CBS3 Mysteries: Philadelphia Police Release New Video In Jhalil Shands' April 2021 Murder
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- A barrage of gunfire in Old City, just steps away from a busy restaurant. Twenty-five-year-old Jhalil Shands is dead because of it. One year later, the case remains unsolved.
Shamekia Anderson and Angela Shands laugh about the good times spent with their son and nephew, Jhalil Shands.
The 25-year-old had one heck of a sense of humor and a brilliant smile.
He is easily remembered. Video taken on Christmas of 2020 is now a treasured memory.
"He gets everybody's attention, all he has to do is smile. All he has to do is smile," Angela Shands, Jhalil's aunt, said.
"Jhalil was just Jhalil," Anderson, Jhalil's mother, said. "To know him was to love him, definitely was to love him."
A year after he was shot and killed outside an Old City restaurant, the grass has barely filled in at his grave.
Anderson is proud of her son's headstone and talks about the many hours spent in Chelten Hill Cemetery.
The details of his killing are so raw.
Philadelphia police provided video never before released to the public. The family requested CBS3 show only a very small portion of it. Police say more than 30 shots were fired by three people who jumped out of a silver SUV. Jhalil's girlfriend is then heard screaming for help, as he lay on the sidewalk. She was not hurt.
"He was going out to dinner with his girlfriend, and he always thought downtown and safe, and it should be," Anderson said. "Downtown should be safe."
Sad as it is, Anderson is at peace with many of the details surrounding her son's killing.
There is one thing that continues to haunt her -- was her son set up inside this Philadelphia restaurant?
"I care if someone saw him inside the restaurant and made a phone call inside Buddakan's and got my son killed, somebody who set him up? Somebody who set him up, that's who killed him," Anderson said.
Police reports show one of the firearms and that silver SUV were involved in a January 2021 robbery in the far northeast.
Investigators say members of a gang have claimed responsibility for the killing on social media, but further investigation left detectives empty-handed.
Who killed Jhalil Shands, taking a loving, bright-eyed young man from his caring family?
"He was charismatic, he was an amazing young man," Angela Shands said. "He was loved by many, by many."
If you have information call Philadelphia police at 215-686-TIPS.
