Police are searching for a person who shot and killed a teenager in a Boynton Beach neighborhood.
City police found 19-year-old Nigel Beckford mortally wounded on Saturday, Aug. 8 along the 100 block of NW 8th Avenue, which sits between a church and the neighborhood of Ocean Breeze West. Officers searched for a suspect on the 2500 block of Quantum Lakes Drive — a collection of office buildings about two miles northwest — and found no one.
"I'm devastated," said Beckford's mother, Shakira Green, in a phone call Aug. 10. "I've been through so much in life, but nothing prepared me for something like this."
Teachers: Teen was hard working, 'full of light'
Boynton Beach police shared few details in the wake of the shooting. An agency spokesperson did not respond when asked what time Beckford was shot,
whether he was in a home or outside, whether he was conscious when police arrived and whether he spoke to first responders.
Investigators have also not said whether they believe the shooting was random, whether it was captured on surveillance footage, or what led them to search the Quantum Park business plaza.
Beckford and Green lived in separate homes, each fewer than a 10-minute walk away from where the shooting happened.
Boynton Beach Police had arrested Beckford less than a month earlier for throwing a bottle against a glass window of Green's home. A judge set his bail at $3,000 and forbade Beckford from speaking to his mother while prosecutors decided whether to pursue the case.
Beckford bonded out of the Palm Beach County jail on July 16 and died three weeks later. News of his death appeared to shock several of his former RISE Academy teachers, who in posts online described a hard-working teenager "always so filled with light and laughter."
One said Beckford was attending night school and "making strides toward positive goals."
"As a teacher, we do our jobs to make an impact on our students," another said. "Well, he made an impact on me."
Hannah Phillips is a journalist covering public safety and criminal justice at The Palm Beach Post. Reach her at hphillips@pbpost.com.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Murdered Boynton teen remembered as hard worker, 'filled with light'
