Octavius Harris

A 16-year-old shot and killed in the Columbus Square neighborhood north of downtown was a track athlete and good student who had never gone to a party “in his life,” his mom said late Tuesday. Octavius “Tay” Harris was shot at about 3:20 a.m. Sunday in the 900 block of O’Fallon Street. Police said two people began shooting at four teens as they drove away from a party they had attended at a nearby residence. Octavius was killed. Two other teens were injured and the fourth was unhurt, police said. But Octavius’ mom, Makailu Harris, told the Post-Dispatch her son was with her at her sister’s house, blocks from the scene of the shooting, when he left to get some snacks with his twin sister, their aunt and a friend. “I just saw my baby 10 minutes before he got killed,” Harris said. “He wasn’t at a party,” she continued. Harris said her sister was driving the car and was one of the people shot. Octavius’ twin, Octavia, was in the car but was uninjured. It was the second death of a teen in St. Louis early Sunday; Daniel “Dee Dee” Stahl, 16, from Springfield, Missouri, was walking with his friend and his friend’s parents a little after 1 a.m. when a fight broke out in the 1500 block of Washington Avenue and a car drove onto the sidewalk, its passenger shooting a gun at the same time, police said. The car hit and killed Daniel. Octavius was the oldest of six children, and the only boy, said Harris, his mother. She said he was a straight-A student and had run track since middle school. They had lived just blocks from the shooting, she said, but moved that weekend out of her place and back into the family home in East St. Louis, the address they use as their permanent residence. Octavius would have been in 11th grade at East St. Louis Senior High School this fall, Harris said. “He was a runner, I remember the first time I ever saw him move on his own, he got up and went on running,” she said of Octavius’ first steps. “Track was his passion.” She said that on early Sunday he wanted to get snacks and a drink, which is what he was doing when he was shot. “He loved his Sprites,” Harris said. “He’d say, ‘Mom I’m thirsty. I don’t want no water.’” Octavius’ father died in 2018, Harris said. That left Octavius protective over his sisters and mom, she said. He considered himself the man of the house. “He was real positive. He loved dancing,” Harris said. “He loved the kids. He was a good babysitter.” “He was a great kid. He wasn’t a gang banger,” she said. “He was my baby.”