by A school district was stumped after two of its students and a graduate were identified as victims of a shooting at a 16th birthday party in Alabama on Saturday night.
The two current students, Philstavious Dowdell, 18, and Shaunkivia Smith, 17, were set to graduate from Dadeville High School this summer.
Dowdell was on the track team and was a running back for the high school football team, Tallapoosa County Superintendent of Schools Raymond Porter said. Dowdell had recently received a scholarship to Jacksonville State University, where he was going to play football.
“He was an athlete, but he was so much more than an athlete,” Porter told NBC News. “He had a good personality, a wide group of friends, he was easy to work with from a school standpoint.”
Porter said Dowdell’s younger sister, Alexis Dowdell, is also in high school. The shooting took place at a birthday party celebrating her, Porter said.
Michael Taylor, the assistant football coach at Dadeville High School, had coached Dowdell since he was 9 years old. Taylor said Dowdell is the oldest of three children and was best friends with Taylor’s son.
“The first thing about Phil, he’s got his big smile, he’s got a heart, he’s humble,” Taylor said. “He is a grandmother’s boy. His grandmother always gives him a deed before he goes to school every day early in the morning.”
Smith, nicknamed “Keke”, was a timekeeper for the Dadeville High School basketball team. Porter remembers Smith as a great student.
“Great students, great kids,” Porter said of Smith and Dowdell. “Good ambassadors for their school system and community.”
Porter said he is in contact with the families of the two victims and described Monday as a quiet day at the high school.
“It’s been a quiet day, kind of gloomy,” Porter said. “We have allowed clergy to come in and meet with those who requested it and counseling was provided to those who requested it.”
Corbin Holston, 23, graduated from Dadeville in 2018, Porter said.
Porter wants all the victims to be remembered not for their untimely deaths, but for how they lived.
“Their deaths will not be as they are remembered, but their lives will be as they are remembered,” Porter said. “I want them to be remembered for the life they led.”
A fourth victim, identified as 19-year-old Marsiah Collins, was from Opelika, Alabama, about 30 minutes from Dadeville.
The incident occurred at 10:34 p.m. Saturday in the 200 block of Broadnax Street in Dadeville during a birthday party, according to authorities.
The party’s DJ, Keenan Cooper, said the party was for a 16-year-old girl, adding that her mother was injured in the shooting, which he said sounded like a multi-shooter attack.
“It’s very horrible for the children,” Cooper said of the attack.
He said the party was stopped when someone with a gun was turned away. An hour later, Cooper said, shots rang out and he grabbed as many teens as he could, about five, and threw them to the ground.
Police have not identified a suspect in the case or a motive for the shooting as of Monday afternoon.
