METRO VANCOUVER - A 16-year-old boy now faces a second-degree murder charge for the fatal beating of another teenager.

Officers with the Integrated Homicide Investigation Team said Monday that charges against the teen were upgraded from aggravated assault and assault with a weapon.

The youth was arrested last week after 18-year-old Karim Meskine was brutally beaten Dec. 17 in an unprovoked attack as he walked through a southwest New Westminster neighbourhood.

IHIT took the unusual step of taking over the case before Meskine’s death, saying he was not expected to survive.

Meskine’s family was with him when he was removed from life-support on Friday.

“Two days before his 19th birthday,” Tunde Alatise, a close family friend, said of the horrific attack. “His dad was supposed to have a surprise party or something for him — and this all happened.”

“You hear (these stories on) the news sometimes, you don’t know the degree it has on the family, but when it happens close to home, it’s just so sad.”

Alatise plays on a soccer team with Karim’s father and would normally see the teenager twice a week, whenever he would follow his dad to soccer practice.

“He likes to play soccer — he’s not as good as his dad, but he likes to try,” Alatise said with a small laugh. “He’s a shy boy, he doesn’t say a lot, but he’s very respectful.”

Alatise and his wife started up a Facebook page, R.I.P Karim, on Friday, and by Monday it already garnered more than 1,600 “Likes” and was flooded with messages of support and condolences.

“The outpouring of love has been great,” said Alatise.

He has also set up a trust fund for the family in an attempt to help with funeral and legal costs.

“We’ve been doing everything to make sure we get support for them,” said Alatise.

Friends of Meskine say they will remember him as a quiet kid who loved playing soccer and could make everyone laugh.

"Because we went to such a small school we'd have classes that were only four of us, so a lot of the time I was in class with him, and once you get to know him he's a really, really funny guy and he'd just make everyone laugh," said Margaret Bertrand.

Bertrand and Meskine were both students at École Gabrielle Roy, a francophone school in Surrey, from kindergarten right until they graduated together in 2012.

Bertrand said she was shocked when she heard the news about Meskine.

"I didn't believe something like this would happen to him," she said. "I've never seen him hurt anybody, . . . he would never do anything to hurt anyone and so for something this tragic to happen to him, it's just not something that I think would ever happen to him."

Bertrand and her fellow graduates of Gabrielle Roy have organized a dinner in memory of Meskine tonight (Monday) at Wings restaurant in Surrey. Everyone is invited to attend, and organizers will be collecting donations for Meskine's family. For more information, visit www.faceboook.com/events and search for "dinner in memory of Karime Meskine."

With files from The Record.