Still unsolved: murder of Philly man who wanted to be a cop
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- At 22, Khaliyl Gilbert was making a difference.
The young man, a Strawberry Mansion High School graduate with a huge smile, was already a pillar in his community and was on track to become a police officer.
He got accepted to a police training program. There were 100 graduates, and he was supposed to be one of them.
"He was supposed to be in that class," mom Jeanine Gilbert told CBS3.
But somebody shot Gilbert on Oct. 9, 2021, outside a fast food restaurant near Broad Street and Germantown Avenue in North Philadelphia.
When Jeanine Gilbert first heard what happened, she didn't believe it.
"That night around 10 or 9-something, I got a phone call stating that my son had just got shot," she said. "Khaliyl plays a lot, so I'm like, 'This ain't real.' So when I kept on getting phone calls, I passed out. I don't know what happened."
Khaliyl was rushed to Temple University Hospital and into surgery. At first, he was recovering.
"15-20 minutes later, they took him back into surgery," Jeanine Gilbert said. "Why did y'all take him back into surgery when he was already talking and already alert after the first surgery?"
Time seemed to slip away at the hospital until someone got her attention. "She took me into the family room and she said 'your son is gone.'"
Khaliyl Gilbert was very much following after his uncle, a member of the Philadelphia Police Department's Highway Patrol unit.
Khaliyl had graduated from the Philadelphia Police Explorers Program and was set to hit these streets as a member of the Philadelphia Police Department.
"He was going in on the weekends," Khaliyl's sister Laura Lee said. "He was waiting for this moment that happened after he passed."
"Like two weeks after he passed away, we got the email stating 'Congratulations! You start your class to be a police officer. The academy,'" Jeanine Gilbert said.
Lee has pointed, angry words for those responsible.
"To the people that did this...are y'all happy?" Lee said. "What did you feel like y'all accomplished? What did y'all get from this? Feel me? What was that act of violence in that moment in time, that was so erratic. What did y'all get from that? Do y'all understand what y'all did? What y'all understand what y'all took? Do you understand what y'all stopped? You stopped his life. Y'all stopped our life."
And Jeanine Gilbert is furious with the city of Philadelphia, the absence of accountability and the pace of the investigation.
"They don't know what we go through as parents losing our kids," she said. "We can't sleep. We can't eat. It seems like we're going mentally crazy because y'all took...they took our kids, and nobody's not doing nothing. Nobody! And it's sad. It's sad."
"Philadelphia failed us as a whole," she continued. "Any mother that lost a child, any father, any grandparent, Philadelphia failed us. They failed us. They don't care."
Information on the suspects
Surveillance video released by police shows four people leaving the scene, guns in hand, as people take cover.
Anyone with information on the Oct. 9, 2021 murder of Khaliyl Gilbert can call 215-686-TIPS. There is a reward and information can be provided anonymously.