Party leaves trail of blood, heartache

CAMDEN A 17-year-old Camden student was in the back seat as her mother drove to pick up her younger sister at the "Glow in the Dark Easter Sunday Party," being held at Pitts Automotive, a closed car dealership on Route 130.

They were nearing the site of the party at 11:30 p.m. April 5, when the daughter called and was frantic, the girl in the car recalled.

"She sounded scared and we thought there was a fight and my mom's like, I can't go any faster ... and she's like please, please, please,'' the girl said.

They pulled into a parking lot where minutes earlier, three teens had been shot. Kids rushed their car and begged them to bring Tyimer Bright, 18 and the most seriously injured, to the hospital.

"We get there and they're banging on our car and we're the only car there and they say please take him to the hospital. They put him in the car and lay him down with his head in my lap and I'm holding his hand and telling him to breathe. ... He couldn't talk but he was looking at me like he was understanding what I was saying, that's why I didn't want to act all frantic. If I would've got nervous, he would've went into shock. I felt like I had to stay calm for him. I didn't want him to die right there in my arms."

With a police escort, the mother raced to Cooper University Hospital, crying as she drove. She had assumed Bright had been beaten, but was unaware he'd been shot.

He died four hours later when his brain wouldn't stop bleeding.

Police still do not know who opened fire as the party broke up, or why. Two girls were also hit: a 17-year-old who survived a bullet wound to the chest, and a 16-year-old who was grazed.

The daughter who had been at the party ran home with a friend; she and her sister have both seen people get shot before in Camden. At Cooper, the car was declared a crime scene, with blood on the back seat. The family asked not to be identified.

It was supposed to be spring break for the kids.

The party, in the second floor space over the dealership referred to euphemistically as "The Rooftop Lounge" on social media — attracted over a hundred teens, mostly from Camden. Many had started their day in church.

When someone broke a window, the event ended early. Right before the shooting started, according to one partygoer, "all these guys from different gangs were there ... everybody knew there was gonna be some kind of fight."

"It ain't no vacation no more," said Bright's friend Jherel Saunders, at a vigil for the teen two nights later.

Tracey Bright, the boy's mother, had gathered family and friends on the rainy night in her East Camden home to light candles, share memories, and beg the kids not to retaliate in a city where people often know who committed a crime long before an arrest is made and sometimes even when one never comes at all.

Bright was familiar with sudden, wrenching loss. She was widowed eight years ago when her husband was gunned down trying to break up a fight, and her oldest son, Byron Bright, drowned accidentally in Willingboro four years ago.

For many there, Bright was the latest loved one ripped from them by violence. There was Jamera Vessels, 19, whose sister was stabbed to death in 2010 and who is pregnant with Tyimer Bright's baby; Camden High senior Nyasia Riche, who was reminded of her father's murder when she was 7; and Dustin Singleton, a Camden High junior who was saying goodbye to his second close friend in three years.

Immediately after the shooting, Singleton — who was in Gloucester City and unable to find a ride to the hospital — pleaded with his dying friend on Facebook: You strong bro you go it just fight bro please just fight I can't get there but I just want you to fight bro please I will be there tomorrow please just fight

Some may have known trauma even better than they knew Bright. Camden High senior Dominique Owens has lost her father, uncle, cousin and five friends to violence in recent years. The normally exuberant teen sat quietly at the vigil; later, she imagined she'd received a text message from the dead teen and went to a street corner to meet him.

Camden is safer these days — safety being a relative thing. With the advent of the Camden County Police force, which put dozens more officers on the street, the number of homicides last year was 33 — a far cry from 2012's record-breaking 67. Nonetheless, Camden leads the state in violent crime, and is still near the top of national lists.

Some parents were skeptical of the Easter party. Camden Sophisticated Sisters drill team founder Tawanda Jones wouldn't allow her 18-year-old son to go; the event had a Facebook post but no printed flier, which worried her. City officials have since said that a March notification to the building's owners to cease all operations made the party illegal.

Tracey Bright, 41 and a critical care technician at Cooper University Hospital, says her son loved to entertain with jokes, raps, and dancing. Not that he didn't have problems; for two years, he had been earning credits in Camden's YouthBuild program for at-risk youths. What impressed YouthBuild Director David Goodman was that after he kicked Bright out, the teen came back and found success. "He said, 'I got a kid on the way; I gotta get my GED and get off the streets.'" Goodman has pledged "to create a culture of peace ... and we're determined to build a new legacy in honor of him."

Bright planned to return to Camden High — where he started high school — after spring break and graduate in June; he was looking forward to his 19th birthday next month and was thrilled to be getting his first car.

"Tyimer was a young man that had his whole life in front of him, and was soon to be a father," says Camden County Prosecutor's Detective Mike Rhoads, who is working the case; although the car dealership is in Camden, its parking lot is in Haddon Township. "He was out to have a good time that night, and he was killed." Rhoads texts or phones Tracey Bright, who he considers "a great mother," every day to see how she's doing.

Since her son's death, Bright has continued to host grieving teenagers nightly to keep them out of trouble. When they returned to school eight days after the shooting, about a dozen Camden High students were still so emotional they were sent home. Students petitioned for a memorial page for Bright in the yearbook but were denied because he was not technically a Camden city student at the time of his death.

Doug Logan, pastor of Epiphany Fellowship of Camden, never met Tyimer Bright, but led a vigil at the Bright home and helped organize and raise funds for the funeral. He's offered to help get support for Bright's friends, and is driven by his own experience growing up in a tough neighborhood in Paterson.

"When I saw one kid shot and killed and another paralyzed on my playground, there was no grief counseling," he said. "The same amount of grief counseling that I received in 1979 is what the kids are getting now in Camden in 2015 ... and that is none."

Tracey Bright rushed to the hospital; before he died, she told her son she loved him and saw a tear fall from his eye. When Byron drowned, the family donated his organs, because he'd said it was something he wanted to do; Tyimer Bright had followed his example and become a designated donor.

Tracey Bright says doctors were able to harvest Tyimer's kidneys, tissue and corneas for transplant.

"Someone, " she says, "has his beautiful eyes."

April Saul is a Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist who lives in Haddon Heights and is currently working on a project called "Camden, NJ: A Spirit Invincible," funded by grants from the Alicia Patterson Foundation and the National Press Photographers Association. She can be reached at aprilpix@aol.com, and her work can be seen at www.facebook.com/aprilsaulincamden.