On Monday, 15-year-old Hadari Askari spent the morning at Oakland City Hall to begin a seven-week summer job with the Fire Department. When he and other students were asked if they wanted to become firefighters someday, Hadari's hand went high.

On Tuesday, the boy was shot to death behind the gates of the apartment block where he lived, chased there by hooded assailants who still are at large.

"His age, the only thing he should be worried about is school and getting scolded by his mother," said Maria Robinson, who lives in the same housing complex as Hadari's family. On Wednesday she stood with two friends by a cluster of stuffed animals in the driveway where the boy fell bleeding just after 8 p.m. the evening before.

"He never gave off a bad energy," Robinson said.

Hadari's life and death shows how difficult it can be to overcome the reach of violence into some corners of Oakland, where he was the 61st person slain this year.

He lived in Lion Creek Crossings, a 439-unit complex of attractive three- and four-story, pastel buildings that frame a restored creek and community green with a playground and built-in grills. Completed last year, it replaced the notorious Coliseum Gardens housing project.

Along with affordable apartments, the complex includes a computer center where Hadari and other teens made videos last year that they posted on YouTube with the theme, "Where I'm from." Hadari's included the line "I am from sports," but also "I am from California poppies" and, "I was told that you always treat people the way you want to be treated."

This summer, he was one of 15 teenagers admitted to the summer program at the Fire Department, where youths spend nine hours each week getting a glimpse of what the future might hold as a firefighter.

"I met him on Monday and he really stood out - a real nice individual with a real nice spirit," Fire Chief Teresa Reed said at a press conference Wednesday. "We're going to help the family any way we can."

He also was a favorite of parents at his housing complex. They often saw him playing with younger children or carrying groceries for his mother, who neighbors say is a school bus driver.

"He was a good kid. For anyone to say Hadari was in anything (bad), that don't even sound right," said Kisha Jackson, who grew up in Coliseum Gardens.

She said she had never seen anything in the old projects to compare with a teenager being gunned down amid landscaped walkways, in a paved clearing where children often play.

"This is the worst," Jackson said.

Officials from Related California, the manager of Lion Creek Crossings, did not return calls Wednesday about the killing. Members of Hadari's family declined to be interviewed.

As of Wednesday evening, there had been no arrests in the boy's killing.

"Investigators are still looking into the motive," said Officer Johnna Watson, a police spokeswoman. "There were witnesses, and other leads are being followed up."