Growing up, Zah’Air Chatmon was never given a BB gun or a Super Soaker. Living in a violent South Philadelphia neighborhood, his mother didn’t want her son’s fingers getting too comfortable with triggers.
At age 17, Jeannette Barnes was blessed with a smooth pregnancy and even smoother transition upon leaving the hospital with her baby son.
“I always called Zah’Air ‘my struggle’ because I had him at a moment in my life when I was about to give up,” she said.
But when Zah’Air arrived on June 29, 1997, he gave his mother “absolutely no problems.” As he grew older, he never once talked back to her or asked for money —unless he was rapping about Gucci and diamonds.
“His music was more flashy,” Jeannette recalled. “He dreamed of flying high.”
Zah’Air wasn’t particularly chatty and often bottled up his emotions (Jeannette warned that could be his downfall.) Yet when he had a pen or microphone in hand, he spoke volumes. Zah’Air’s favorite subject was English and he appreciated any genre of music, including his mom’s old school jams.
Parents in the neighborhood would call on him to break up fights, since he had a way of de-escalating drama.
“He was like the father of the crew,” Jeannette remembered. “He was just the one that tried to keep everybody in line.”
“It was embedded in him that we have today and not tomorrow.”
On March 26, 2019 at around 9 p.m., Zah’Air, 21, and his cousin, Quincy Cook, 25, were fatally shot while sitting inside a car at 23rd and Moore Streets in South Philly. No arrests have been made.
Eighteen months later, Jeannette’s godson, Zahquesz McFadden, was shot and killed, along with another 17-year-old boy, five blocks away. That case also remains unsolved.
To this day, Jeannette tells herself that Zah’Air’s killing was a case of mistaken identity, yet she remains haunted with unanswered questions.
“If my son was into the streets,” she said, “I would’ve prepared for the worst and hoped for the best.”
Jeannette acknowledged that she was a strict, protective parent who immediately called her son every time she heard of a shooting in the neighborhood. He called her paranoid.
“I always told him that being a man is going to hit you like a ton of bricks.” Jeannette remembered. She taught him what women want — and don’t want — and how to be self-sufficient.
After graduating from Benjamin Franklin High School, Zah’Air enrolled in the Community College of Philadelphia for one year, but found it difficult to juggle work and school.
He was the spitting image of his father, Ricardo Chatmon. The pair enjoyed working together in food service prep at a restaurant in Philadelphia International Airport.
Zah’Air’s grandmother took him on vacations to the Bahamas, Puerto Rico and Jamaica, but also stressed the importance of being frugal.
“He was on the road to building his own,” Jeannette said.
Zah’Air was a prankster, who participated in the Ice Bucket Challenge for no reason other than to gleefully douse family members with frigid water. A fan of comedian Kevin Hart, he was goofy and affectionate with his younger sister, Sebree Barnes. He patiently taught her dance routines and how to master the “Grand Theft Auto” video game.
“His personality lit up a room,” Sebree, 15, remembered. “He was just so fun to be around.”
Zah’Air’s enormous laugh sounded like a whistling tea kettle, especially after he inserted pencils in his sleeping nephew’s mouth and then plastered the photos on social media.
He might appear standoffish at first, Jeannette said, but he was making you “work for it.”
Zah’Air’s name graces a mural on Locust and 52nd Streets in West Philadelphia, commissioned by the Bianca Nikol Roberson Memorial Foundation. Robeson was the victim of a road rage killing in West Chester in 2017. She was 18.
Jeannette, who named her son after the former African Republic of Zaire, believes that parents must be more attuned to their children’s needs to help stop the senseless killing.
“We as parents have to take responsibility and ownership for it,” she said. “We made these kids the way they are today.”
A reward of up to $20,000 if available to anyone that comes forward with information that leads to the arrest and conviction of the person responsible for Zah’Air’s murder. Anonymous calls can be submitted by calling the Citizens Crime Commission at 215-546-TIPS.
Resources are available for people and communities that have endured gun violence in Philadelphia. Click here for more information.
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