A school district has been left reeling after two of its students and one graduate were identified as victims of a shooting at a 16th birthday party in Alabama on Saturday night.
The two current students, Philstavious Dowdell, 18, and Shaunkivia Smith, 17, were set to graduate from Dadeville High School this summer.
Dowdell was on the track team, and a running back for the high school’s football team, Tallapoosa County School Superintendent Raymond Porter said. Dowdell had recently received a scholarship from Jacksonville State University, where he was going to play football.
“He was an athlete, but he was much more than an athlete,” Porter told NBC News. “He had a good personality, a broad group of friends, he was easy to work with from a school standpoint.”
Porter said that Dowdell’s younger sister, Alexis Dowdell, is also a student at the high school. The shooting took place at a birthday party celebrating her, Porter said.
Michael Taylor, the assistant football coach at Dadeville High School, had trained Dowdell since he was 9 years old. Taylor said Dowdell is the oldest of three siblings, and was best friends with Taylor’s son.
“First thing about Phil, he got his huge smile, he got a heart, he humble,” Taylor said. “He’s a grandmother’s boy. His grandmother always give him a scripture before he go to school every day early in the morning.”
Smith, who was nicknamed “Keke,” was a time-keeper for the Dadeville High School’s basketball team. Porter recalls Smith as a great student.
“Great students, great kids,” Porter said about Smith and Dowdell. “Good ambassadors for their school system and community.”
Porter said he’s in touch with the families of the two victims and described Monday as a quiet day at the high school.
“It has been a quiet, somewhat somber day,” Porter said. “We’ve allowed clergy to come in and meet with those who requested and counseling has been provided for those who requested.”
Corbin Holston, 23, had graduated from Dadeville in 2018, Porter said.
Porter wants all the victims to be remembered not for their untimely deaths, but for how they lived.
“Their deaths will not be how they’re remembered, but their life will be how they’re remembered,” Porter said. “I want them to be remembered for the life that they led.”
A fourth victim, identified as Marsiah Collins, 19, was from Opelika, Alabama, just about 30 minutes away from Dadeville.
The incident occurred at 10:34 p.m. Saturday on the 200 block of Broadnax Street in Dadeville during a birthday party, according to officials.
The DJ for the party, Keenan Cooper, said the party was for a 16-year-old girl, and added that her mother was struck in the shooting, which he said sounded like an attack with multiple shooters.
“It’s very horrific for the children,” Cooper said of the attack.
Police have not identified a suspect in the case or a motive for the shooting as of Monday afternoon.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nbcnews.com
