Mournful boss laments young Camden slay victim

Several years ago, a business owner and an enterprising boy made a deal on a Camden street.

If the boy promised to finish high school, avoid the quick cash made on street corners and steer clear of seedy neighborhoods, he could someday have a job with the man's landscaping service.

So when Lemuel Robinson graduated from Woodrow Wilson High School, Ty Walke made due on his promise and developed a bond with the boy that evolved beyond neighbor and employee.

"People used to ask me if he was my son and I always said yes," Walke, 52, said yesterday.

Robinson, 22, was fatally shot when two men tried to rob him Thursday night while he walked to a store in East Camden, the Camden County Prosecutor's Office said. Robinson was shot once during the struggle on Merriel Avenue, and family members say he stumbled into a convenience store on Westfield Avenue and died in an ambulance.

"You can't even go out on the streets nowadays," said his cousin, Diane Tuten. "If it's not safe for someone like him, then who?"

On Merriel Avenue, a female resident, who asked not to be identified for fear of retaliation, said she heard a boom that "sounded like a shotgun" on the corner Thursday night. Men in hoodies ran from the scene, she added, and then police showed up.

Robinson's body was found outside the F & M Food Market about 8 p.m. Robinson's family claims he had stumbled into the store for help but that employees picked him up and brought him back outside. On Friday, a worker behind the counter said he knew nothing about the shooting.

Robinson's many relatives gathered yesterday inside the Tyler Street home in Cramer Hill where he grew up. His sister, Jessica, said she talked with Lemuel five minutes before he was shot.

"He was going to get something to eat," she said. "He really was a good kid."

Across the street, Walke sat inside his home, wondering about life without his "right-hand man."

"I mean, of course I have other guys. I have other people who work for me," he said. "But I'll never have another one like him. He was my boy."Anyone with information about the shooting is asked to contact the prosecutor's office at 856-225-8400.