CITY OF NEWBURGH – Friends since fourth grade, Will Manning and Keyshan Gayle made a pact: both would graduate from Newburgh Free Academy on time.

And on June 23 they fulfilled that promise, donning blue gowns and caps, and taking their places on Academy Field with hundreds of other NFA graduates.

“It was a big deal for us,” Manning said.

Now, just over two months later, Manning is mourning Gayle’s death.

On Tuesday, City of Newburgh officers responding to a report of shots fired in the area of Fullerton Avenue and Third Street around 11:15 p.m. found Gayle, 18, lying on the ground with a single gunshot wound in his back, according to police.

Gayle, who was from New Windsor, was pronounced dead at St. Luke’s Cornwall Hospital, police said.

The shooting happened just blocks from NFA’s main campus, and the athletic field where Gayle and other graduates celebrated the closing of one chapter of their lives and the beginning of another.

His mother, Jennifer Bediako, called Gayle an “amazing” son and brother who avoided trouble and attended church. On YouTube, there is a video showing Gayle dancing in a skit for Solid Rock Church of God in New Windsor. The skit is set to a song called “Set Me Free.”

“He was special,” Bediako said. “And most importantly, I want the world to know how much he loved God.”

Police released few details about the shooting. Gayle’s death is the fourth homicide in Newburgh this year and the third shooting death.

Manning said he and Gayle were two members of a group of five longtime friends, and he described the teenager as “full of life” and the kind of person who avoided fighting. They talked of college; Manning just started classes at SUNY Orange and Gayle was to attend college in January.

Gayle was the person Manning envisioned as best man and godfather when he married and began a family, Manning said.

“That was my brother,” he said.

State police and the Orange County District Attorney’s Office are assisting the Newburgh police department with its investigation.

Councilman Torrance Harvey said he learned of the shooting after coming across the police barricade on Fullerton Avenue around 7:15 a.m. An onlooker he recognized as a Newburgh student told him that she heard three gunshots, Harvey said.

One of the calls he made from the scene was to Councilwoman Cindy Holmes, who knows Gayle’s family. Another, Harvey said, was to Newburgh Comptroller Katie Mack to find out the status of a project in which three new digital surveillance cameras are being installed in Newburgh.

Harvey has been pushing to have the project finished, and to have the city reactivate existing cameras that are not currently being used.

“I’m horrified,” said Harvey, who teaches history at Newburgh Free Academy. “We keep losing these young men, and its mostly African-American men. I feel like we live in the wild, wild west.”

lsparks@th-record.com