Remember shooting victim as driven 'family man,' friend asks

Tyrone Fooks wanted to provide a better life for his three children.

CAMDEN -- Tyrone Fooks wanted out. He wanted to provide a better life for his three children -- at least one better than his own upbringing -- and doing so meant getting out of Camden.

Fooks would become the city's 42nd homicide victim of a waning 2016, but he was much more than a number hung above another young man gunned down in Camden, longtime friend Catherine Nicole Gray said Monday.

"He was a very loving person. Very family-oriented, very sweet, very caring," said Gray, a Pennsauken resident who met Fooks in 2003. "He was a homebody. He doesn't do drugs. He doesn't drink ... I don't think he'd even know how to shoot a gun for $1 million."

It was around 9 p.m. Saturday when Camden County police responded to the Independence Village Apartments complex in the city's Fairview section for a ShotSpotter activation, the county prosecutor's office said.

Man killed in neighborhood where 'kids can't play outside'

Gray noted that he was returning to the apartment complex where he lived with a girlfriend when the shots rang out. Fooks was struck six times in the torso and arms. He was taken to Cooper University Hospital in the back of a squad car because an ambulance wasn't immediately available.

Very tall and very thin, the gunshot wounds Fooks suffered proved fatal.

"He died before he got to the hospital," Gray said.

The prosecutor's office had no updates on the case as of Monday morning, but Gray said she and Fook's mother have been in touch with detectives.

Fooks and Gray met in high school and had dated in the past. They also have a daughter, 6-year-old Paityn.

"I haven't told my daughter yet. To tell a 6-year-old ... I'm just in a state of fog right now," Gray said, adding that Fooks also had a son, 7-year-old Tay'Jen, and a second daughter, 7-month-old Zori.

Gray said Fooks had most recently worked full-time at a local bread factory for about a year and had a patent pending for a clothing line that he hoped would be his legacy for his children.

"That was his main issue. He always wanted to leave Camden and to have a career to provide for his children," Gray said. "Above all, he loved his children. He was a family man. His kids came above everything."