Princepaul Hodges, 18, a Black/African American male from Jacksonville, Florida, was shot on the evening of August 27, 2025, outside the Hollybrook Homes Apartments in the Lackawanna area and later died at the hospital. According to police dispatch that night, officers arrived around 8:50 p.m. to find Princepaul Hodges suffering from gunshot wounds; he was transported but did not survive.
Neighbors described a frantic scene, and investigators worked through the night as word spread that a teenager had been gunned down steps from his home.
In the days that followed, Princepaul Hodges’ mother, Myesha Johnston, recounted the ordinary moments that preceded the violence — her son handing an orange soda to his younger sister and heading upstairs — before gunfire shattered the evening. She later told reporters she reached him on the stairwell as he lay wounded, a memory that has since anchored the family’s grief. Friends and neighbors remembered Princepaul Hodges as kind and helpful, a teen who talked about earning his driver’s license and starting a small lawn-care business.
Detectives released a preliminary suspect description based on surveillance and witness accounts: an older, bald man dressed in all black who fled on foot from the apartment complex after the shooting. As of the latest public updates, no arrests had been announced and the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office asked anyone with information to come forward, while family members called for justice.
Community tributes and online memorials have since marked the loss of Princepaul Hodges, 18, as relatives worked to arrange services and bring family together amid the shock. An online fundraiser organized by his mother described a family devastated by sudden gun violence, and local memorial listings added his name and date to the city’s grim ledger for 2025.
