‘The biggest, kindest teddy bear’: Bluffton remembers native son Dwon Fields Jr., 18
To customers, a visit to Bluffton’s Kilwins store on Saturday might have seemed unremarkable.
The Tanger Outlets institution was open for business as usual, and high schoolers served up ice cream and chocolates from behind the counter like any other day.
But one thing stood out: an apron and hat hung in front of the display of chocolates, with an employee badge and a nametag that just read “DJ.”
When 18-year-old Dwon “DJ” Fields Jr. wasn’t at Bluffton High School, visiting his grandmothers, playing football or preparing to study welding, he worked at Kilwins.
He was known as the heart of the store: a protector who made other teenaged employees feel safe walking to their cars after a shift, a joyful presence who lit up the staff Christmas party, a staple for tourists who stopped by the store whenever they came to town.
“He’s the biggest, kindest teddy bear,” Kilwins owner Jake Higgins said Sunday.
Fields died Friday night in a shooting that left two of his classmates injured. Police have arrested two suspects and have warrants for two others, but the investigation into his death remains open.
Higgins, a former Bluffton Police Department officer, said he texted the entire Kilwins staff at 4 a.m. to let them know the news and to reassure them of one thing: “DJ was doing nothing wrong,” he said. “He was innocent in the car doing nothing wrong.”
He told the staff, many of them Fields’ classmates, that they could take the day off if they needed to. About half of them showed up anyway, he said, wanting to be with their friends as they mourned the loss.
Fields, a senior, was taking only two classes, and he would go to visit his two grandmothers in the mornings before his classes and in the evenings, when he finished his shift at Kilwins. After graduation, Fields wanted to go to trade school to become a welder.
Three weeks ago, Higgins posted photos of Fields on Bluffton Bobcat Football’s Facebook page: “DJ is an extremely hard worker and driven to attend college soon and learn welding as a trade. Today he is batching out ingredients to make our Signature Turtle fudge from scratch. He is an exceptional learner and thorough cook.
“DJ and his awesome family are a big part of my business family and our Bluffton community. He has attended high school while working two jobs within the same day and NEVER complains. He is a fantastic employee because he is a good young man, first. He treats everyone equally with kindness and loves working with our customers even after long football practices or game weeks.”
Higgins said Fields had worked for him for two years, but he said he had known the young man and his family for seven years, since Higgins was a community police officer in their Bluffton neighborhood.
He described the Fields family as “founding members” of the town, among the most “genuine, authentic, heart of gold people” he knows.
“He comes from a family filled with love,” Higgins said. “That’s really what the biggest loss is here, is that someone who came from so much love was thrown away.”
That love came in handy for Fields in January, when he and two classmates were the target of another Bluffton High student’s racist Snapchat photo describing them as “(Expletive) monkeys.”
The incident led Beaufort County School District to establish an Equity and Inclusion Task Force, with Superintendent Frank Rodriguez commending Fields and his targeted peers “for the integrity they have shown.”
“I’m proud because these three boys handle this ridicule like men,” wrote Monique Frazier, the mother of another victim, at the time. “This could have [gone] really bad, but they said they have worked too hard to get where they are now, to waste it on him. I can tell you they are much better than me.”
Higgins said that Fields’ response was textbook DJ: “He had zero animosity towards anyone,” he said. “DJ brought that genuine, authentic, Bluffton state of mind. For him it was a state of heart.”
This story was originally published March 7, 2021 at 3:36 PM.