CITRUS PARK, Fla. — The Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office says it's identified multiple persons of interest in the weekend shooting outside Citrus Park Mall that left one 16-year-old dead.
On Tuesday, officials shared that they are currently conducting interviews and gathering evidence. Detectives have also determined that the two individuals detained Saturday evening were not involved in the shooting.
Meanwhile, the 16-year-old victim has now been identified as Peter "PJ" Hyman.
His mother said she and his two sisters are just beginning to grapple with his senseless death.
"It's not fair," Peter's mother, Bianca Cherie Cooper, said. "He had so much of his life ahead of him and he was going to be something great."
Cooper said her son was an honor student who had just started his junior year at Jefferson High School.
"He was a well-loved kid," she added. "Everybody loved him, from friends to, I have moms coming up and telling me that he's so respectful, 'He'd come to our house and if the trash needed to be taken out he'd take out the trash.'"
The Hillsborough Sheriff's Office said just after 7 p.m. Saturday, shots were fired near Red Robin outside the Citrus Park Mall.
PJ was struck in the upper body and pronounced dead at the hospital a short time later.
During a press conference on Saturday evening, Hillsborough Chief Deputy Joseph Maurer told reporters, "I don't know if [the groups] knew each other. I know they were eating and a fight broke out. I don't know the nature of it, our detectives are working to get to the bottom of that."
PJ's mother said she doesn't believe her son was targeted.
"I feel like he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time because that's not him," Cooper said. "He's very, very loving, he's a lover boy. He doesn't think about hurting anybody or anything like that."
Now, as the search for those responsible continues, Cooper is calling for accountability.
"I want them to be prosecuted to the fullest extent because they did not have to do this. Who brings guns to the mall?!" she said. "Now we have to be worried about people doing this at the mall when all we're doing is trying to have a fun time on the weekend and spend time with our family. It's not right."
If you would like to suppor them, PJ's family is fundraising to cover his medical and funeral expenses.