BOSTON (WHDH) - Tonja Joyce and her family were just days away from celebrating her 23-year-old nephew Christopher Joyce’s graduation when he was tragically shot and killed in Jamaica Plain Friday night.
Joyce, and another man, 58-year-old Clayborn Blair, were shot near the Jackson Square T stop, police said. Christopher was set to graduate from Salem State University – the first in his family to earn a college degree.
“We are actually all traumatized,” Tonja Joyce said. “Chris was a precious jewel. He was a good boy from birth and he was never in trouble.”
Courtney Joyce, Christopher’s sister, remembered her brother as an “amazing person, student, athlete, brother, and friend.”
Tonja Joyce said her nephew’s graduation was a tremendous accomplishment considering what he overcame growing up.
“Just, um, the regular street life that he never got involved in,” Tonja Joyce explained. “He never succumbed to the pressures or peer pressure of trying to join a gang.”
Students at Salem State University are also mourning the loss of their classmate.
“I was so surprised because he was all about education and it was so sad to hear that he was the one who got shot,” Hannah Stebbins, a student at Salem State, said.
The school has offered support services to students, faculty, and staff.
“Our thoughts are with his family and with the students who are suffering from a loss of a friend and classmate,” university spokeswoman Kimberly Burnett said in a statement. “We mourn the loss of Chris together, as a community.”
Christopher’s family plans to walk across the stage to accept his college diploma.
Family members of the second victim, Blair, a Boston resident, are also devastated. The two men were said to be family friends.
Blair’s brother called him an outstanding man, father, and grandfather.
The shooting happened just hours after city leaders held a strategy meeting to curb violence in Boston during the summer.
“I can stand here and say we’re going to arrest everyone, we’re going to send in the forces. That’s not going to solve anything,” Mayor Martin J. Walsh said. “It’s really getting in and doing intensive targeting of people to try and get them out of that life. That’s what we got to do.”
Authorities are still searching for a suspect and urge anyone with information that might help investigators to contact Boston police at 617-343-4470.
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