Peers remember Deshaun Hill Jr. in 1st annual ‘Stop the Violence’ basketball tournament

In the wake of tragedy at Harding High School in St. Paul, kids and teenagers came together Saturday to play basketball in the name of another student lost to violence a year ago — Deshaun Hill Jr.

Minnesota Youth Athletic Services (MYAS) partnered with Hill’s family for the first annual Deshaun Hill Jr. “Stop The Violence” Tournament Challenge at Fridley High School.

“Stop the violence” and “violence prevention” are words that have been weaved into the daily conversational fabric of high schools and even middle schools.

“Let’s go out and win this tournament for Deshaun Hill,” Anthony Middle School 8th grader Leif Kranz said ahead of their 3rd game of the day.

Amidst the team’s excitement was an underlying sadness.

“Sad that someone would want to do that to a high schooler,” Kranz said, remembering learning of Hill’s death. Kranz and his teammates think of him as a kid just like them.

Hill, A.K.A “D. Hill,” according to another team of 8th graders, was the star quarterback at North Community High School.

Prosecutors say Hill just left school when he was shot after brushing shoulders with 30-year-old Cody Fohrenkam while walking past each other. Fohrenkam was convicted two weeks ago for Hill’s murder.

“I was hooping the day he died like a few blocks down and I didn’t even know until I got home and I seen my sister crying,” 9th grader Emon Jackson shared.

“Terrible, because it could’ve happened to anybody,” 8th grader Damarje Burgess said.

On Friday, another 15-year-old student lost their life after he was stabbed inside Harding High School in St. Paul, a year to the day after Hill’s death. A 16-year-old suspect was arrested, according to police.

8th graders on the court Saturday were just a year or two younger than the peers they’ve lost to violence.

“My friends could go any day and that kind of hurt my feelings, because I don’t know what I’d do without my friends,” Jackson said. “They’re like my brothers.”

“I feel like everybody has a D. Hill in them,” teammate Zakhi Abdullah echoed. “I feel like D. Hill is motivation for all of us to play basketball, you know, to get out of here so we can be safer where we don’t gotta go through, and think about, all this gun violence as kids.”

Hill’s parents said they’re pushing forward by pushing for change, which is the message they had for a gymnasium full of kids and teens in a generation where just going to school comes with a level of fear.

“Education is the key to success,” Hill’s mother, Tuesday Sheppard, said when asked about having those tough conversations with children. “That’s what I told him every day when I dropped him off, ‘Education is the key to success. I love you.'”

“Like I told my son, stay in your own lane, keep doing what you’re doing,” Hill’s father, Deshaun Hill Sr. added.

Money raised from the MYAS tournament goes to the Deshaun Hill Jr. Memorial Foundation Scholarship Fund, which was set up by Hill’s family to help send graduating North Community High School students to college or vocational school.