Life was moving in a positive direction for Shahid Quayyum Ahzire Davis. After getting into trouble as a juvenile, he applied himself and was awarded a two-year scholarship to La Salle University. After graduating from Philadelphia North Academy in 2010, though, he told his mother that he wanted to defer his college enrollment for a year.
Tameeka Davis wasn’t on board with the idea at first, but eventually relented.
During that year, Shahid’s brother got locked up, then a close friend of Shahid’s was killed. These events affected Shahid profoundly, and he became down. He and Tameeka grew closer, and she encouraged him to continue with his plan of going to school. She called and arranged for him to meet with officials at La Salle to discuss his enrollment, but he never made it.
On Jan. 19, 2012, the day before his appointment at La Salle, he was visiting the mother of his friend who had been killed. He and Tameeka spoke on the phone and he said he’d see her when she got off work.
“We did the thing we would always do, ‘I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you more,’ and that was it,” she said.
About 10 minutes later, Tameeka got a call from her brother saying Shahid had been killed. He and a friend were approached at F and Clearfield in Kensington by two men who demanded money. When Shahid refused, he was shot. His murder has gone unsolved for 8 ½ years.
“I just want to know who did this,” Tameeka said.
Shahid was born on Jan. 4, 1993 in Philadelphia. He was Tameeka’s youngest child, and he had a lot of energy, so she kept him busy with programs like the Police Athletic League. A mentor introduced him to boxing and competitive dancing with a group called Team Nike.
Many of their neighbors and some family spoke Spanish, so Shahid picked it up and became quite fluent.
Shahid was funny and joked a lot, even when he was sad. He loved people and never wanted to see anyone being mistreated. Even though he was 19, he was still a baby to Tameeka, and it took a long time for her to stop ordering food for him after he passed.
Tameeka didn’t want Shahid or his older siblings, Rashid and Dessarie, to date while they were still attending school to avoid distractions, but Shahid still managed to have a girlfriend.
So many things remind Tameeka of Shahid, like milkshakes. When he was younger he was diagnosed with ADHD and was losing weight, so his doctor suggested that she feed him milkshakes. She made them for him morning, noon and night.
A screw in a SEPTA bus stop sign at Allegheny Avenue and Mascher Street holds memories, too. One day when Shahid and Tameeka were waiting for the bus, he found a screw on the ground and fit it into a hole on the pole of the sign. So many years later, it’s still there.
“If I think about it, I’ll go over there and just stand there looking at the screw and touching the screw,” she said.
Tameeka has two grandchildren who are named after Shahid, including one who was born in March 2012, after his death. Although they never met, he looks and acts like him so much that it was scary at first, but now she finds comfort in it.
Shahid would want to be remembered as someone who was loving and helpful, lively, intelligent and a friend to everyone he came across.
He is laid to rest at Merion Memorial Park in Bala Cynwyd.
A reward of up to $20,000 if available to anyone that comes forward with information that leads to the arrest and conviction of the person responsible for Shahid’s murder. Anonymous tips can be submitted by calling the Citizens Crime Commission at 215-546-TIPS.
