He survived a taking pictures final month, his dad mentioned. However then he was shot once more on Monday evening. He died at a close-by hospital, along with his household and youth soccer teammates left to mourn over what in current weeks has felt like a frighteningly frequent prevalence within the nation’s capital.

“He was a very good particular person. He had a very good coronary heart,” mentioned Antoine Brown, Antoine’s father, by tears. “And so they took my son away from me. Oh God, I’m by no means going to see my son once more.”

Within the final two weeks alone, at the very least 4 youngsters or kids have been shot in D.C. A 15-year-old was shot aboard a Metro practice. A 4-year-old was wounded by a bullet not meant for him. One other 15-year-old was killed on a porch, with the popping of gunfire sending youngsters at a close-by bus cease sprinting away. Backpacks bounced on their backs as they screamed and cried.

Antoine was in ninth grade at Digital Pioneers Academy, in keeping with the constitution board. He was killed within the 2600 block of Birney Place SE, the identical block the place he was shot and wounded on Oct. 9. Brown mentioned he didn’t know his son had been shot within the prior incident till after he was killed.

Police mentioned the Monday evening assault was possible focused. By Tuesday, there was no data out there on motive or suspects.

Brown mentioned he and his son favored to play pranks on one another. One time, Brown put sizzling sauce on younger Antoine’s mouth and toothpaste on his arms whereas he was asleep, so he would smear the paste throughout his face when he tasted the sauce. As payback, Antoine gave his dad a cup of bathroom water with ice cubes in it.

“I swear, it was the funniest factor,” Brown mentioned. “It was so fallacious however so humorous.”

More often than not, Antoine nonetheless appeared like a child to his dad. However there have been increasingly indicators that he was beginning to develop up. The teenager had a method with women. “He was a girls man, like his father,” Brown mentioned. And he grew self-conscious when his dad tagged alongside on outings along with his mates. “C’mon, Dad, you’re embarrassing me,” his dad recalled he would say.

Brown mentioned he sensed that his son was beginning to “gravitate towards the fallacious issues,” and sometimes warned him to not make the identical errors that he had as an adolescent. Brown mentioned the final time he noticed his son was in Might of 2021, when the 2 went to Crusty Crab for his birthday dinner. He mentioned he moved to New York a day later.

“I beloved my son,” Brown mentioned. “I didn’t go away for my son to die.”

Antoine’s dying drew an outcry from metropolis leaders, and has reverberated particularly by D.C.’s youth soccer neighborhood, the place some younger individuals have beforehand had to deal with gunfire and the deaths of their childhood mates, in keeping with a number of mother and father and soccer coaches in D.C.

“14 years outdated and misplaced his life for completely nothing,” Ward 8 Council member Trayon White (D) wrote on Instagram. “Our youngsters need to go outdoors and be youngsters.”

Antoine, generally known as “Twon,” performed soccer for the Watkins Hornets Youth Affiliation crew referred to as the “Clockboyz” for 3 years, in keeping with crew directors and a number of mother and father of different gamers. A few of his teammates, who final performed collectively in December earlier than the crew disbanded for highschool, had beforehand performed soccer or interacted at youth video games with Peyton John “PJ” Evans and Davon McNeal — who had been each killed by stray bullets in D.C.

Evans, who would have been 9 years outdated this yr, was fatally shot whereas consuming tacos at his cousin’s home final August. McNeal, who would have been 13, was killed on July 4, 2020, close to an anti-violence cookout.

“Once I talked to my son, he mentioned he felt prefer it was PJ another time,” mentioned Clockboyz crew administrator and guardian Tony Barr. “How are they purported to course of this?”

A slain boy, his grieving teammates and a soccer coach’s rush to avoid wasting them

Chauntyse Anderson, mom of a former Clockboyz participant, mentioned she had by no means seen her son as distraught as he was when he discovered of Antoine’s dying in a gaggle chat final evening.

“He was simply slamming stuff,” Anderson mentioned. “He did not even have any phrases. Simply tears. I could not do something however maintain him and sit right here and cry with him.”

In 2021, D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) declared Nov. 16 “Clockboyz Day” in honor of the crew’s “superb scholastic, proficient, athletic, and civic-minded younger Black males, boys, and coaches,” in keeping with a certificates signed by the mayor.

The certificates talked about that the crew had gained the American Youth Soccer Affiliation’s annual match in Florida three years in a row.

A kind of years, two crew directors mentioned, Antoine scored the successful landing.

Lauren Lumpkin contributed to this report.