Teen beating death | They just kept kicking him

“It was unfair. It was pointless,” Ferguson said. She said she yelled at the teenagers, "Stop stomping him!"

Then she leaped in, tried to pull the attackers away. But she's only 5 feet tall.

She couldn't stop it.

Witnesses said the beating was over in a minute.

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The party, on Independence Drive in Douglasville, was supposed to be a small affair, a celebration of one girl's good grades by 10 or so of her friends. But teenagers began texting other teenagers, police said. By 11:30 p.m. Saturday, nearly 60 young people had turned up, and the host's mother said enough was enough. She told the teenagers it was time to go, and they began trooping out of the house.

Outside, two girls began fighting, according to police and to witnesses. Apparently one had said said something about the other on Facebook. As they fought, police said, one of the girls struck a boy, who angrily declared that he would not hit a girl, but that he would hit the next boy he saw.

Whereupon Bobby Tillman, 18, walked past on the other side of the street.

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Two of the accused assailants had played football at Douglas County High School. Tillman was a 2010 graduate of Chapel Hill High, where he was known as a kid who often brought his skateboard to school. He didn't know the four who are charged in his death.

The community on Monday was stricken: This was insane, inexplicable. Facebook pages lit up with messages of sympathy and outrage and questions of why the young people didn't stop the lopsided attack. Students wore black in school.

And a mother grieved for the loss of the son she called her "best friend."

Monique Rivarde said her son bought her roses to celebrate his 18th birthday, to thank her for giving him a good life. He coached youth basketball, she said. He was studying to become a sports agent at Georgia Perimeter College.

"I don't know why God took my son, but maybe Bobby can be a symbol to end the violence," Rivarde said. "That is the only solace I have."

Chapel Hill senior Carli Giles, who said she was a good friend of Tillman's, said the slain youth was especially close to this mother.

"He'd talk about her all the time," Giles told the AJC. "If I was fighting with my mom, he'd encourage me to fix things with her."

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On Monday, the four teenagers, identified by police as Quantez Devonta Mallory, 18, Horace Damon Coleman, 19, Emmanuel Benjamin Boykins, 18, and Tracen Lamar Franklin, 19, stood before Superior Court Judge Robert James, all of them charged with felony murder. One of the suspects seemed to weep. Judge James ordered them held without bond.

District Attorney David McDade said "senseless" was the only word he could come up with to describe this crime.

"Young people that had a life ahead of them, on both sides," McDade said. “This is an absolutely unprovoked, senseless killing by young people killing another young man for no reason, no motive."

The owners of the home where the party occurred are not expected to face charges, authorities said, noting that there was no sign of alcohol or drugs at the party.

"They [the parents] were doing the very best they could," Douglas County Sheriff Phil Miller said. "The situation got out of hand."

Sheriff's Maj. Tommy Wheeler said the family that hosted the party had already called police to report the girls' fight, and officers were en route when Tillman was attacked.

Officers arrived at 11:59, 13 minutes after the call came in, Wheeler said. By that time, the beating was over and Tillman had risen to his feet. He had a bloody gash across his forehead, but he collapsed. Deputies administered CPR at the scene, and he was pronounced dead at the hospital.

“They’re not gigantic guys,” Sheriff Miller said of the suspects, noting that the four stood between 5-8 and 5-10, none of them weighing more than 200 pounds. “They don’t look overpowering at first glance.”

* * *

Defendant Tracen Franklin had aspirations to play pro football, his grandmother Linda Smith said.

Franklin was a standout as a punt returner for Douglas County High who was named to the All Region 5 AAAA team in his senior year.

“He’s charismatic, he’s handsome, he’s respectable,” said Smith of her grandson. “This is so out of character for him.”

Smith said Franklin was at his mother’s home Sunday night when he learned Tillman had died. His mother received the call and took him to turn himself in, she said.

* * *

Tillman had gone to the party with his three best friends, his mother said, but by the time they caught up to him on the street, the sirens were already approaching, and someone was trying to help Tillman to his feet.

Cherola Butler, a neighbor, can't get the sight of the paramedics working on him out of her head.

"I saw them working on that baby," Butler said. "I feel so bad because you always wonder, had I come outside, would it have been different?"

His friends mourned his loss. Shatika Pattillo, 18, said he had helped her when she needed a friend.

In his honor, she got a tattoo on her shoulder of praying hands and the words “R.I.P. Bobby Tillman.”

“When I went to school with Bobby, I was at a breaking point,” Pattillo said. “Without him, I wouldn’t be where I am today.”

* * *

At home on Monday, Tillman's mother walked into his bedroom and recalled her son's ambitions and loves. The family moved to metro Atlanta two years ago, trying to escape the violence of Los Angeles.

Before he left Saturday night, the gray-eyed teen entered her room to show off his ensemble, asking his mother whether his clothes matched. He wore blue jeans, a blue shirt, a gray sweater and red sneakers.

She told him to be careful.

Bobby always texted before he returned home to meet his curfew, she said. Her son didn’t text her that night. A friend called to tell her why.

“I just want to remember who he is and the love I have for him,” she said. “I want people to know he wasn’t a statistic. He was a good boy.”

Staff writers Marcus K. Garner, Christian Boone, Alexis Stevens, Mike Morris and John Spink contributed to this article.