Family of teenager killed in Camden shooting demands answers
CAMDEN, N.J. (CBS) -- On Tuesday night, a teenager's family is broken, but desperately searching for answers after the 14-year-old was shot and killed following a birthday party in Camden.
Police say they are aggressively working this case, but the boy's family says something doesn't make sense.
The teen's family from New Jersey, New York, Georgia and North Carolina are all grieving and still in disbelief.
The boy's sister tells CBS3 she believes her little brother was an innocent victim – in the wrong place at the wrong time.
"He comes in and he fills rooms with love and laughter," Jahqueena Allen, the 14-year-old's sister, said.
Allen was eight years older than her little brother, Dai'meon Allen, who she called a gentle giant with no enemies. And now, the 14-year-old's large family still can't believe he never came home from a party over the weekend.
"Everyone is trying to deal with it the best they can and we are all hurting, so it's no one that isn't feeling it the way the next person is," Jahqueena Allen said.
Jahqueena Allen said her brother, who lived in Lindenwold, went to a Sweet 16 party Saturday at the Elks Lodge in Camden on Mt Ephraim Avenue.
But according to investigators, as the party was ending around 9:30 p.m., someone started shooting outside the lodge. Dai'meon was hit and rushed to the hospital.
"He was my cousin biologically, but in my heart I felt very safe when I was around him. That was the other brother I never had," Mari Jones said.
Dai'meon did not survive.
Candles now sit on the sidewalk near where he was shot, and his sister believes he was not the intended target.
"My brother was trying to get away and he just happened to be running in the same direction of the people the shooter was trying to get to," Jahqueena Allen said.
The Camden County Prosecutor's office tells CBS3 this remains an active investigation As this family waits for answers, they are standing together as one and demanding justice.
"It hurts that I'm never going to hear his voice or his laugh or just, in general, I'm not going to be around him again," a cousin said.
Sources tell CBS3 detectives are making progress in this case.
We've learned Dai'meon lost his dad one year ago, and recently his cousin passed away as well, so this family is reliving all that pain and they're asking anyone with any information to come forward.
