AURORA | On February 10, Phoenix Day celebrated his thirteenth birthday. Friday night, fewer than two months later, his loved ones gathered to mourn his untimely death.
In a city that has seen more than its share of gun violence, the death of someone so young has prompted a fresh round of shock and grief. Day was shot and killed Saturday evening in the parking lot outside the Town Center of Aurora, just across the street from the site of the Aurora theater shooting 11 years ago.
Several dozen people gathered Friday evening at Bicentennial Park for a candlelight vigil in his honor, hunching their shoulders against the gusts of wind that threatened to extinguish their candles.
Organizer Shawn Vaughn-Reed distributed ribbons with Day’s photo attached to them as people in the crowd hugged each other and cried.
It’s just tragic,” she said of Day’s death. “There’s really no words.”
Vaughn-Reed grew up with Day’s stepfather, Bruce Navarro, and has known his mother, Tabatha Denney, for almost as long.
Little has been released about what led to Day’s killing. According to police, an altercation began in the food court inside the mall near closing time, which culminated in Day being shot in the parking lot outside Dillard’s. As of Wednesday, no arrests had been made.
Interim Police Chief Art Acevedo, who attended the vigil with a group of officers, said that he could not share any information because the investigation is ongoing.
“We are following up on tips and encourage anyone with information to come forward,” APD spokesperson Syndey Edwards said in a statement. “Someone knows something, and while APD unravels this case, it’s up to those involved and those that witnessed this situation to come forward and help bring justice to our community and the family of the victim.”
Tyler Peace came to the vigil with a friend, both holding electronic tealight candles. Peace just happened to be in the parking lot at the time of the shooting and provided CPR to Day at the scene before first responders arrived. She came to the vigil to pay her respects to his family.
“I was there through it all,” she said.
It was too fresh for her to be able to go into detail about what she saw, she said, but she never expected to experience anything like that.
Navarro thanked people for attending the vigil. Phoenix was a good kid who touched a lot of people’s lives, he said.
He wanted the young people present to know that violence isn’t the answer.
“This isn’t supposed to happen,” he said, fighting back tears. “This doesn’t have to keep happening.”
In an interview with KDVR, Denney said that her son had a big heart and a big spirit.
“It’s really hard for me not to be mad right now. This whole situation hurts my heart,” she told the station.
A GoFundMe fundraiser established on behalf of Day’s family has raised close to $10,000 of a $12,000 goal as of Friday evening.
Marlin and Charlotte Bender, pastors at Radiance Church in Commerce City, briefly addressed the crowd and gave a prayer. The two knew some of Day’s relatives and had been asked to come speak.
“Phoenix’s life mattered,” Charlotte Bender said. “It mattered to God, it mattered to his family, and in one act of violence that life was snuffed away.”
The church has suffered through the deaths of a number of its young people over the past 18 months, Charlotte Bender said, including a car crash involving several members of its youth group. She said her heart aches any time she hears about another shooting.
“And when they’re this young, it’s horrible.”
There’s a distinct kind of grief that comes with losing a son or daughter, said Marlin Bender, who described Day’s death as “crazy and senseless.”
“I’ve been to a lot of things like this but it never gets any easier,” he said.
After the prayer, people gathered to release balloons and Vaughn-Reed gave Day’s family a canvas portrait collage of photos of him.
Vaughn-Reed said that she hopes his parents will be able to find some measure of peace, and that a suspect in his murder will be named soon.
“These kids are just dying way too young and it’s all for naught,” she said.
She wanted to hold the vigil because her own stepson died in 2021 at age 16, and they held a vigil that was very moving for her and her husband.
“It was a little bit of light at a really dark time,” she said. “I was just hoping to give them a little piece of that tonight.”