'They over-killed my baby': 16-year-old Amarion James dreamed of rapper fame The former Godby student was creative and quick with a joke. But he was haunted by gun violence.

Jeff Burlew | Tallahassee Democrat

Show Caption Hide Caption Remembering Amarion James, 16-year-old shot and killed in Tallahassee Sixteen-year-old Amarion James loved his friends, family, church, and music. He dreamed of becoming a famous rapper.

Tiffany Zachery drifted off to sleep on a recent Saturday night waiting for her 16-year-old son, Amarion James, to call for a ride home from the fair.

She fell into an odd dream, with images of police cars everywhere flashing through her restless mind. The phone finally rang a few minutes after midnight, rousing her from sleep. It was Amarion. He sounded excited and ready to come home.

“Mama, the fair is over,” he said. “Come and get me. I got my friends — they’re going to spend the night with me.”

“OK, Mari,” she told him. “I’m coming. Y’all start walking toward McDonald’s.”

More: 'Is this really Tallahassee?': Godby wrestles with grief of third student killed this year

Zachery and her husband headed toward the McDonald’s on Orange Avenue, a few blocks from the North Florida Fairgrounds. She expected to find her son there with his girlfriend and a couple of buddies.

But as they got closer, they saw police speeding down South Monroe Street toward the fairgrounds and an ambulance rushing away. Stopped at a red light and looking at the scene ahead, she turned to her husband and said, “Something bad happened up there.”

She "felt it" then, she said. “And I was like, Lord, please don’t let that be my baby.”

They pulled into the McDonald’s, but there was no sign of Amarion, a former Godby High School student who was wearing distinctive blue Polo shorts. They headed up the hill, going around blocked-off streets and parking across from the shopping center at South Monroe and Paul Russell roads.

The back story:

Zachery ran across the street, scanning everywhere for her son. She saw someone lying on the ground surrounded by paramedics, but it wasn’t Amarion.

“That’s not my baby,” she said to herself. “Thank you, Lord.”

But then Amarion’s girlfriend emerged from a car. Covered in blood, she was near speechless and unable to say what happened in the shopping center parking lot. Zachery turned to officers and described her son to them. They said he was the first to go to the hospital.

At Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare, doctors explained they would try to remove a bullet lodged in his forehead and repair damage from three other gunshot wounds to his chest, back and hand. His parents spent a few moments with him before surgery. They couldn't comprehend the violence done to him.

“The way I saw my son lying in the hospital bed — I never saw my son look like that,” his mom said. “My child never came home beat up. And a bullet wound in my child’s head. It had my son’s face looking like he had been beaten up so bad. It was so disturbing. And I was like, ‘Oh my god.’ ”

She tried to reassure her boy as best she could. He could only heave his chest, a sign Zachery took that he could hear her words.

“Mari, Mommy loves you,” she told him. “And you’re going to be OK.”

Family and friends gathered at the hospital to pray. But the surgery didn’t last long. When the doctors came out, Zachery told her mom it ended too soon.

“I already knew what they were fixing to say,” she said. “And they just told us that was it. My son had passed away because of the bullet to his head. I just know my son didn’t deserve that. And he definitely didn’t deserve to suffer.”

'They over-killed my baby'

The Tallahassee Police Department has released few details about the shooting, including any of the victims’ names. TPD, which no longer releases information that could identify crime victims because of its interpretation of Marsy’s Law, a crime victims' 'bill of rights,' said two others — a juvenile and an adult — were wounded in the gunfire.

The father of the adult victim told the Tallahassee Democrat that his son — 19-year-old Trent Lee, a former Godby student — was shot in the back of the neck. He was taken with life-threatening injuries to Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare, where his condition remained unchanged, according to TPD.

Antonio Lee of Texas also said in a Facebook post doctors postponed surgery to remove a bullet from his son's neck because of medical complications. The Democrat has not confirmed the identity of the third victim, also a Godby student.

Police responded at 12:24 a.m. Sunday, Nov. 17, to the shopping center, a large complex that includes a CVS drug store, a hair shop and a 24-hour Planet Fitness. TPD said the shooting happened during an altercation. But it hasn’t said a word about possible suspects or suspect vehicles.

Some witnesses told Amarion’s family the gunfire came from a white Ford Fusion, though there are other stories going around that the car may not have been involved. Antonio Lee said he heard the shooting stemmed from an earlier fight at the fair and may have involved gangs.

Amarion’s family said he and his girlfriend and the other two victims left the fair after it let out around midnight and headed toward McDonald’s. Another group of boys pursued them.

“I was told some kids were following them,” Zachery said. “And the kids that were following them wanted to fight some boys. And I was told that one of the boys swung at one of the (other) boys and then the fight broke out.”

Several young witnesses said Amarion was an innocent bystander who got caught in the hail of bullets.

“A few kids came to me and they said, ‘Miss Tiffany, your son wasn’t fighting. He was just in the way.’ One of the girls, she was like, ‘He was there, he wasn’t fighting.’ But before Amarion could even attempt to want to get in the fight, somebody jumped out of a white Ford Fusion and started shooting up the crowd.”

Reshard Zachery, Amarion’s stepfather, said he heard his son was trying to protect another boy when he was struck down.

“He put his hand up,” he said. “They hit him in the head and hit my baby in the chest. Hit through the hand ... then they turn around and they shoot my boy in the back. So therefore they over-killed my baby. They shot him four times.”

‘I’ve seen it too much’

Camyia Williams, 21, Amarion’s sister and only sibling, said his girlfriend told her she ran after the shooting began and thought Amarion also did. She went back after hearing police and ambulances and found him lying at the entrance to the shopping center.

“She told me she was trying to pick him up off the ground and make him respond to her,” Williams said. “And she (said) he was holding on to her and he was trying to talk to her. But he couldn’t. And after that, the ambulance took him away.”

She said a number of versions of what happened are going around, some contradicting others. Her family said they’re getting most of their information from witnesses and people on the street, not police.

“I’ve been hearing so many stories,” Williams said. “And I don’t know what to believe.”

Sunny Anderson, owner of the Cool Cutters barbershop in the South Monroe complex, said he heard a series of pops in rapid-fire succession as he was cleaning up. He stepped outside and saw people running toward Monroe Street, followed by the arrival of police and ambulances.

He shot cell phone video at the scene showing police wrapping bandages around the head of a young man wearing blue Polo shorts with another victim on the ground nearby. He said he couldn’t see the third victim further away.

The video shows a girl standing by the sidewalk near Amarion, shaking and in shock, holding a blue stuffed animal in her left hand. Her clothing and hair matched the description of Amarion’s girlfriend given by his family.

“It was real awful,” Anderson said. “It’s heart-breaking. But I’ve seen it so much. You become kind of immune to it.”

According to an analysis of gun violence by the Democrat, 17 people died and 47 were injured in 60 shootings this year in Tallahassee. Three of the victims attended Godby.

‘Mom I'm gonna be famous'

Mother of Amarion James shares her last moments with him | Watch Tiffany Zachery, mother of 16-year-old Amarion James who was shot and killed last weekend, shares what her last moments with Amarion were like.

Amarion was born in Tallahassee and attended Riley Elementary and Griffin Middle schools before going to Godby. He was high-spirited and boisterous from a young age, his stepfather said.

“He liked to be noisy,” he said. “He was a noisy little boy. He’d come in the house and just holler. He’d say, ‘You know that’s what I do.’ ”

Amarion often visited with his grandmother Tawana Mitchell, stopping by her house in Frenchtown for Kool-Aid packets he’d put in his water bottles or staying the night on weekends when he went to church with her.

“He would keep you smiling all the time,” Mitchell said. “From the day he was born, he was happy. He loved to keep you laughing. He’s got a joke, he’s got something. There was never a dull moment in the house when Amarion’s here.”

He was shorter than other boys his age but tried to stretch himself taller. He played football with the Tallahassee Longhorns, a local program that serves youth from predominantly low-income neighborhoods. A left-hander, he loved basketball, too.

“He could jump,” Reshard Zachery said. “He could shoot. He would dunk all day any basketball.”

He loved music, recording his own raps at the Palmer Munroe Teen Center studio and keeping a notebook of his lyrics. "Mama I'm sorry for all the pain I caused you," he rapped in one song.

“He made lots of music,” his mom said. “He wanted to be a rapper and a writer because he wrote his own music. He’d say, ‘Mom, I’m going to be famous — you ain’t got to worry about nothing.’ ”

He attended True Light Ministries of Jesus Christ on Joe Louis Street but also was close to the pastor of another congregation, his grandmother said. He was active in the churches and sometimes brought friends along with him.

“Amarion was saved,” Mitchell said. “That’s what keeps me going. He knows Jesus.”

‘We tried everything to help’

But Amarion also knew how gun violence could shatter lives.

A couple of weeks after classes began at Godby following the summer break, Amarion watched as one of his friends picked up a gun and in an apparent accident shot his younger sister in the head, killing her almost instantly.

It happened Aug. 24 after Matt Cook, 16, began horsing around with a gun at his residence in Springfield Apartments on Joe Louis Street. Jamirica “Noonie” Cook, 15, died after the gun went off. Matt Cook initially claimed she killed herself but, when confronted with evidence, admitted he accidentally pulled the trigger.

The back story:

Cook told police he didn’t know the gun was loaded and claimed he bought it for $200 on the street “for protection,” according to court records. He is being tried as an adult for manslaughter.

“That was very traumatizing,” his mom said. “Oh my Lord, that was hard on all of us. I feel like mentally he tried to run away from the whole situation. That’s something nobody can run away from. Talking about it was not something he was interested in.”

Todd Lanter, assistant principal at Godby, said watching Noonie die affected Amarion’s ability to function. He worked with him and talked with him a lot after the tragedy.

“He was trying to reason with that,” Lanter said. “We tried everything to help him.”

But Amarion, who struggled with academics and attendance, decided to drop out. Lanter said he hoped to get his GED or some kind of diploma.

How to help:

Amarion’s sister said she didn’t approve of his friendship with Cook, who had a juvenile record that included grand theft and robbery. She said Amarion didn’t share parts of his life, including problems he might have had on the street.

“Around us, he was a regular, fun kid,” Williams said. “But he had his own life. A lot of things he didn’t let us know. But I know my brother — he didn’t play around with guns or anything like that. He had just experienced his friend getting shot to death by her brother.”

‘God has my son’

The morning of the shooting, Amarion came home after some time away. He took a shower, picked out clothes to wear and borrowed a pair of socks from his stepdad. His parents weren’t particularly pleased with a new hairstyle he sported with gold-dyed tips.

“It’s the style, mama,” he tried to explain. “It’s the style.”

Subscribe today Get an all-access pass to the latest tallahassee.com news, analysis, commentary, photos and video.



Become a digital subscriber to support our investigative journalism.

His sister watched as he got ready to go out.

“My brother, he used to stay gone with his friends for like days, and we would see him like every now and then,” she said. “And I just feel like it was meant for him to come home that morning. He decided to come home.”

Reshard Zachery didn’t give him too much grief about his hair.

“The only thing I said to him was, ‘All right young man,’ ” his stepdad recalled. “That means between me and him, ‘Oh, I love you. Yeah, I do. I love you to death. But go on about your business wherever you’re going. I’ll just holler at you when I see you again.' ”

His parents went shopping. But his mom phoned back to the house, telling Williams to remind her little brother to call when the fair ended.

She’s sure her dream of the police cars, the one interrupted by her son’s final phone call, was a sign from God. Since his death, she’s stayed up nights looking at old photographs of his life in the church.

“It put a smile on me,” she said. “It made me feel sad. But I actually smiled because I know God has my son.”

Now, she can only wish what happened was just a bad dream.

“Every day I wake up and pray and ask the Lord just let me know that I’m dreaming because one of these days my son is going to walk through this door,” she said. “And as I wake fully up, reality sets in. My son is never going to walk through that door again.”

Contact Jeff Burlew at jburlew@tallahassee.com or follow @JeffBurlew on Twitter. Reporter CD Davidson-Hiers contributed to this story.