A 22-year-old Plant City man is dead after a fight between two men broke out on Wednesday afternoon.

Plant City police say the victim, Ha’keem Alagawam Jackson Cook and another man, began fighting outside "The Lot" in Maryland Heights around 2 p.m. when the suspect pulled a gun and shot Cook several times.

"The two individuals were here,” Sgt. Tray Towels.  “They were either having a conversation or some sort of interaction and during that interaction, at some point it became an argument."

Police say Cook died on scene with severe upper body trauma in the store’s parking lot.

Cook’s mother, who lives just one block from the crime scene, was too distraught to go on camera but his grandmother said she is in a state of disbelief.

"It's hurtful,” said Cook’s grandmother, Wanda Young.  “I don't know. I raised him from a baby. I'm just praying and praying and praying. I can't do nothing but pray."  

Police say the suspect shot Cook and took off running.

A family friends called the shooting "senseless."

"It's a growing epidemic amongst these guys,” said Juells Mitchell, a longtime family friend.  “They don't want to take a loss."

And now caught in that epidemic, families like the Cooks.  All they have now, they say, are memories.

"I always took him to church, Sunday School, and he was in different things in the church and he was just a really good kid," Cook’s grandmother, Wanda, remembered.  Adding, "We had a bond, me and him.  We could talk."

It’s a bond that is no longer as a grandmother mourns her grandchild and an entire family is torn apart.

Police say they interviewed several witnesses and have surveillance video as evidence. They currently have a person of interest.