14-year-old victim of deadly Victorville shooting honored with large candlelight vigil

Friends and family of 14-year-old Jeremy "Tank" Rosales, the boy who was fatally shot in Victorville last week, gathered on Monday to hold a candlelight vigil for their loved one. 

Rosales was killed on Friday night in a shooting at Victorville Park, near Glen Canyon Lane and Burwood Avenue, San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department detectives said. They still haven't been able to locate his killer.

Among the approximately 300 people in attendance at the vigil in Hesperia were some of Rosales' teammates, who held one final chant in his honor, which was accompanied by candlelight and a balloon release.

"Jeremy was loved by so many people," said Rosales' sister Raylene Garcia. "He touched so many hearts."

Rosales' youth football coaches, Gabriel Hernandez and Elliot Reyes, say that he had a promising future and had a goal of making enough money to eventually leave the area. They both agreed that, for as hard as Rosales worked on the football field, he was a gentle giant when he wasn't suited up.

"Humble. Hard worker. Straight A student. Great son. Great teammate. Perfect student-athlete," said another of Rosale's coaches, Elliott Reyes. "Jeremy by far didn't deserve this. No one deserves this."

He says that Rosales was a member of the Team Elite Sports Academy's national championship winning team.

Dominic Monica, one of his current coaches at Oak Hills High School said that their staff has had many difficult conversations with the team in recent days. 

"He's a coachable kid. He's smart and his smile is ear-to-ear and he's just a bundle of joy. It's just senseless," Monica said. "It could happen to anybody, anytime. Just talk to them, love your family. If you're going down the wrong track, which he wasn't, just turn around, because it could happen to anybody." 

Investigators believe that Rosales may have been trying to sell something to an online buyer when the shooting happened.