Shirley Pritchett helped raise 22-year-old Byron Ulrick Pritchett Jr. for longer than she can remember, and his death has been a hard hit to the Birmingham grandmother.

"It's stressful,'' she said. "Without him here, it's just not the same. They took him too early."

More than 100 family and friends gathered Thursday night to remember the young father of three who they say was killed one week ago in a robbery. His watch, Michael Jordan shoes, and $5 were taken in the holdup.

"They were targeting him, I guess because they thought he had something,'' said his mother, Latanya King. "It's just senseless."

The vigil was held one week to the minute of the shooting that killed Pritchett. At 6 p.m. on Sept. 29, Pritchett was visiting relatives in Birmingham's Collegeville community when family members say three men - one of them wielding an assault-type rifle - jumped out from behind a dumpster, robbed him and then shot him. After they fled, King said, Pritchett used his cell phone to call his father and then his mother. "He was just calling my name,'' she said. "I said, 'I'm on my way to the hospital.''

Because he was alert enough to call, King assumed her wounded son would survive. When she got to UAB Hospital, however, the news was dire. Doctors already had resuscitated him once and taken him into surgery. That's when his heart stopped again and, despite their attempts to revive him, he was pronounced dead at 7:59 p.m.

"It hurt,'' King said. "He took a piece of my heart with him."

Birmingham police spokesman Lt. Sean Edwards has previously said the preliminary investigation showed Pritchett was walking when he was approached by a black male. "It is unclear at this point why the suspect approached him but during the verbal exchange the suspect shot the victim,'' he said. Edwards said Thursday afternoon that investigators are actively pursuing a suspect.

Pritchett was one of at least six people shot in Birmingham in just over five hours that day. His funeral is set for Saturday at Mount Hebron Baptist Church.

Family members on Thursday said Pritchett was just a couple of months away from finishing his GED. He worked odd jobs as a laborer, and spent a lot of time with his three children - ages 5, 3 and 1 - as well as his nine brothers and sisters, some of who are the same age as his own children. "He loved to make you laugh,'' his mother said. "He wanted to be a comedian."

His uncle, Rufus Collins, said he married into the family in 2000 and spent time with Pritchett almost every weekend since then. "He was just somebody that kept you laughing,'' Collins said. "He was just somebody you always wanted to have around."

Neighborhood leaders at the vigil challenged those in attendance, especially the youth, to stop the "don't snitch" practice that's long been in existence. They lit candles and vowed to bring more of a sense of community back to their neighborhood.

Pastor Wanda Erskine of Mothers Who Want the Violence to Stop led Thursday's vigil. It's something she's being doing since her son, George Powell, and his friend Ryant Smith, were killed on Aug. 7, 2006. The slayings of Powell and Smith have never been solved.

"We're always saying black lives matter but all of our lives matter,'' Erskine said. "I have gotten on Black Lives Matter myself and let them know they always holler when the police kill, but what about when our children kill each other.

"My son was killed by another black person. We can't stop hollering about black lives matter. All lives matter, especially when your child is killed by another person of the same color that he is. Especially when that happens,'' she said.

Erskine said she will continue on with her anti-violence message. "I keep doing it over and over and over and over because until some justice is served, I'm going to keep doing it,'' she said. "But I keep putting prayers out there also, because we can't stop this, only God can. That's who can do it."