MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. – A standout linebacker at Carol City High School in Miami Gardens was shot to death execution-style Tuesday while sitting in a car outside a friend's house.
"I'm just going to miss him," Damion Davis said of his 18-year-old son, Paul Royal. "I'm just waiting for him to call me. I know it's not going to happen, but, I just want justice to be served," he told Local 10's John Turchin.
Never did Davis ever envision a week like this. The pain is unimaginable.
On Tuesday, Royal, known fondly to his friends and family as P.J., tragically became a statistic. He was gunned down, executed, while sitting in the driver's seat of his mother's car in front of a friend's house. He was waiting for that friend to come out. The two, and another buddy, already in the car, were going back to P.J.'s house to play PlayStation3.
"Me and my wife are asking ourselves why – why did something like this happened to such a good kid?" Davis said.
A standout linebacker at Carol City High School in Miami Gardens, P.J. had plans to continue playing football after he graduated a few weeks ago. His bags were packed. He had plans to leave Saturday for Jacksonville, where he received a full-ride football scholarship at Division II Edward Waters College.
His coach at Carol City, Harold Barnwell, told Local 10 the world has lost a wonderful young man, beyond the football field.
"He was loving, gentle, always accepting of his teammates, his friends at the school that were not on the team. Just a wonderful kid all around," Barnwell said.
He was a kid, who was known as a peacemaker, someone who never had problems with police or got into a fight. And when there was a fight, he always intervened. His father wishes he was able to follow in his son's footsteps. Unfortunately, he says he is full of anger and only wants to ‘get even' with the person who killed his son.
"I want him to feel what my son felt. I want his parents to hurt like my son's parents, like we are hurting," he said.
As if this wasn't tragic enough, the shooting looks like it was a case of mistaken identity, that P.J. was mistaken for someone else.
According to one of the other kids in the car, the gunman walked up to PJ and nervously asked him if he was ‘Clayvon.' When he said ‘no,' that wasn't his name, the gunman pulled the trigger.
The only description police have is that the shooter and the driver of the getaway car are roughly 18 years old. Both were wearing black ski masks and dark clothing. The getaway car is a late model, possibly 1985 - 1990, blue Honda Civic.