ATLANTA — A life cut short too soon. A future ripped apart.
A mother – who hoped to watch her son go off to prom, graduate and pursue a dream of a football career – left to grieve.
"I just want my baby. That is my everything," Nikki Davis said. "Me and my baby did everything together."
On Sunday evening, police said Nikki's 15-year-old son, Carlos Davis II, was visiting friends inside a home off Mercury Drive NW, not far from his. He and several other teens were inside a bedroom at a home off when a gun suddenly fired, hitting the Mays High School student once in the chest. Davis was taken to Grady Hospital, but he later died.
The incident is being described as accident, but it's left Carlos' family heartbroken over the shooting that took his life too soon.
Nikki told 11Alive's Neima Abdulahi she knew something was wrong when the 15-year-old didn't come home on time.
"I noticed that it was 6:07. I FaceTimed him and he said, 'Mom, I'm on the way'," she recalled. "That was the last time. And right after that, they killed my baby."
On Monday, the suspected shooter Jefferey Reeves, 17, arrived at the Atlanta Police Headquarters Monday morning with his mother to turn himself in to police. Reeves told police he had been playing with the pistol in a room full of people when the gun went off and shot Davis.
The 17-year-old also turned over the weapon, which had been missing from the crime scene, to investigators. Reeves, who claimed to own the gun, was arrested and charged with involuntary manslaughter. Police are now tracing the weapon to determine who the original purchaser is.
Meanwhile, Nikki is left questioning how something like this could have happened in a home that was full of adults. Initially, she said the homeowner wasn't truthful about what happened, telling her a story that was different than what investigators said happened.
"They could have just told me the truth," she said. "They lied to me and told me somebody shot my baby outside. And that's not what happened. They shot my baby in the house. And I can't get my baby back."
Nevertheless, family is devastated by the situation because they know they'll never get to see their little boy, on his way to becoming a man, again.
"I just spoke to him two hours before it happened," Carlos' uncle Dwayne told 11Alive. "And I was just messing with him, like, 'Son, why don't you do something with this wild haircut?' He said, 'Unc, it's okay. I'll see you later.' And two hours later we get this call."
"I don't know what I'ma do without my baby. I'm so used to waking him up, taking him to school, picking him up from football practice," Nikki explained. "My baby is gone for nothing. And I can't get him back."
The only positive thing they can hope for is for this story to serve as a lesson for other teens to not play with guns because of the deadly consequences it could have.
Police said Reeves is now being held at the Fulton County Jail.
