Key Takeaways:
1. Jarvon Coles, an 18-year-old standout football player with a 4.1 GPA, was tragically gunned down outside a house party.
2. Jarvon’s family remembers him as a special and ambitious young man who had plans to play college football and continue to the NFL.
3. The shooting incident occurred when the partygoers heard fireworks and hit the ground, but Jarvon did not get back up.
4. Jarvon was taken to the hospital where it was discovered that he had been shot in the chest, back, and finger.
5. The shooter(s) fled the scene in a vehicle and no suspect or vehicle description has been released yet.
The possibilities seemed endless for 18-year-old Jarvon Coles, a standout football player in his senior year at North Shore High School, who was college-bound with a 4.1 GPA, according to his family.
The teenager was gunned down outside a house party on Saturday night in the 4900 block of Fieldwick Lane in the Humble area. The Harris County Sheriff’s Office said the party was held at a short-term rental property with more than 100 people in attendance.
“Just love on your kids. Hug them every day because it might be the last time you see them,” Coles’ mother Brittney told KPRC 2.
The linebacker played on the football team that went to the state championship last season. His family said he hoped to play college football and continue in the NFL.
“You always think yours is special, but he was really special,” his grandfather Braxton Coles said. “You don’t realize it until other people tell you. And, you know, through this tragedy, it’s been such an outpouring of love from the community, from everywhere, really all over the country to show that he was that kid.”
The family beams with pride remembering Jarvon Coles, who they also call “Veezy.”
“I instilled you have to have great grades. We’re not doing no C’s, no mediocre, no B’s. Give us A’s,” Brittney Coles said. “He had so many plans.”
The family had just visited Lamar University where Jarvon Coles hoped to continue his football career after graduation in a couple of months.
A senior sign in his family’s front yard, with his name and number on it, now has a black band wrapped around it after the shooting that cut his promising life short.
What happened
“Everybody’s so frantic,” Brittney Coles said of the phone call she got around midnight. “Nobody knew what to say.”
Friends at the party called her when they thought he passed out and had a seizure, she said. They told her fireworks had gone off and everyone hit the ground, but he didn’t get back up.
She kept asking them if he was breathing and remained on the phone as she heard partygoers attempting to do CPR and call an ambulance.
Once she arrived at the hospital, she learned he had been shot in the chest, back, and finger.
“The persons involved may have been on a street maybe a block or two away when they fired the shots toward the party,” HCSO Sgt. Miller said at the scene Saturday night. The shooter or shooters then left the scene in a vehicle, Sheriff Ed Gonzalez posted on X, formerly known as Twitter.
HCSO investigators returned to the remote neighborhood on Monday afternoon. KPRC 2 spotted them talking with people who live there as they continued working to get surveillance videos for analysis by the high-tech crimes unit.
No suspect or vehicle description has yet been released.
Recent gun violence targeted at teens caught the attention of Houston Mayor John Whitmire on Monday.
“It is alarming when I hear the reports from the weekend,” Whitmire said at a news conference about HPD’s suspended cases scandal. “Way too many young people. The tragedy of football players, high school players, that will never go through graduation.”
Brittney Coles said she was looking forward to celebrating her son’s graduation and he was ready for it, too, but now the opportunity has been senselessly taken.
“No matter how hard you try to protect your kid ... there’s still evil people out there,” Brittney Coles said. “You took my pride and joy, like you took my world from me.”
A coach told KPRC 2 earlier in the day Jarvon Coles was someone who never got into trouble and always did the right thing, on and off the field.
HCSO is asking for any tips in the case to be called into the Homicide Unit at 713-274-9100 or Crime Stoppers, at 713-222-TIPS.