FOREVER YOUNG

DaJuan Brown, 15, had been taught from a young age to always stand by the people he loved.

“Always protect,” his parents told him. “Never bully. Never.”

So when gunshots rang out on the eve of July Fourth, DaJuan sprinted off his grandmother’s porch to make sure his friend Ryan, who’d just walked down the street to get food, was OK.

When he turned the corner, he found Ryan on the ground, shot in the leg. DaJuan tried to run for help, but then the gunman turned to him and shot him in the chest. He died within minutes.

DaJuan was one of five people killed when a man with a history of mental illness and clad in body armor opened fire in Southwest Philadelphia with a ghost gun. Police said the shooter, who is Black, told them he was helping police fight crime by targeting Black men. The bloodshed that day was one of the deadliest mass shootings in Philadelphia history.

DaJuan Jamal Brown — known by family and friends as Juan Juan — was born Sept. 21, 2007. He was mostly raised in Manayunk, and spent time at his grandmothers’ homes in South Philadelphia and Kingsessing. He loved to dance and prank his family. His grandma, Odessa Brown, recalled how one night, when DaJuan was about 10, she went to see a show with friends. As she pulled up to the theater, he sprang up from the backseat, laughing. He’d been hiding there the whole drive over.

As DaJuan grew into a teen, his loving, giving spirit never wavered, friends and relatives said. If his family gave him money, he often spent it on food for friends who needed it, said his mother, Nyshyia Thomas.

“My baby was loved,” she said. “His spirit, who he was, is still present. I don’t see him, but his soul, his spirit, it’s still dancing around.”

She believes her son died a hero.

The middle child of three, and one of 19 grandchildren, DaJuan had a tight bond with his siblings, cousins, and parents. His father, Tyejuan Brown, was no stranger to gun violence. He has survived being shot twice, the first when he was just 16. Life as a young Black man, he said, was fragile and, at times, painful, and he has tried to teach that to his children.

He is overwhelmed with guilt that he wasn’t there to protect DaJuan that night. On the day of his son’s funeral, he was so determined to be by his son’s side every final minute that he ran alongside the horse-drawn carriage carrying DaJuan’s casket for nearly three miles, from the funeral home to the cemetery.

“I had to be with him,” he said. “He was too far away. I wanted to be as close to my son as I could for the last time.”

As soon as Yolanda Rains laid eyes on her grandson, she was all in.

Rains’ children were almost all grown, and she was beginning to think about the next phase of her life. But then, on Dec. 8, 2005, her eldest son’s child was born — and her world shifted.

“I loved him so much,” she said.

With her son in and out of jail, and the child’s mother unable to care for him, Rains returned home with the baby three days later. She named him Nazeem Anthony Rains.

Nazeem was the fifth-oldest of 16 children, and loved to play around with and poke fun at his family members, Rains said. Nazeem’s father has been in prison for much of his life and was convicted of murder in October, but Rains said the two spoke on the phone nearly every day, and were close.

Nazeem was finishing up his junior year at Philadelphia Learning Academy North, and was in the final stages of applying to Job Corps to get trained as a mechanic.

Rains said she’d always worried that something would happen to her grandson — because of what he looked like, and where they lived.

“He’s young, he’s Black, he’s a male, and he was around the age of all of these kids getting killed,” she said. She checked his room and monitored his life closely. She said his Instagram was linked to hers to ensure his posts were appropriate and that he wasn’t involved in any social media feuds — an increasing driver of gun violence.

But in May, while walking to get water ice from a convenience store around the corner from his home, Nazeem was shot in the head. Three other kids — including a 7-year-old riding his bike — were injured in the shooting.

Police have identified one of the three alleged gunmen as 19-year-old Makari Patterson, who remains at large. It’s unclear which of the three teens shot was targeted, police said, but they believe the shooting might have been gang-related.

At Nazeem’s funeral, his teachers remembered him as a respectful, fun-loving student — “a breath of fresh air,” said Quanisha Miller, his guidance counselor.

“He had this peace about him,” said his math teacher, Manoj Mathew. “He was a uniting figure. He always shook my hand, and never showed off in class.”

Nazeem’s grandmother, meanwhile, said her life as she knows it ended the day her grandson died.

“He was my life,” she said. “I will miss Nazeem until the day I die.”

As the Market-Frankford Line train roared to a stop, Wort Whipple III, then 5 years old, hopped down the train car aisle, his favorite toy phone gripped in his small hand.

It was almost midnight, and Wort and his mother were some of the train’s last remaining riders. With nowhere else to go and no place to sleep, Ebony Anderson and her child were riding the El through the night.

Anderson remembers how her son, whom she affectionately called “Bird,” played quietly by himself that night on the train car nine years ago, blissfully unaware of their troubles. And she remembers how, on that night and all of those that followed, he never left her side.

That reliability was something Wort carried through the rest of his life, she said. At 14, he helped her care for his newborn sister, often offering to put her to bed. He always assured his mom that in the face of life’s trials, together, they would be OK.

“You couldn’t cry alone around him,” Anderson said.

Wort was riding the Market-Frankford Line alone one afternoon in May when he was approached by a masked gunman. The two got into a fight on the 52nd Street station platform, and then the attacker shot Wort in the chest, killing him. Police have not identified the gunman, but believe he may have been attempting to rob Wort.

“The city needs to put more resources into finding who’s killing our babies,” Anderson said.

Wort, a freshman at Sankofa Freedom Academy Charter School, was a playful child, dancing at every opportunity, laughing with his friends after football practice, getting scolded by teachers for goofing off in class.

His uncle, Akeem Whipple, remembered how one time, Wort sneaked into his pantry, dumped his favorite chips out of their bag, then resealed it with air, as if they’d never been opened.

“I went to get a bag of chips, and every single bag was empty. Yet they looked brand new,” he said. “I knew it was him.”

Anderson, like many Philadelphia mothers, long worried about her son’s safety. She knew all too well what the city’s gun violence could take from her: When Wort was only 7, his father and namesake — Wort Ellsworth Whipple — was also shot and killed.

His father’s death scarred Wort, his family said, especially as he grew into a teen. Anderson had gotten him into grief counseling in recent months, and he had a behavioral health specialist providing more support in school.

“As a mother, you want to give your child everything they ask for,” she said. “And the one thing he asked for that you can’t give him is his father.”

As much as it pains her, she believes the two are reunited. Her son is buried in Friends of Southwest Burial Ground in Upper Darby. His small plot, draped in a green prayer rug, is just 10 yards from his father’s.

Ruby Shalyz Corchado loved cuddling with her six older sisters, kissing her mom on the cheek, and sending sweet texts with reminders that she loved them.

“This was my princess,” Bridgette Caban said of her youngest child, who loved to dance and snack on Flamin’ Hot Cheetos.

Born July 29, 2008 in Bronx, New York, Ruby and her family moved to Philadelphia in 2016 in search of a better life and a fresh start, Caban said. Now, Caban calls that “the worst mistake I ever made.”

Caban, a single mother, said her family sometimes struggled financially. The four of them slept on one air mattress, and used milk crates as furniture in apartments in Kensington and North Philly. Although the trials weighed on the family, they always had each other, Caban said.

Everything changed, she said, when Ruby, at age 12, started dating a 15-year-old girl she met in school. Caban said she didn’t believe that Ruby was old enough to date, and tried to keep the girls from seeing each other. But Ruby rebelled, she said, and over the next two years, the relationship grew toxic, and at times abusive. The girls got into physical fights, Caban said, and Ruby’s behavior became more erratic.

Then Ruby started running away. Caban said she called police to report her daughter missing many times. The child’s returns home were brief, Caban said, and she stopped going to school. Caban said she tried to get the Department of Human Services and other agencies to help her daughter, but doesn’t believe they did enough.

Police believe the girlfriend, Liany Ysquierdo, had no stable home life or family support system and was selling drugs in Kensington to support herself. In April, she was adjudicated delinquent for illegal gun possession and receiving stolen property after being caught in a stolen car, court records show.

But within a month, police said, Ysquierdo, 17, had a new gun in her possession — one that would kill Ruby.

In the early morning of May 28, police said, surveillance video captured Ruby and Ysquierdo fighting and arguing on the sidewalk on the 3400 block of I Street in Kensington. At one point, Ruby grabbed a loaded handgun from Ysquierdo’s waistband, then turned and fired, striking herself in the face. She died at the hospital the next day at age 14.

The video does not have audio, so it’s not clear what Ruby was saying in the moments before the shooting. The Medical Examiner’s Office has ruled her death a suicide, but prosecutors said it’s not clear whether she accidentally pulled the trigger or intended to shoot herself.

Like Ruby, about 37% of young people killed by guns each year die by suicide or in an unintentional shooting, said Dorothy Novick, a physician at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia’s Center for Violence Prevention. Suicide is a leading cause of death for children ages 10 to 14 — a group in which the suicide rate has increased by 146% in the last decade, Novick said.

Keeping guns away from children is critical to preventing their deaths, she said; teens who live in homes with guns are four times more likely to die by suicide.

Ysquierdo was adjudicated delinquent on multiple charges related to Ruby’s death, including illegal gun possession, reckless endangerment, and receiving stolen property, court records show. Despite prosecutors’ continued requests that she be placed in a juvenile detention facility, Family Court Judge Andrew Gordon has placed her on house arrest. She has been ordered to live with her father, whom the courts believe to be a more stable guardian, and she is being monitored by GPS tracking as her case moves forward. Her lawyer declined to comment.

Ruby’s family says Ysquierdo should face more serious charges because it was her gun that killed Ruby. But because Ruby pulled the trigger, and her death was ruled a suicide, prosecutors have opted not to charge Ysquierdo with her death.

Caban, meanwhile, says she feels stuck in a limbo, hoping for justice that will likely never come, agonizing over resources she wishes she’d had before it was too late.

“The only peace I can have in my heart,” she said, “is knowing ... that my baby got her wings.”

One afternoon last summer in her car, Esther Kim looked over at her 14-year-old son, Neko Rivera, who was staring down at his phone.

“Do you feel loved?” she asked him.

Neko paused, then looked at his mother. “Yes,” he said.

Kim had asked this, she said, because she wasn’t always sure. Neko had grown from a funny, energetic child into a quiet and reserved teen. He kept to himself, spending much of his free time playing video games in his room. His freshman year at Samuel Fels High School was a challenge — his grades had started to slip and he was getting into fights — behavior, his mother said, driven by anger from a childhood filled with instability, an incarcerated father, and witnessing violence at home.

Kim worked hard to change those circumstances. She labored seven days a week in multiple jobs, in hopes of affording a new apartment where her two kids could have their own rooms, where they could sit comfortably together on a sprawling couch and watch movies.

She reached that goal as Neko entered his teens. She spent more time with her children, going out to dinner, taking trips to the beach and Florida amusement parks — moments she cherishes even more now.

In February, Neko was shot 10 times outside Samuel Fels High over what police said was an argument among teens. Police said a group of teens chased Neko and a friend through an apartment complex. Neko tripped, police said, and the shooters surrounded him. He died, but his friend got away.

Police said the friend, also 15, refused to cooperate with the investigation. He was shot again a few months later, police said, but survived. Neko’s killers remain at large.

Neko Juan Rivera, born in Langhorne on Nov. 8, 2007, loved baseball and cooking with his mother. He was protective of his younger sister, Naomi, and loved riding roller coasters, especially the Hulk at Universal Studios.

Kim sees him often in her dreams. She visits the cemetery once a week and runs her fingers through the soft grass that’s grown over his grave. Sometimes she lies there on his small plot — telling him she loves him, that she’s sorry, recalling her favorite memories.

Especially that moment in the car, when Neko confirmed what will remain the most important thing to her: He felt loved.

Diora Porter-Brown was just a toddler, newly walking and playing with Care Bears in her Brewerytown home.

In July, her 14-year-old cousin, who police said had severe developmental disabilities and also lived in the home, found an unsecured handgun in an upstairs closet. He fired it by accident.

The bullet struck the back of Diora’s head. She died in her mother’s arms on the way to the hospital.

Diora’s grandmother was charged with multiple crimes, including involuntary manslaughter, after officials said she negligently stored the gun that the children found. Officials said the other adults in the house didn’t know about the weapon.

Diora was one of at least seven children shot unintentionally in Philadelphia in 2023, most by young family members mishandling an unsecured weapon.

Storing firearms and their ammunition separately and securely is critical for all gun owners, said Novick, the CHOP physician, because research shows that children as young as 2 are strong enough to pull the trigger.

Diora’s mother, who asked not to be identified for privacy reasons, said she’ll remember her baby as a loving, joyful soul who delighted those around her.

“I wish I had more time with my daughter,” she said.

Those who knew and loved Hezekiah Bernard saw him as a bubbly young man with “a hunger to see the world.”

Twice a week, Hezekiah, or “Hezzy,” would visit the neighborhood organization LevelUp, where he blended into a sea of young people, dancing, laughing, and enjoying a home-cooked meal. He was, to many, a little brother.

“He was always being himself,” said his friend Aquine Harper, 13.

But few understood that Hezekiah, after being taken into the custody of Child Protective Services in 2022, was navigating life largely on his own. He had become a chronic runaway, bouncing between friends’ homes, an abandoned rowhouse, and child welfare facility beds. At only 12 years old, he had stopped going to school, and was considered a dropout from the sixth grade.

Hezekiah may have started selling drugs with a friend in West Philadelphia, police said. His mother, Delores Davis, said she asked for support from the Department of Human Services that never came.

Then, in August, Hezekiah’s short, difficult life ended in cruel fashion: Someone shot him in the head, then wrapped his body in plastic and tossed it in a dumpster near 56th and Cherry Streets. A sanitation worker for the Philadelphia Housing Authority found his corpse two days later.

Police believe that Hezekiah’s friend Tysheer Hankinson shot and killed him. Investigators say the shooting may have been over stolen drug money or a fight over a girl.

Hezekiah Robert Bernard was born Sept. 9, 2010, the youngest of 14 children. His family has hired a lawyer to investigate whether the city’s child welfare agency could have done more to support him, to keep him safe.

Hezekiah is buried in Upper Darby, beneath the shade of a pine tree.

As a boy, Tysheer Hankinson had a laugh so infectious that you could hear it from down the block, said his mother, Desiree Cummings. At night, he’d hog the bathroom to practice dances in the mirror.

But as Tysheer grew into a teen, Cummings said, his fun-loving nature appeared to fade, and she felt as if her oldest child were slipping away. He grew more upset about his relationship with father, who was largely absent from his life, she said. He started coming home late, skipping school, and lying about his whereabouts. Then, in January 2023, he stopped coming home altogether.

Tysheer disappeared for weeks at a time, his mother said. She searched the city for him and filed police reports, but he moved around frequently. Police sometimes found him sleeping on the subway or at City Hall. Authorities brought him home, Cummings said, but within a few weeks he would run away again.

Then, in April, Tysheer was shot in the face outside SEPTA’s 52nd Street station. He survived, but his jaw was shattered and arm broken, and he required a feeding tube after weeks of hospitalization.

Cummings said she and her boyfriend — who is paralyzed from a shooting 10 years ago — tried to help Tysheer understand the seriousness of what happened. They feared for his life, and drove him to Central Pennsylvania to stay with his grandmother, hoping a change of scenery would keep him safe.

“I didn’t understand what he got himself into,” Cummings said.

Within a week, Tysheer ran away again ― for the last time.

Police believe he had started selling drugs in West Philadelphia. Then in August, police say, he shot and killed his 12-year-old friend Hezekiah Bernard and hid his body in a dumpster.

Within days, people on social media implicated Tysheer in the crime and called for revenge.

His mother — who had not seen her son in months — worked with police to try to find him. “There were only two ways out: Police were going to catch him, or he was going to be in a body bag,” Cummings said. “Social media had already made the decision, they were going to kill him. We had to find him.”

The streets found him first: Tysheer was shot and killed near 56th and Poplar Streets in West Philadelphia late one night in September. Police said it was in retaliation for killing his friend.

Cummings and her children moved away from Philadelphia after being threatened and followed. She has been too afraid to honor Tysheer with a funeral — making it difficult to come to terms with his killing.

She makes no excuse for what police say he did. She felt as if she’d lost her son long ago, she said, but she finds it hard to believe he was capable of killing his friend.

“We’re just trying to make peace,” she said.

Shaheed Saoud was gifted at math and popular with his classmates at Al-Aqsa Islamic Academy, where he was a senior. Standing at 6-foot-2, he was a natural on the basketball court, and he dreamed of playing college ball, said his father, Samer Saoud.

Saoud said his son spent hours writing to college coaches about his prospects, and often received fliers back from them in the mail. He never got the chance to decide where he would go.

Shaheed was shot and killed in the backseat of a car in Northeast Philadelphia, a short drive from where he grew up. The District Attorney’s Office charged two men with killing him, but later obtained video they said showed Shaheed firing a gun first. Prosecutors dropped the charges. The circumstances of the shooting, and why Shaheed may have shot at someone, remain unclear, officials said.

Still, his death has devastated his family. His parents split in the months after, his father said. His mother has spent time in and out of the hospital — she said the all-encompassing grief has ruined her health.

“It just broke my life,” Saoud said of his oldest child’s death. “Since that day, nothing worked right.”

Shaheed was one of three children, a loving, funny, lighthearted boy. He was a devoted Muslim whose Janazah prayer, a Muslim burial service, drew a crowd of a few thousand people, Saoud said.

“They took his life before he started it,” said his father. “But by God’s will, he is in heaven.”

On a cold afternoon in February 2022, Jaseem Thomas and his cousins were babysitting their siblings when an electrical fire started and quickly spread through their Southwest Philadelphia rowhouse.

Within minutes, Jaseem rushed all six of the younger children out of the home, his mother said. He left no one behind and emerged from the flames with part of his face burned and his hair singed.

That was Jaseem — a selfless teen trying to protect his family. And later, he would save even more lives.

In April, Jaseem was shot five times, including twice in the head, after two gunmen ambushed him while he walked down Woodland Avenue. He was rushed to Penn Presbyterian Hospital, where doctors later declared him brain dead and told his mother he would not survive.

His mother, Shanae Thomas, said she decided to donate Jaseem’s organs, ensuring that her son’s killers would not get the last word. Jaseem’s heart, lungs, kidneys, and liver were donated to five people whose lives were transformed as a result. His corneas restored the vision of two people.

Police say the motive for the shooting remains unclear — Jaseem had no criminal record or contact with law enforcement. His uncle believes Jaseem feared that someone was after him, and detectives said he was carrying a gun at the time of his death. Police recovered the killers’ getaway car, a stolen Kia, shortly after the shooting; detectives say it was the same vehicle used in the burglary of a gun store in Upper Merion Township just the day before.

No arrests have been made.

Jaseem Teshawn Thomas, known by loved ones as “Jaja” or “Seem,” was born on June 7, 2006, and was raised in Wynnefield and Southwest Philadelphia.

A junior at Philadelphia Learning Academy South, Jaseem kept his hair in locs, and spent his free time playing basketball, dancing, and watching anime. He was interested in learning Spanish, his mother said, and sometimes walked down to practice with the corner store owner near his home.

Jaseem’s three younger siblings feel his absence daily.

“I could vent to him about anything,” said his 13-year-old sister, Dash. “I don’t know how I’m going to do this life without him.”

She recalled sitting beside her brother’s hospital bed, holding his hand in his final moments, and saying, “We need you.”

But she understands, she said, the gift he was able to give others.

Each morning in the summer, the children of East Locust Avenue would gather at the end of the block and wait for their ”mayor.”

What would they do today? Play basketball or football? Ride bikes or scooters? Fill up a wagon with bottles of water and sell them to passersby?

Laron “L.J.” Williams, or “Mayor L.J.” as the kids called him, would decide.

“It had to be L.J.’s idea,” said Dorothea Chavis, a longtime friend of L.J.’s family. “If he wasn’t in it, it was boring.”

L.J., the youngest of three children, was born and raised on the 700 block of East Locust Avenue, a tight-knit community in East Germantown where many families have lived for generations.

Everyone knew L.J. He spent most days playing outside to the point that, in the summer, the ends of his afro would turn a sandy blond. Neighbors called him “the block captain” or their “Dennis,” inspired by the mischievous comic strip character “Dennis the Menace.” He’d sit on neighbors’ porches and tell jokes, or come by asking for a few dollars for candy, and they’d have to shoo him home at the end of the day.

“He was a pain in the butt, but he was ours,” said Derek Everett, a neighbor.

L.J. was killed in June after a gunman fired a flurry of bullets down his street. L.J. was shot in the chest by a stray bullet while he crossed the street. He died in his parents’ arms, on the steps of his family home. It was his 12th birthday.

No arrests have been made. Two men were also killed in the shooting, which police believe was spurred by a drug feud. The prevalence of drug sales has been a problem on the block for years, police said, and where there are drugs, there is often violence. It has historically been a core driver of homicides in the city, and accounts for about one in five killings in recent years.

L.J.’s death traumatized a community that has long felt neglected by the city. Neighbors said losing him was losing “the soul of the block.”

Michelle Brister said her son’s death has splintered her family. She and her husband moved away and have been living in an extended-stay hotel until they find permanent housing.

She feels honored, though, that her son’s memory is being recognized: There are plans to rename a nearby learning center the Laron Williams Youth Center.

And she prays for the day that she will see her son, her youngest child, her little mayor again.

Devin Weedon’s love language was hugs.

A hug was mandatory for entry into the home, and if a sibling tried to sneak in without one, he’d block the doorway to the next room and not let the person pass, said his older sister Shanae Burnside.

“There were no handshakes. It was ‘Bring it in, give me a hug,’” she said. “It was never too many hugs with him.”

Devin, a 15-year-old freshman at Simon Gratz High School, was strong and stout from hours practicing football. He played defense, wore No. 64, and was the first to arrive at practice and last to leave, taking extra reps and focusing on correcting his mistakes.

He relished time in the gym lifting weights with his brother Aaron. Because his goal was to open a gym of his own one day, he offered teammates tips on their lifting form and meal prep, and was a mentor to new and old players alike, friends said.

“He was a sponge,” said Khalil Jones, 19. “Anything you told him, he took it to heart.”

And he never hung up the phone without saying “I love you,” said his mother, Wytina Burnside.

Police believe that four men tried to rob Devin as he walked to school on March 28. When Devin tried to defend himself, one of the men pulled a gun, and shot him once in the chest. He died a short time later at a hospital.

Police obtained surveillance video of the shooters, who were wearing ski masks. The killers remain at large, and police have not been able to identify them.

Devin’s father, Gary, said Devin’s death has driven a wedge between family members and the lack of justice has exacerbated their pain. Rumors have swirled through the neighborhood about who is responsible. And at times, overwhelmed with frustration and exhaustion, Weedon admits he has considered taking matters into his own hands. But he tries to remember that he has the rest of his family to look out for, he said, and buries those thoughts.

For now, he said, the family is looking to God, praying he guides police toward justice — and holding on to what they know for certain.

“I know my baby loved me,” his mother said. “And my baby knew I loved him.”

Semaj Richardson grew up near Broad Street and Erie Avenue in North Philadelphia, riding bikes with friends, playing basketball, and recording TikTok dances.

“He was a happy kid,” said his aunt Leeah Beard.

But as Semaj, known by family as “Maji,” grew into his teen years, the pressures of his environment chipped away at him, Beard said. He and his cousins, following other young men in the neighborhood, started writing rap songs together, with lyrics focused on life in a neighborhood historically plagued by gun violence.

Semaj’s mother, Simone Oden, recalled that her son grew distant, stopped listening to her, and sometimes stayed out all night. Then, in October, he was charged with a crime his mother declined to discuss. (Juvenile records are sealed, except for felonies, so reporters could not learn the details.)

Things spiraled fast, Beard said. Semaj’s rap songs were growing darker and more confrontational, sometimes featuring guns and violent lyrics. Then, in early January, his 16-year-old cousin was wounded in a shooting.

Just days later, on Jan. 11, Semaj was walking with his cousins near Broad and Erie when two gunmen shot him multiple times, killing him.

Police believe he was killed in retaliation for an earlier shooting, though they don’t know whether Semaj was involved. They are looking for more evidence in hopes of making an arrest of two juvenile suspects.

Semaj’s mother, distraught over her son’s death, has turned her anger at a juvenile justice system she believes didn’t offer enough resources to keep him out of harm’s way.

“I tried so hard to get my son where he needed to be, where I know he could have been in the world,” she said.

And his aunt questions whether she could have done more to steer Semaj and his friends in another direction.

“They didn’t understand the reality of death,” Beard said. “They didn’t understand there was danger to this life. … and when it got deeper, it’s like we missed that point.”

Randy Mills sat in a sea of children at North Philadelphia’s Connie Mack Recreation Center, eager to see neighborhood hero and NBA All-Star Kyle Lowry.

Every time Lowry asked a question, Randy shot up his hand, eager to prove that, even at just 11 years old, he was Lowry’s number-one fan.

It worked — Lowry gave Randy a signed jersey that afternoon for answering the most questions correctly, said Randy’s mother, Kesha Langford.

Langford holds that jersey closer now. In May, as Randy rode a SEPTA bus home one night, he was shot and killed by a 19-year-old man police have identified as Haneef Ali.

Police said Randy and Ali did not know each other, and they believe Randy may have simply looked at Ali the wrong way, triggering a brief argument that ended in gunfire — an all-too-common reality in a city awash with guns.

Ali remains at large.

Randy was born and raised in North Philadelphia, the second youngest of four children. A freshman at Roxborough High School, he walked the halls laughing with friends and checking in on the people he passed by.

“He really cared,” said his classmate Faith Bush.

Even as a child, Randy was independent and could comfortably strike up a conversation with a stranger, said his mother. She remembered how during their trips to the beach, she’d look away for a minute, and he’d wander off, as if in his own world.

“I’d be like, ‘Where’s Randy?” And he’d be all the way at the other end of the shore, talking to somebody, puttering in the water,” she said.

He was a devoted Muslim, his family said. For many years, they called him “Little Randy” because he was the smaller of his brothers. In time, he grew taller than his mother.

Still, she said, she called him her “Peanut.”

“That’s his name,” she said. “That’s my baby’s name.”

On a recent evening in the kitchen of his West Philadelphia home, Naqui Holley helped his Aunt Chanel prepare dinner. They talked about life after high school graduation come May, she said — how he was considering going into the Army or Marine Corps, how he envisioned a day when he had children and a house big enough for his extended family to move in.

“I want to take care of everyone,” she recalled the 17-year-old saying.

That kind of initiative was new for Naqui, Chanel Holley said. After his mother died of a heart attack four years ago, Naqui had been a difficult teen — he sometimes wouldn’t listen, came home after curfew, and didn’t spend much time with family. His grades slipped, and he had to attend an alternative school to catch up on credits.

But once he turned 17, his aunt said, he made a promise to change. And he kept it. Naqui returned to Sayre High School to finish up his senior year, started calling extended family to check in, and helped his aunt and great-grandmother take care of the house and cook.

“He was so proud of himself, and I was so proud of him,” Holley said. “He was a young man, coming into himself.”

On Dec. 9, Naqui went to a Sweet 16 party in Olney. He was talking with friends when just after 7:30 p.m., police say, someone with a gun shot twice into the crowd. A stray bullet struck Naqui in the chest, and he died a short time later. Another teen was shot in the face, but survived. No arrests have been made, and police do not believe the teens were the intended targets.

“I’m stuck between being vengeful and absolutely crushed,” his aunt said. “He was cheated.”

Cheated, she said, of high school milestones, time with his little brother, of the future for which he worked so hard.

Naqui Sean Holley was born April 24, 2006, in Germantown, and spent his later teen years in West Philadelphia. He had a younger brother, Nyhzir, and was raised alongside his three younger cousins.

He spent two summers working as a camp counselor for the city, and spent the weekends as a pitman for his uncle’s barbecue joint at 52nd Street and Westminster Avenue. He took pride in the work and enjoyed using the money he earned to buy himself new clothes, his aunt said.

Naqui went to parties on the weekends with his friends, where he danced for hours, and spoke often of how he was looking forward to his high school prom — his cousin, a fashion designer, was planning to fly in from Las Vegas to style him.

His family is leaning on one another through their grief, speaking of Naqui often and trying to focus on the joy he brought them.

“Going through all this, I learned you don’t need much, just people who love you,” Holley said. “Because some day, we’re only gonna have memories.”

When C.J. Johnson was just 3 years old, he and his mother visited the Philadelphia Zoo, where they marveled at monkeys, lions, and cheetahs, before coming upon the bamboo forest of the red pandas.

C.J. was instantly captivated by the cinnamon-colored bears, recalled his mother, Teahnna Jeffrey. From then on, she said, they were his favorite animal. He slept with a stuffed red panda from childhood into his teens.

They will stay alongside him forever now. When his family lowered his casket into the ground in June, two stuffed red pandas were tucked inside.

C.J. was shot in the chest during an attempted robbery after attending a party in North Philadelphia on June 9, police said. He and his friends were waiting to catch an Uber home when a group of teens in masks surrounded them, police said, then one shot C.J. in the chest.

Jermaine Williford, 17, has been charged with his killing. Police are searching for the others.

Calvin George Johnson IV was born in Philadelphia on Oct. 18, 2006. The third of four children, he was named after a long line of Calvin Johnsons, back to his paternal great-grandfather, and was his father’s only son.

Growing up, he split his time between living with his mother in Drexel Hill and with his father in South Jersey and West Philadelphia. He was a sophomore at Sayre High School in West Philly.

C.J.’s “getting ready” routine was vast, his mother said. He took long showers, whitened his teeth, used cologne, and cared for his skin with exfoliants and lotions. He and his mother used face masks together, she recalled, and went shopping for new outfits on special occasions. He and his father lifted weights together at the neighborhood YMCA.

He loved music and was always wearing headphones, listening to such artists as Rod Wave, Toosii, and Drake. As a growing teen, he could practically clear out the food in her fridge in one sitting, she said — he sometimes ate three breakfasts: eggs and bacon, toaster strudel, then waffles.

Jeffrey said everything reminds her of her son — mornings before school, the sound of a long shower, the sight of a fully stocked fridge.

She replays their conversations, such as his curiosity about the world and religion, and the day he asked her, “Is there really a God? How do we know?” She bought him a Bible to explore the answer on his own, and he carried it in his school backpack.

For comfort on some days, she holds that Bible, or clutches a yellow card he made her in elementary school, covered in hearts and the words “I love my mom.”

Khalif Frezghi’s smile was so radiant that in just one flash, his mother said, it could turn her day around.

Khalif, born and raised in East Germantown, was the baby of a large blended family. He was a senior at Mastery Charter School’s Pickett Campus, and in his free time, he worked as a server at the Germantown Cricket Club’s restaurant.

He had just gotten his driver’s permit, and wanted to work toward earning a commercial license so he could drive trucks after graduation.

Neighbors knew him as a respectful young man who offered to carry in groceries. He was loving and protective of his family. If he found his mother asleep with her glasses on, he would gently take them off her face and set them on the table next to her.

“I just miss him being by my side,” said his mother, who asked not to be identified for privacy reasons.

Khalif was shot and killed in April, just days before his 18th birthday, during what police say was a gun sale gone wrong. His mother said that she was shocked to learn the details of the case, and that her son hid a part of his life from her. She believes he was influenced by friends who weren’t really friends, who had been warped by social media.

Social media, particularly Instagram, has become an increasing driver of gun violence in Philadelphia, police say, as young people use the platforms to boast about violence, taunt victims’ loved ones, and ignite new feuds that increasingly end in gunfire.

“The internet’s got our kids so possessed,” she said. “They need help. They’re lost.”

After Khalif’s death, young people insulted him in rap songs, while others have made YouTube videos with theories about what went wrong during the gun sale.

Khalif’s mother wants it all to stop.

“Leave him alone,” she said. “He’s gone. I just want him to rest in peace.”

Nafis Betrand-Hill may have stood 6-foot-2, but with his round face and plump cheeks, to his mother, Doretta Hill, he was “just a big baby.”

“He was the oldest of them all, but was the one who would come cuddle in the room and watch movies with you,” said his stepmother, Ashante Betrand.

Nafis — affectionately called “Fisso” or “Bo” — was the oldest of four brothers and three sisters. He split time between his parents’ homes in North and West Philadelphia, and was a sophomore at Sayre High School.

He and his father were best friends, Betrand said. They followed fashion trends together, and whenever a new sneaker line dropped, they would go out to find a pair.

Hill said her son was goofy and loved making music with his friends, but sometimes they got into trouble. Still, his family said, Nafis was on the right path, attending barber school every Saturday, completing his chores, and coming home by his 9 p.m. curfew.

Except the night of April 13, when just before 9 p.m., Nafis was half a block from his mother’s North Philadelphia home when, police say, two young men shot and killed him.

Within weeks, police arrested Aysir Clark, a 20-year-old rapper from Delaware County, on murder charges. The second alleged shooter, Ranief Allen, 18, remains a fugitive. Prosecutors said they believe Clark and Allen killed Nafis as part of a feud between groups of teens.

Nafis was a devoted Muslim, his family said, always reminding them of upcoming holidays and teaching traditions to his siblings. He loved cooking with his mother, and eating her homemade meals. Her “Rasta Pasta” was his favorite, she said.

Nafis’ death has shattered his family. Two of his younger brothers speak less. His mother moved to a new neighborhood out of fear of retaliation, and rarely leaves home.

“They broke us,” Betrand said. “It’s like they picked up a piece of glass, dropped it, and nobody has picked it up.”

Isaiah Odom was the person in his large blended family who always made sure that everyone had a birthday gift, his mother said.

Isaiah, 17, was born in Camden, but spent most of his life in North and South Philadelphia. The middle child of 14 kids, he was always eager to run errands for his mother or their neighbors, knocking on doors in the winter, offering to shovel snow for a few dollars.

Isaiah, or “Zay Zay,” was the drummer for his family church, Emmanuel’s Apostolic Church of Deliverance in North Philly. His mother, Rachel Turner, said she knew he was musically gifted from a young age, and so every Sunday, his church could count on him to be behind the drum set, delivering the beats that kept people singing and dancing. He spoke often of becoming a professional musician, Turner said, and practiced singing and rapping at his South Philly home.

“He was my sweet little music boy,” said Turner.

In February, Isaiah was biking to the store to pick up dinner for his siblings, when he was ambushed and shot multiple times. He died within minutes. Police say they have identified a person of interest, another teen, and are working to secure more evidence to make an arrest.

The motive for the killing remains unclear, police said. His mother fears it could be related to a fight he and his brother got into at South Philadelphia High School early last year. After that, Turner said, she pulled the boys from school and moved them to virtual learning to try to keep them safe and out of trouble.

Isaiah’s family feels his absence often, especially in church. They found another young man to take over on the drums, but not seeing Isaiah there still doesn’t feel right, his mother said.

The last few years have been difficult for Turner. She lost her newborn daughter to an illness in 2021, then just months after Isaiah’s killing, her husband and the church’s bishop, Kenneth Lyons, died of a heart condition. She is now left to raise her children largely on her own — something that has brought financial challenges. She is trying to move her family to another neighborhood where they don’t have to constantly walk past the corner where Isaiah was killed.

On the hardest days, she visits the cemetery where her loved ones are buried alongside one another. She finds comfort speaking to them, she said, thinking of easier times and imagining they’re reunited with God.

“They’re all together now,” she said.

When Evette Abraham was released from the hospital after a six-week fight with COVID-19, her grandson, Keivon, was determined to nurse her back to health.

Abraham gained custody of Keivon when he was only 6, and raised and cared for him and his two siblings as her own. Now, Keivon, returning the favor, sat at her bedside, spoon-feeding her fruit, and checking on her every hour, until she regained her strength.

“I don’t think I would’ve gotten through the healing process as fast as I did if it weren’t for him,” said Abraham, 56.

Outside of the home, she said, Keivon was often standoffish — something she believes was the result of a childhood filled with trauma and the absence of his parents. He also had ADHD, she said, which sometimes manifested in impulsive behavior that got him in trouble, including arrests for assault and vandalism.

“People looked at him like he had his guard up, like he was not a people person,” she said, “but under my roof, in my family, they’d tell you he was real nice.”

Once Keivon trusted someone, he was incredibly loyal, she said, and had a way of growing on people he opened up to. He enjoyed playing basketball, dressing fashionably, flirting with girls, and following the Philly music scene.

Keivon was shot in the chest in North Philadelphia early in the morning on Memorial Day. After Keivon’s death, Abraham said, she was told a friend had invited him to go to North Philly from his home in Abington for a college party.

No arrest has been made and police have no clear theory on what led to the shooting.

Teachers and friends who knew him were heartbroken, Abraham said, as were some who met him through the courts. His public defender, social worker, and probation officer attended his funeral. And the judge who oversaw his cases even spoke about how he’d watched him mature.

Abraham struggles to sleep as she agonizes over what she describes as a stagnant investigation. She hired a private investigator to look into Keivon’s death because she believed that police weren’t doing enough — a common complaint from families who say they struggle to get ahold of the detectives on their loved ones’ cases.

Abraham finds strength in her other two grandchildren, now 14 and 18. She cherishes each moment with them, she said, because she knows how quickly they could be taken away — Keivon is at least the seventh relative she has lost to gun violence.

First, her 9-year-old brother was fatally shot in 1975, then, when she was 14, her father was shot and killed. Most recently, she lost a nephew, a son — and now a grandson.

Experts have long said that violence and its trauma can span generations.

For Abraham, remembering the best of Keivon helps her cope.

“Sometimes when I’m crying I just hear his voice in my head,” she said. She imagines he would tell her to keep going, to keep fighting.

So she will. For him.

In a school of about 100 students, Anthony Pinckney stood out.

An eighth grader at Excel Middle Years Academy, Anthony was the type of kid who could persuade teachers to do TikTok dances just as easily as he did his friends, said Sadiqa Lucas, the school’s executive director.

Anthony was an honor roll student with perfect attendance, Lucas said, and had been elected to the student government.

“I wish I had 1,000 kids like Anthony and I’ve been an educator for several years,” said Lucas. “This particular young man had it all.”

In March, Anthony was walking through West Philadelphia after a party when he and his friends were ambushed by multiple shooters, police said. Nearly two dozen shots were fired, and Anthony was struck twice in the chest. Detectives believe he may have been killed over an ongoing argument between groups of teens. Police were unable to locate any video of the shooting. No arrests have been made.

Anthony is one of six children. His mother moved away from Philadelphia after his death, and declined to be interviewed for this article.

Anthony often served as the voice of reason between friends, de-escalating school arguments, Lucas said.

“If there were students that weren’t getting along, like typical middle school disagreements, he would bring peace to the situation and then the kids would then see a bigger picture,” he said. “He would shine a light on the here and now.”

This, she said, made his death all the more painful.

Most afternoons, Salaah Fleming could be found riding his green dirt bike, zipping through the back roads of North Philadelphia, or finding someone to help with tune-ups and maintenance.

“Anything that had wheels on it, he loved,” said his mother, Sade Moye.

He even started calling himself “Dirt Bike Laah,” though most stuck to “Laah,” his mother joked.

If he weren’t riding, Salaah was with his family — he adored his older brother, 17, and his 1-year-old sister, and he was incredibly loyal to his friends, she said.

“If he liked you, he liked you,” she said. “Despite what the situation was, he’d ride with you.”

Salaah was one of three teens killed in a quadruple shooting in April during what police called a gun swap gone wrong. Two other teens, including one of Salaah’s best friends, were also killed. Two young men have been arrested and charged with their deaths, and two other suspects remain on the run.

Moye doesn’t know what to make of the circumstances. Salaah never got in trouble, Moye said; his principal described him as a “very respectable” and well-behaved student. But he had been touched by gun violence before: In February, he was walking home with a friend when someone jumped out of a car and started shooting. His friend was shot 10 times and survived.

Moye wonders whether that day changed her son. But she doesn’t know for sure — her son didn’t talk about the shooting.

Moye has tried to focus on taking care of her two other children, and is looking into counseling for her surviving son and herself. She’s also avoiding what she calls the “blame game.” Nothing is going to bring her son back, she said.

She did have his portrait tattooed onto her right arm, so that he can always be close to her.

As a young quarterback for the North Philly Blackhawks, Malik Ballard wasn’t the fastest runner, but he had a rocket of an arm.

“When we were in tight situations, Malik took over,” his former coach James Sudler said. “All his teammates looked up to him. He commanded respect.”

Malik’s prowess on the field, his mother, Tanesha Waiters, recalled, was something to behold: At only 13 years old, he’d drop back after a snap, scan the field, then launch the ball 40-plus yards down the field. Moves like those, she said, helped his team win a championship.

That was a simpler time, Waiters said, when her son was not yet shaped by the struggles of his environment. When he was vibrant, thriving. Alive.

Malik was shot and killed in April during what police said was an illegal gun sale gone wrong between two groups of teens. He was 17, and died alongside two other young men, including his childhood friend Salaah Fleming.

It’s a moment, his mother said, that shouldn’t define him. Malik, known to family and friends as “Leeky,” was born and raised in North Philly. He was a funny and outgoing teen, and the second youngest of four boys. His mother and some of his football teammates called him “Noodle” — a nod to his thin stature as a child.

From a young age, Malik was protective of his family and friends, his mother said. While a freshman at Benjamin Franklin High School, he got into a fight protecting his brothers and was arrested and expelled.

Malik struggled to follow the rules of his probation and house arrest. Waiters said there was only so much she could do — she worked two jobs, from 4:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. each day, and he had started rebelling against her rules.

“He was just being a kid, and felt like I was too hard on him. ... He wanted to go outside,” Waiters said. “But I was just trying to protect my son from this.”

At one point, Waiters said, she asked a judge to hold him in the juvenile detention center for 30 days, hoping it would scare him straight. She said she requested more resources, but was always told her son was not eligible for more intensive programs.

She wishes the system had been more involved in his day-to-day life, going to his school, providing more culturally relevant activities and programming.

These days, as a school bus driver and teaching assistant, Waiters finds comfort in working with other children, and driving her route.

The first stop each morning is just around the corner from the house where Malik was killed, and her last stop passes by the cemetery where he is buried. She starts the morning, she said, by speaking to him.

“Good morning, son,” she whispers to him as she drives by. “I love and miss you.”

Jordan Jackson’s story was added to this piece after it was initially published when reporters learned of his death, which had not been reported by Philadelphia police as among those of children under age 18 because they had his age wrong.

Just before midnight on July 28, police found the body of a young man on a sidewalk in Northeast Philadelphia. He’d been shot once in the head, and died before officers arrived.

The victim had no form of identification, police said. He was wearing a medical facemask and blue latex gloves. A gun was at his side.

In an email to reporters the next morning outlining the night’s violence, police noted the homicide.

“An approximately mid-20s Black male ‘John Doe’ was shot once in the head,” officials wrote. They entered him into the city’s shooting database without an age.

A few days later, investigators would learn the victim was actually 17 years old – a young man named Jordan Jackson, who, like many victims of violence, had endured a troubled life before his death.

Toya Cobb wants people to know her son “wasn’t a man in his 20s.”

“He was still a child,” she said.

Jordan Rush Jackson was born Nov. 25, 2005, and lived in North and Northeast Philadelphia for most of his life. He was Cobb’s first child, the eldest of four, and loved the Chicago Bulls, video games, and riding bikes with friends. His laugh, Cobb said, was infectious. He grew tall in his teen years and was nearly 6-foot-6 at age 17.

Jordan was very close to his grandmother. But when he was about 4 years old, she died of a sudden illness — a loss Cobb believes changed something in her son. She recalls how he ran through the house calling his grandmother’s name, how even years later, when he was 10, he would suddenly burst into tears at the dinner table.

Cobb wants people to know the story of her son and the issues he faced before his death: his childhood trauma compounded by a learning disability and mental health diagnosis; how he cycled through six schools, dropped out of 10th grade, then fell in with friends who were infatuated with guns and crime.

In the final months of his life, she said, Jordan had enrolled in therapy and spoke of wanting to be better.

He had a baby boy just a few months before he was killed.

Cobb cherishes the memories of her baby holding his own.

“I show him his picture,” she said of her grandson, “and he’ll touch his [father’s] face.”