Dallas teen defending female friend fatally shot hours after graduation

May 30, 2017

LeDajrick Cox was shot and killed just hours after his high school graduation while he was trying to defend his friend against a group of men who were cat-calling her.

Cox had just graduated from Carter High School Saturday and wanted to celebrate, so he went out with a group of friends, three boys and one girl. According to Fox 4, the group pulled into a 7-Eleven in Irving around 1:45 a.m. when three men pulled up in a white car and started to cat-call the girl in the group. Cox stepped up to defend her, and an argument followed, with Cox’s group eventually deciding to leave.

— Dallas principal under fire after slaming Fort Worth mother in viral video —

However, as Cox and his friends left, the white Kia Optima followed, and at least one person inside the Optima opened fire into Cox’s car before they fled. Cox died of his injuries at Parkland Hospital after being hit in the head and side. The other two boys in the car were also injured, but non-fatally.

“He just wanted to do the right thing, wanted to achieve, just tried so hard,” his father Reginald Henry told Fox. “You know, he was my only son. That was it. … It’s just over. It feels like a part of me is just hurt.”

After a police manhunt, multiple tips led to the arrest of alleged shooter 17-year-old Jeremiah Robinson, with two others identified as suspects, but since they have not been arrested, their names have not been released.