{"id":120260,"date":"2025-06-11T02:37:10","date_gmt":"2025-06-11T02:37:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/120260\/"},"modified":"2025-06-11T02:37:10","modified_gmt":"2025-06-11T02:37:10","slug":"16-year-old-new-jersey-high-school-football-star-shot-dead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/120260\/","title":{"rendered":"16-year-old New Jersey high school football star shot dead"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A star football player in Camden, New Jersey, died from a gun-related accident last week, his family said while mourning the loss on Monday night at a vigil.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Xyere Brooks, a 16-year-old standout on the football field, was shot around 12:30 p.m. Friday inside an apartment in Camden before being taken to Cooper University Hospital, where he succumbed to his injuries two hours later, <a href=\"https:\/\/6abc.com\/post\/xyere-brooks-death-family-mourning-loss-camden-star-football-player-killed-shooting\/16707732\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">6ABC reported<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Police believed there were several youths in the home when the gun went off.<\/p>\n<p>Family members called it a tragic accident, with Brooks\u2019 brother alleging that a woman had put the firearm to his head, and the gun went off.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><img style=\"aspect-ratio:1.04596527;display:block\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-modal-image=\"36203083\" width=\"617\" height=\"590\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/SnapInstato_504882383_18286709128267902_8976480913850319226_n.jpg\" alt=\"New Jersey football star Xyere Brooks \" class=\"wp-image-36203083\"  \/>New Jersey football star Xyere Brooks died after a shooting. Kippcoopernorcross\/Instagram<\/p>\n<p>Authorities are investigating who owned the gun and the circumstances around the tragic death.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cShe put the gun to his head, and I guess she didn\u2019t expect it to go off. To make a long story short, the gun went off on my brother, and he\u2019s no longer here with us,\u201d Manazh Tompkins, the victim\u2019s brother, told 6ABC.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Antoinette Brooks, the victim\u2019s mother, said during the Monday vigil that several universities had already spoken to Xyere about playing for them, including Syracuse and Rutgers.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Brooks, who was a sophomore, helped lead the KIPP Cooper Norcross Academy football team to its first playoff game in program history.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><img style=\"aspect-ratio:1.04170905;display:block\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-modal-image=\"36203085\" width=\"615\" height=\"590\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/SnapInstato_504139640_18286709119267902_2818516759291389491_n.jpg\" alt=\"Xyere Brooks \" class=\"wp-image-36203085\"  \/>A vigil was held Monday for Xyere Brooks . Kippcoopernorcross\/Instagram<\/p>\n<p>Head football coach James Tompkins said that \u201cthere\u2019s no way [Brooks] can be replaced.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe are going to take it one day at a time and do the best we can to honor him, support his family, support the rest of the team and honor his name the best we can,\u201d Tompkins said.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cXyere was a supportive teammate and friend, a dedicated student, and a standout on the football field whose talent and determination left a strong impression on all who knew him,\u201d the school said in a statement.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A star football player in Camden, New Jersey, died from a gun-related accident last week, his family said&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":120261,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2026],"tags":[7,2682,3131,9],"class_list":{"0":"post-120260","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-football","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-high-school-football","10":"tag-high-school-sports","11":"tag-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/114662411164683700","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120260","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=120260"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120260\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/120261"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=120260"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=120260"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=120260"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}