The Enterprise of Brockton, Mass.
www.enterprisenews.com
By Maria Papadopoulos, Enterprise staff writer
WEST BRIDGEWATER — Tiara Gurley does not know why her 17-year-old brother, Jose, was shot dead in Brockton.
But one thing the 20-year-old knows is the pain in her heart following his sudden death.
"They killed my little brother!" Gurley cried as family members tried to console her Sunday outside West Bridgewater Middle-Senior High School, where her brother was a star athlete and preparing to enter his senior year this fall.
Jose Gurley was gunned down at 3 a.m. Saturday outside a party at Roosevelt Heights, a city-owned affordable housing complex on Brockton's north side.
He was the third teen to be shot dead in Brockton in the past two months.
Investigators working the case said no suspects had been identified by Sunday night.
Sunday morning, dozens of the teen's teammates, parents and faculty joined his family at West Bridgewater Middle-Senior High School to comfort one another and seek grief counseling.
Gurley, a Brockton resident, attended school in West Bridgewater through the school choice program.
In addition to being a wide receiver and defensive back for the school's football team, he was a record-breaker in track and field and a point guard on the basketball team, school officials said.
Bill Panos, the school's football coach, called Gurley a "hard worker" and "incredibly talented." He and others credited the teen with making the Wildcats Super Bowl champions in December.
"Overnight, he became one of our most talented football players," said Panos, his eyes brimming with tears. "In fact, without him, we would not have gone to the Super Bowl."
Gurley's football teammates could not make sense of his death.
"It's unreal," Shawn Glidden, 17, said. "If it wasn't for him we wouldn't have won the Super Bowl. My locker was next to his, I sat next to him in all the classes. It's terrible."
"He was pretty much, like, the life of the team," Greg Pigeon, 17, said.
Kellie Burley, president of the school's Class of 2007, said Gurley "just brought so much life" to the school.
"He's not just one of the statistics. He's not just a number. He's a person who had an impact on our school and our community as well," Burley said.
"He would have gone places," Burley said. "You looked at his face and you saw his desire to win and to succeed and just push forward. It was truly contagious."
School officials said Gurley was preparing to select a college in the fall.
Gurley was the middle of five children. He lived with his mother, Shelley Gurley, on Walnut Street in Brockton and during the school year, with his grandfather, Fred Gurley, in West Bridgewater, his family said.
His siblings said Gurley, who looked up to his brother, Rodney, 23, had transformed his life by boosting his grades and being involved in sports.
His younger sister, Nykia Gurley, 15, a Brockton High School student, held onto memories of her brother by leafing through family photographs Sunday afternoon.
"All you can do is pray and be confident and think about the good times," she said quietly. "He's looking down on us and saying, 'Why are you crying?'"
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