JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Close friends tell First Coast News that a former Robert E. Lee High School student and father of a 1-month-old baby girl was killed in a double shooting in Grand Park Friday night.
Malik Brown, 18, was reportedly killed in the deadly shooting at an apartment complex in the 2100 block of West 12th Street, according to Jamil Walker, a close friend to Brown's family. Her son played football with Brown for years.
Walker told First Coast News Brown was the father of a 1-month-old baby girl and was supposed to return to college next week.
"Knowing that he has a new baby that will never get to hear his voice or see his face other than pictures," Walker said. "Imagining what his mom feels like knowing that her son is gone ... knowing what his dad is dealing with. It's nothing that a parent should ever have to experience."
Brown is listed as a freshman on the Warner University Royal football team's Fall 2019 roster in Lake Wales, Fla. Friends told First Coast News Brown had a football scholarship to college.
"Even though Malik was 18, he's still a kid to me," Walker said, "and to hear that this child who was supposed to be going back to school next week is gone, that's just heartbreaking. Knowing I knew him as a little boy, running around playing with his brothers and his friends -- it just hurts. I don't understand it. It doesn't make sense."
Atlantic Coast High School Coach Omar Simmons coached Brown when the teen was in the ninth grade and attend Duval Charter High School.
"The big thing is how great a kid he was," Simmons said. "A lot of our kids get mislabeled as bad kids, he wasn't one of those kids. He was a 'yes sir' kid, 'no sir' kid. I know his dad and everything we asked him, he did. He was just one of those respectable young men that I got to grow in time."
"He got a scholarship to play football," Simmons said. "His grades were great. He got academic scholarships. So, it was a kid that was really out there doing what he was supposed to do, home from the break and sadly someone decided to take his life."
Brown is the third former player of Simmons' to die due to gun violence in the city.
"There has to be a stand taken and at this particular time, it is not a neighborhood problem," Simmons said. "It is an actual city problem."
"All the leaders, churches, schools, you name it, need to come together and find the solution that we can come to an agreement with to help these young people and stop some of this violence," Simmons said. "It won’t stop it completely, but we have to stop losing these young people at such an early age."
Just two months before the deadly shooting, Brown posted to Twitter a photo of himself with the caption "And the day I leave this earth, Imma die with legend status."
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Simmons and Walker, though, said Brown is much more than a statistic in the city's homicide rate.
"Malik is not a number," Walker said. "He was loved. He was a son. He was a dad. He was a brother. He was a friend. He was a teammate and he’s not just a number, so whoever did this, he wasn’t just anybody. He meant something to all of us."
Brown's family said it plans to hold a candlelight vigil Tuesday, Jan. 7 at 6 p.m. near the Dollar General on Kings Park Drive close to where the shooting happened.
Just after 8:30 p.m. Friday night, the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office said officers responded to two ShotSpotter alerts in the 2100 block of W. 12th Street. Once at the apartment complex officers pronounced one victim, identified by friends as Brown, dead at the scene. Another man, believed to be between the ages of 25 and 28 years old, was taken to a local hospital with non-life-threatening gunshot wounds.
JSO said the double shooting appeared to be the result of a robbery, based upon a preliminary investigation.
JSO said the surviving victim is cooperating with police. Officers do not know how the two victims knew each other. A vehicle belonging to one of the victims was taken from the scene by police for processing, although officers say the victims were not inside it when the shooting happened. Investigators also believe there are multiple suspects and another vehicle involved.
Police plan to release information about the other vehicle involved as early as Saturday. JSO did not give information about any suspects.