John Fuqua understands what it’s like to lose a loved one to gun violence.
He gave up a teaching job in Jersey City and returned home to his native Bridgeton in 2007 to mentor his young nephew, Rakeem Stubbs, and keep him on the right path.
It wasn’t enough.
Stubbs was 18 years old when he was shot to death in 2008. Fuqua’s mother raced to the shooting scene and died of a heart attack after seeing her mortally wounded grandson.
Rather than drowning in his personal tragedy, Fuqua took action and now leads a non-profit called Life Worth Living, which works to keep young people out of gangs and focused on education and recreation.
His phone hasn’t stopped ringing since a mass shooting at a Cumberland County party killed 3 and wounded 11 others last weekend.
Gunfire began around 11:30 p.m. Saturday at a party attended by several hundred people at a home on East Commerce Street in Fairfield Township. Asia Hester, 25, and Kevin Elliott, 30, both of Bridgeton, and Millville 19-year-old Brailyn Holmes died. Three victims remain hospitalized, according to police.
No one has been arrested for the shootings, but two men have been charged with gun possession offenses. Police have called the incident a targeted attack, but have not disclosed a motive.
The true impact of carnage remains to be seen, according to Fuqua, who has been working with numerous local agencies, clergy, the victim services unit at the county prosecutor’s office and the county health department to provide counseling and crisis management services for victims, families of victims and others who attended the party.
“The beautiful part about all this is, the community is doing better than we have before with handling this loss of life,” he said. “We have a lot of people out now doing a lot of good stuff with counseling and therapy. We’re creating dialogue, we’re having conversations.”
Fuqua has been in touch with the families of all three people killed.
Funeral services for Asia Hester are next Thursday, he said. Kevin Elliott’s family asked Fuqua to speak at his funeral next Friday.
The figures released officially — of 14 struck by gunfire — doesn’t tell the full story, according to Fuqua.
“That’s not counting the people who were running for their lives and got trampled. People running in the woods getting clotheslined by tree branches.”
Asia Hester, Kevin Elliott and Brailyn Holmes died in a mass shooting in Cumberland County last weekend. (Facebook, National Gun Violence Memorial)
After heading to the scene that night, Fuqua headed to the emergency room at Inspira Health Center in Bridgeton, where several victims were taken. “The hard part was talking to families and trying to get other young people to deescalate so they won’t do retaliatory violence,” he said.
The trauma, and the impact from it, is still unfolding, he said.
“You have people that witnessed those shootings that were laying next to dead people, that were laying next to people bleeding profusely. Young people doing CPR on their friends. People throwing bodies in their cars and rushing people to the hospital.”
The owners of the property where the shooting occurred are among those struggling, Fuqua noted.
“Darlene and Dave Miller, the party hosts, their yard was saturated with blood. They never want to go back in their house. They have an 8-year-old grandson that was living in their house that they had to hide in the bathtub as the bullets flied.”
They were hosting the ’90s-themed birthday party for their nephew, Darrell Dawkins, Fuqua said. “His aunt Darlene was allowing him to celebrate his birthday,” he said. “Darlene and Dave Miller have thrown parties for years. They’ve never had an argument at a party until this situation happened.”
The party began in the afternoon and was a joyous gathering until that night, when attendees from another party on a nearby street came to this gathering.
“It brought a different group of people to Darlene’s yard and they weren’t prepared for that,” Fuqua said.
Police investigate an overnight shooting at a South Jersey house party in Fairfield Township, May 23, 2021. Tim Hawk | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com
Fuqua’s own family members were attending the party.
“My nephew was there, my daughter was there,” he said. “My nephew called me to say he had stepped over a dead body.”
The nephew didn’t realize until later that this victim was Kevin Elliott, one of his best friends growing up.
Fuqua knew Elliott and recalled him as a great athlete.
“Kevin Elliott was one of the best basketball players Bridgeton has ever seen,” he said, noting the Bridgeton High School basketball team went undefeated at home for the first time in Elliott’s senior year.
“He was a great facilitator,” Fuqua said. “He was a leader. He had heart. He played with joy.”
Elliott saw plenty of trauma in his own life, losing several friends to gun violence, Fuqua added.
“He was a father. He leaves behind a 13-year-old son. He leaves behind a broken-hearted mother, father, a host of aunts and uncles and cousins.”
Fuqua is frustrated by reports that this was a targeted attack, questioning why suspect details haven’t been released and arrests made if the assailants and their targets are known. Presenting the case this way lessens the severity of the incident by suggesting someone had a reason for the violence, he said, when nothing can justify the killings of Elliott and the other two victims.
“I want people to remember at the end of the day, Kevin Elliott was a victim. A victim of a heinous crime. Somebody shot that young man in the back of the head. That was a coward move. He was at a party. He didn’t have a gun on him.”
Fuqua also bristles at depictions of the case in the media as a “party shooting” instead of calling it a mass shooting, saying the case would be depicted differently if the victims were white. The three victims killed were Black.
As he works to help connect a shaken and grieving community with help, Fuqua said that reaching Black communities with services after a traumatic incident has been difficult in the past.
“A lot of times in the African American community, the idea of talking and going to therapy was taboo. It was not something that we accepted,” he said. “I’ve been pushing that from day one, ever since the stuff that I went through myself.”
While no charges have been announced in the Fairfied killings, two men are jailed on gun offenses.
Darrell Dawkins, 30, was charged with possession of a firearm after police found a gun in the trunk of his car as they investigated the shooting scene.
“I don’t know why they charged Darrell,” Fuqua said. “There would be no reason for Darrell Dawkins to have a gun or to be near a gun. I know a lot of chaos was going on that night. People were throwing guns on the ground. People were throwing guns in cars.”
After getting into trouble in his younger days, Dawkins got his life together several years ago, has a job, makes a good living and has his own place, Fuqua said.
Dawkins’ brother, Kevin K. Dawkins, 37, was charged with gun possession offenses and was allegedly spotted firing a handgun at the party, witnesses told investigators. Surveillance footage shows him holding a firearm, police said. He is not accused of shooting anyone.
Both men are scheduled to appear in court next week for detention hearings.
For Fuqua, the key now is to help as many people as possible, recognizing the long-term impacts of what happened last weekend.
“I’m making sure people get whatever services that they need. We recognize where the lapses are inside of our system because ... How do you prepare for something like this? We have the resources, we just didn’t have enough.
“But the number one resource we do have is good people. People are mobilizing.”
Anyone seeking counseling services in the wake of the shooting is encouraged to contact Life Worth Living at 856-420-5433.
Authorities ask anyone who attended the event and may have cellphone footage from the party or the shooting itself to call the New Jersey State Police Bridgeton Station at 856-451-0101 or submit a tip via the Cumberland County Prosecutor’s Office tipline at www.njccpo.org/tips.
Police have established a database for witnesses to anonymously upload cellphone video captured during the incident.
Police investigate an overnight shooting at a South Jersey house party in Fairfield Township, Sunday, May 23, 2021. Tim Hawk | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com
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Matt Gray may be reached at mgray@njadvancemedia.com.
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