Classmates of Teen Shot, Killed in Philly Restaurant Cope Through Poetry

Classmates of a 13-year-old shot and killed back in March inside a Nicetown neighborhood takeout restaurant are learning to cope with his death through poetry.

Sixth graders at Jay Cooke Junior High School, where Khiseer Davis-Papther attended, have been dealing with the pain, anxiety and loss of their young classmate through a writers' workshop.

"These kids are up against so much, they have the deck stacked so much against them, and then they're expected to take the same tests and get the same grades and have the same things and they don't," teacher Allison Kline started the writing enrichment class which quickly turned into therapy.

"When I share my words I feel like I could be myself more," sixth grader Janae Small said of her experience in the workshop.

Students of Allison Kline’s 6th grade class at Jay Cook Junior High School in Nicetown are using writing tohelp deal with the death of a classmate, who was shot inside a takeout restaurant.

The March 10 shooting inside Gold Fish takeout restaurant on the 2000 block of W. Hunting Park Avenue left the middle schooler in critical condition, Philadelphia Police said. He died nine days later at St. Christopher's Hospital for Children. He was shot in the head.

Surveillance video showed Davis-Papther sitting with three friends when two males walked in and one appeared to engage in casual conversation with him before pulling a gun and shooting him in the head.