A 16-year-old Jersey City boy was shot and killed inside a fried chicken restaurant.

Officials identified the boy as Judane Holmes. He was a student at Snyder High school.

The shooting happened Wednesday around 3:30 p.m. inside New US Fried Chicken on Bidwell Avenue near Martin Luther King Jr. Drive. The shop’s owner says that Holmes was hanging out inside the restaurant, as he often did, when the shooting occurred.

“When I heard the first gunshots I went back and afterwards I heard two or three more shots, and when I came in front, he was laying on the floor,” said the owner, who did not wish to be identified.

Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop called the shooting a tragic loss of life. Fulop says that Holmes may have been targeted due to a dispute that he was involved in earlier this year.

“He wasn’t even that old, 16. He was a baby still. He didn’t get to live a full life,” says friend Na’Gia Jones.

Police had been trying to get Holmes to turn himself in for protective custody, but that did not happen before the shooting.

Friends and family have built a memorial outside the chicken restaurant in Holmes’s honor. They say that Holmes was a new father who loved sports and was a straight-A student.

“He started hanging with the wrong crowd, but he was still a good kid,” says cousin Ralph Green. “He did everything he had to do.”

No arrests have been made. Anyone who may have information is asked to contact the Hudson County Prosecutor’s Office at 201-915-1345 or to leave an anonymous tip.