cutting through the darkness.
As the legal process begins for Jordan Isaac Carmi, the case will move from the immediacy of the crime scene into the slower, more deliberate machinery of the justice system.
Court dates will be scheduled.
Evidence will be examined.
Statements will be scrutinized.
But none of that will bring back the life that was lost.
For Des Moines, this tragedy serves as a sobering reminder that violence does not pause for holidays, nor does it respect the symbolic promise of a new beginning.
It arrives when it chooses, often in the quiet hours when defenses are down and expectations are low.
As the city moves forward into the year ahead, the echoes of those gunshots will linger — not as sounds, but as questions.
How did a dispute escalate so far.
Why was a gun present in the first place.
And how many more mornings will begin with similar headlines if nothing changes.
For now, downtown Des Moines carries the weight of a new year that began not with hope, but with loss.
And for one family, the calendar has turned, but time has stopped entirely.