Tonight, another 19-year-old has been killed - the third city teenager murdered in 12 days. And the family of Jamir Cambranes told us today that the young man from the Mesopotamia area knew he was in trouble - and sent his family a tracking signal on his cell phone - but by the time they found him it was too late:
19 year old Jamir Cambranes left his home on King Street last night around 7:00 with males he called friends. His Uncle explains:
Alfonso Noble, Uncle of Deceased
"Yesterday my nephew Jamir arrived home from coming home from work, he arrived home from work. He received a communication from someone he may have considered his friend, who supposedly lives in the Antelope street area or frequents the Antelope street area to tell him come with us, let's go for a ride let's go to drive out. Now, this is a young man just arrived from work, gets a call but as friends as friends usually do, you are sucked into this vortex of, peer pressure and everything else that is concomitant to that. He received that communication. He went jumped on his bicycle and left somewhere. I'm not certain of the time? 7:30- 8:00 and he left and he was not heard of from since."
Shortly after he called his girlfriend to say he was in gang turf - his mother spoke with his off camera:
Voice of: Genoveva Noble, Mother of Deceased
"The woman call him and he took a picture that he was Jerusalem - right there where the van picked him up. And afterwards, he snapped the picture and he sent it to his girl. Afterwards they drove off with him."
Reporter
"Do you believe that he perceived he was in danger and that's why he snapped the picture?"
Voice of: Genoveva Noble, Mother of Deceased
"Yeah, because my son is not dumb. He's a smart little boy. So, whosoever killed him - may God bless them and they people them."
Police now have the picture of those plates and are attempting to trace the vehicle. But, Jamir Noble did something else - he sent his girlfriend a tracking signal:
Alfonso Noble, Uncle of Deceased
"It was an unusual occurrence, as I understand it, that he would send his GPS location or his phone location to a family member of his, and basically that GPS location remained static for at least two hours. The older brother, the older brother got on a motorcycle and went to look and found him. Reason unknown why he was picked up I don't know why he was killed. I don't know. The family members are as stumped as anybody can be. This was a young, productive human being. And what I can only described as animals picked him up and took him away."
And while it didn't save his life, sending that signal allowed his family to find his body - which may not seem like much consolation - but in times like these, it is:
Alfonso Noble, Uncle of Deceased
"His father explained to me that he the only thanking that he can thank is that they were able to find his body. This seems to be the norm. I saw earlier last week, I think it was the mother expressing gratitude for having found her son, I, I am very much in the same position today. This young man, like most young men, did not deserve this. He did nothing wrong. And these people who are apathy, these young men who have no guidance, these young men who have no bearing and have no goal or objective in life, they need to be sorted out. They need to sort out themselves. Their family members need to do something the society on a whole need to do something about this. This is wrong. This young man hasn't even begun to live his life and he's now dead, 19."
"As I understood it his brother, his older brother found him in an upright position and he had bruises all over his face and body as if he had been brutally beaten, brutally beaten and to have your older brother come up on this sight and this scene is beyond words, at around 9:30 Boom residents reported gunshots in the area and that was it that was my nephew being taken away from us for absolutely no reason."
And his family is left to try and untangle the mystery of his last hours. His mother shared this playful video of a son who she says was not a gang member:
Alfonso Noble, Uncle of Deceased
"Because all I have at this point in time it is my belief my thinking that he must have been killed because of some ritualistic killing of a rite of passage or some kind of initiation to say, you know, you have to do this in order to become a part of any gang or what have you. And this is wrong. This is so wrong. We see it over and over again and it will not stop. There is nothing to stop this. Nothing. And the government is so, so, so paralyzed and so unconcerned and uncaring about what is taking place in this society that it makes it wonder what the hell what is even the purpose of even living now?"
