Police probe fatal shooting in city
Victim talented, kind, friends say
He was the friend you went to when you needed cheering up, a bit of cash, or a place to crash. He was the young man in the neighborhood noticed by mothers for his manners and by daughters for his dance moves.
Shawndel Mitchell was fatally shot early yesterday morning on a Roxbury street, according to family and friends.
The 22-year-old was shot just before 3:30 a.m. while visiting a friend in Mission Hill, according to family and friends.
While police said that preliminary information suggests that the shooting was not random, friends said Mitchell, who worked with children and loved Harry Potter, wasn't the type to attract trouble.
"This was the last thing that would have crossed my mind," said a friend, Treviian Quammie, 22, who stood outside Mitchell's Roslindale home with her family and friends yesterday trying to make sense of the loss.
"He was everyone's big brother, the friend everyone wanted to have," said her mother, Julia Quammie.
Family members inside Mitchell's home declined to talk to a reporter but friends and cousins who gathered outside the home he shared with his mother remembered him as a passionate performer, a talented dancer, actor, and singer whose humorous antics made him the life of the party.
An only child, Mitchell performed in neighborhood talent shows as a child, friends said, and later attended the Boston Arts Academy.
More recently, he taught hip-hop dancing at the Community Art Center in Cambridge and the Daniel Marr Boys and Girls Club in Dorchester while also taking courses to earn his Emergency Medical Technician certification.
"He's been dancing his whole life; it was in him," said Kristopher Reed, 22, Mitchell's cousin and best friend. "The older people would say, 'He's gonna be somebody, mark my words.' "
Reed recalled passing quiet evenings with his cousin listening to R&B and dreaming of making it big in the entertainment industry.
"He wanted to bring Blue Hill Avenue back, make it an attraction," Reed said. "He wanted it to be a place to go on Saturday night with clubs and a movie theater."
But Mitchell wasn't all flash. He was also a voracious reader who loved the Chronicles of Narnia and Harry Potter books. When the last Harry Potter book was released in July, Mitchell preordered his copy and all but disappeared for three days.
"He wouldn't chill with us until he finished the book," Treviian Quammie said. "We got in some spats over Harry Potter cause he wouldn't put the book down."
Details surrounding Mitchell's death remained sketchy yesterday. A police spokeswoman, Elaine Driscoll, could not confirm the name of the victim last evening but said that homicide detectives were actively investigating the case. "It appears he was approached by more than one person," she said.
Mitchell was remembered for his warm personality.
"He was always smiling, respectful," said Mae Simpson, whose daughter was a friend of Mitchell's. "This shouldn't have happened to him. He had so much going for him."
Last night, the Rev. Jeffrey L. Brown of Union Baptist Church in Cambridge, a Dorchester resident who cofounded and serves as executive director of Boston TenPoint Coalition, a faith-based antiviolence group, said the fatal shooting Thursday night of 13-year-old Steven Odom and yesterday's shooting "underscores the pervasiveness of the culture of violence in our communities."
"It ought to alert everyone who has children that it is time to turn this around and we need all hands on deck," he said. "We've got to figure out something new, something different. . . . I've done too many funerals and I've seen the faces of despair on our young people."
Noah Bierman of the Globe staff contributed to this report. Tania deLuzuriaga can be reached at deluzuriaga@globe.com. 