Two Camden men fatally shot Tuesday

At 27th Street and Arthur Avenue in East Camden, where Anibal Perez died in a hail of bullets on the way home from picking up a bottle of Remy Martin VSOP - his favorite - friends and siblings passed around a fresh bottle of the cognac Wednesday, sipping in his memory.

"He had stopped at the stop sign when it all happened," his sister Sesily Aponte, 25, said, pointing to the sign in Cramer Hill.

An empty Remy box and balloons were taped to the stop sign; a white sheet had been draped across a fence with handwritten condolences, including one by his mother. who said he "will live forever in my eyes."

Perez, 23, was one of two Camden men fatally shot Tuesday, the Camden County Prosecutor's Office and city police said Wednesday.

Sherron Coleman, 19, was reported to have been shot multiple times on the 1200 block of North Octagon Road in the Fairview section around 7 p.m. Three hours later, Perez was shot in the driver's seat of his Honda Accord.

Authorities gave his last name as Torres but family said it was Perez.

Both men had brushes with the law, according to court records. Coleman served nearly a year for drugs and eluding offenses. Perez served a total of nearly two years on weapons and drug charges.

The deaths raised the city's tally to eight homicides, four more than at this time last year, when a record 67 people were killed in the city.

Coleman's family could not be reached.

At the foot of the stop sign in Cramer Hill, where Perez lived, a family member had constructed a shrine - a small wooden house that held religious candles and empty Remy bottles.

Perez had worked as a mechanic with a brother, Juan Medina, at Johnny's Speedy Repair in Cramer Hill. Medina said Perez wanted to open his own operation in the shop.

"He was friendly. He was cool to everybody," Medina, 29, said.

Perez had left his mother, sister, and other family members at home and driven to the liquor store on that rainy night, his family said.

"According to what the police told us, it had to be done by somebody he knew. The windows were rolled down," Aponte said.

Added another brother, Juan Ortiz, 28: "Nobody rolls the window down for someone they don't know."

Family members said authorities told them Perez was shot with a 9mm and a .45-caliber. The Prosecutor's Office could not immediately confirm that.

Perez was known as "Grass" - a nickname given him by his father, his family said. He had a 6-year-old daughter by one woman, they said. Another woman, Melba Rodriguez, 19, said Wednesday that she had dated Perez and was four months pregnant with their son.

"He is going to be a Jr.," she said of the unborn baby boy.