Camron Bowen had recently turned 16 when prosecutors say a Bay View High School classmate shot him after a county bus ride.
MILWAUKEE, Wis. — Days after Camron Bowen celebrated his 16th birthday, his family gathered beneath balloons and photographs at a Milwaukee intersection to mourn him. Weeks later, police said they had arrested the 15-year-old classmate prosecutors accuse of killing him there.
The Nov. 5 arrest of Robbiel Stokes ended a period in which Bowen’s relatives knew the identity of the teenager charged in his death but also knew that police had not found him. Stokes was charged Sept. 25 with first-degree intentional homicide, use of a dangerous weapon, in the Sept. 19 shooting near Layton Boulevard and Greenfield Avenue. Prosecutors say Bowen and Stokes, both students at Bay View High School, had fought at school three days earlier and later encountered each other on a Milwaukee County Transit System bus. Investigators allege that after a tense conversation, Stokes followed Bowen off the bus and shot him. The accusation remains unproven in court.
Bowen’s family first spoke publicly before prosecutors announced the charge. At a vigil held the evening after the shooting, relatives and friends placed candles, flowers and pictures near the scene. His mother, Jennifer Cassidy, said her son had been her closest companion and that she was struggling to understand his sudden death. Family members said Bowen was a sophomore at Bay View and had celebrated what they called his golden birthday on Sept. 16, when he turned 16. The timing made the loss especially jarring: a week that had begun with a birthday ended with relatives mourning at the place where he had been shot.
Those relatives described a teenager whose life extended well beyond the homicide investigation. An aunt remembered Bowen as full of light and willing to do anything for people he loved. His mother later described him as smart and said he had plans for his future. Other local reporting said he enjoyed anime and hoped to study technology in college. Another aunt, Nicole Cassidy, focused on the milestones that would now never arrive for the family, including watching him graduate. Their memories became part of the public story as police worked to identify and locate the person responsible.
Investigators, meanwhile, were reconstructing the final bus ride. According to the criminal complaint, Bowen was aboard a county bus before Stokes got on. Surveillance footage showed the boys near one another toward the rear, and prosecutors said their conversation appeared heated. Both teenagers eventually stepped off near Layton Boulevard and Greenfield Avenue. Police said Stokes came out behind Bowen and, about six seconds later, pulled a handgun from his hoodie and began firing while Bowen was turned away. Bowen ran toward the front of the bus as the shots continued, the complaint alleges.
The driver described watching the violence unfold while he was still at the stop. He told police he heard gunfire and saw Bowen running with another teenager behind him holding what looked like a silver pistol. According to the complaint, the driver said the armed teenager caught up with Bowen and fired repeatedly before leaving. The driver radioed dispatchers to report what he had seen. The medical examiner later documented six gunshot wounds, according to TMJ4’s report on the complaint. Early public accounts differed on whether Bowen died at the scene or after being transported to a hospital, and that detail has not been consistently reported by authorities and local media.
The reason the two classmates were together that afternoon appears connected to an earlier school confrontation, but the public record leaves important details unresolved. Bay View High School’s principal told investigators that Bowen and Stokes had fought Sept. 16. Bowen’s mother said in interviews that her son had been sticking up for himself and other students. Prosecutors have not publicly presented a complete account of the earlier dispute or established in court that it supplied the motive for the later shooting. The criminal complaint instead uses the school fight as context for the bus conversation and the fatal encounter that followed.
Police say the investigation quickly produced evidence pointing toward Stokes. Minutes after the shooting, according to the complaint, Stokes called his mother and asked to be picked up. She told investigators that she found him wet from the rain and then drove him to his grandmother’s home. Local reports based on the complaint said she also described him as nervous. When police later showed her images taken from transit surveillance, prosecutors say, she identified her son as the person believed to have fired at Bowen. Her account became one of the pieces used to support the criminal charge.
A search of her vehicle added another piece. Investigators found a .40-caliber cartridge on the rear floor and said it was the same brand and caliber as casings recovered from the shooting scene. Public reports reviewed for this story do not say that police recovered the gun itself, and no statement from Stokes giving an alternate account has been publicly documented. The evidence described so far therefore reflects the prosecution’s charging theory, supported by video, witness testimony and physical evidence that will be subject to the court process.
When the charge was announced, Cassidy said there was relief in knowing whom investigators were seeking but pain in knowing he had not been caught. She also expressed sympathy for Stokes’ mother, saying both families faced losses of different kinds. At the same time, she spoke broadly about teenagers and firearms, saying parents should know whether their children have access to guns and should teach them about gun safety. Authorities have not publicly explained where the firearm in Bowen’s killing came from, so the family’s concerns should not be read as a finding about the weapon in this case.
The homicide unfolded against wider concern in Milwaukee about shootings involving young people, but for Bowen’s relatives the loss remained intensely personal. At the memorial, they spoke less about statistics than about a boy whose birthday had just passed, whose school years were unfinished and whose plans had been interrupted. Their public calls for an end to gun violence came from that grief. The family had to watch the case move from an unknown-suspect investigation to a named defendant and arrest warrant while waiting for the person charged to be found.
That waiting period ended when Milwaukee police said Nov. 5 that Stokes had been taken into custody. The department did not provide public details in the report reviewed for this story about the circumstances of the arrest. The most recent verified coverage also does not establish the outcome of later court proceedings. Stokes therefore remains accused, not convicted, while Bowen’s family enters a new phase in a case that began for them with a birthday, a shooting and a vigil at a south-side intersection.
Author note: Last updated Nov. 9, 2026.