'Tomorrow isn't promised:' sad message on teen victim's hoodie
- Jamie Duffy
- Jul 22
- 3 min read
FORT WAYNE, Ind. ---It started as a quandary for the Fort Wayne police.
No one knew the victim from Saturday morning’s homicide, only that someone called in reporting gun shots at the Woodbridge Apartments on the city’s northeast side.
No one was talking. No one called in to say he was missing.
Then it was Monday.
A release from the Fort Wayne Police Department called on the public’s help. The release described the victim as a young black man, 15 to 20 years old, 5 foot 11 inches tall and all of 123 lbs. with a chipped front tooth.
Photos of the hoodie - both sides - and his flip flops were included.
The police had already tapped their usual sources for any information on this young kid with a bullet in him, found in the front of the apartment complex at 1800 River Run.
“A detective called me and said, ‘hey man, we had a kid get killed last night. We’re having a hard time identifying him’,” community activist Roderick Parker, a man who lived the street life when he was young, said.
And then the kids started talking. Sheila Curry Campbell, who works with a youth group at Pilgrim Baptist Church, sent a photo to The Probable Cause. The Instagram post mentioned that the victim was from Wisconsin.
Tuesday, the Allen County Coroner identified him. His name is Kardenia Anthony Hollis of Fort Wayne. He was 16 years old.
“They called him Nunu,” Parker said. Teens have told him that Hollis was a student at Northrup High School.
Hollis was found early Saturday morning - around 3 am. - lying in front of the Woodbridge Apartments in the 1800 block of River Run.
Did someone lure him outside at 3 a.m.? Only gunshots were reported, according to police reports.
“I really believe he was at that funeral,” Parker said, referring to services for the teen who died downtown in the early morning hours between July 4 and July 5 on Harrison Street at The Landing. Si'Montre Anthony R' Chey Molargik was 16 years old, too.
Parker said he now remembers he saw Hollis at the repast at the Molargik home.
Was the homicide gang-related as in teenaged cliques that these young people join out of pressure or loneliness or to be cool?
Parker had a photo of another kid with the same hoodie on, same message: “Tomorrow isn’t promised.”
It can be a gang slogan. Curry Campbell, a former county councilwoman and social justice leader, quickly found a couple of meanings for the phrase that can be traced to the Bible.
In her Google search she found:
“Tomorrow Isn’t Promised” has been used by some gangs or individuals in street culture, often as a memorial slogan or code tied to violence, loss, and the idea of living fast or without fear due to the constant threat of death or incarceration.
The phrase is often printed on RIP shirts, hoodies, or tattoos in remembrance of someone who died violently.
For some, “Tomorrow Isn’t Promised” becomes a justification for high-risk behavior:
• Carrying weapons
• Getting retaliation
• Engaging in illegal activity “before it’s too late”
In some areas, the phrase may be used as a coded message among cliques or subsets within larger gangs. It might not be the name of the gang itself but tied to its mindset or motto.
In social media tagging, you might see it in captions or hashtags tied to violence, guns, or “slide” culture — usually with phrases like:
• 🔫💔🕊️ emojis used in context of lost friends or threats
Sgt. Gary Hensler, a veteran of FWPD’s Gang Unit, called Hollis’s hoodie “foreboding for him.” Hensler said it wasn’t known in Fort Wayne gang culture at this point.
"We are going to fight this," said Parker whose organization Big Hearts Community Projects is on the front lines, talking to "kids" every day. "I really believe that half the time these kids don't know what they're doing with these guns."
That is, until it's too late.
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