There was an empty seat Wednesday at Huffman High School’s graduation.

Where Ronald Martez Bennett Jr. should have been sitting, instead there was a diploma and a place card bearing the 18-year-old’s name.

That’s because Bennett was murdered earlier this year in what police say was a targeted shooting.

“Earlier this year, we suffered the heartbreaking loss of a classmate to violence, a pain no one should have to carry, especially not so young,’’ said Huffman valedictorian Jaeda Davis during the morning ceremony at Birmingham’s Crossplex.

“I know for some it left an emptiness that words can’t quite reach,” Davis said. “So, I want to encourage you all to honor our classmate, Ronald Bennett, through unity, through love and by choosing to keep going.”

Bennett’s mother, Brittney Hampton, and a dozen other family members attended the graduation.

“He was really, really looking forward to graduation so I just felt like we should still be there to support him,” Hampton said.

“All of us cried,” she said. “We did a lot of crying.”

But, Hampton said, there was also joy, and a feeling of celebration.

“I was still happy for his classmates,” she said. “I know he would be happy for them.”

The deadly shooting happened Feb. 1, in the 600 block of Eighth Terrace West.

It was about 12:21 a.m. that Saturday when more than two dozen shots rang out.

Bennett was driving a vehicle when he was struck by the gunfire.

Police said a passenger in the vehicle tried to take control of the car and ended up crashing into the shrubbery and front porch of a home.

Bennett was found on the ground outside of the vehicle. He was pronounced dead on the scene.

Multiple friends and family members rushed to the scene and were there as a tow truck pulled the vehicle from the yard of the residence.

Police announced last week the arrest of a 17-year-old on a capital murder charge.

A motive has not been released, but the charge was capital because Bennett was killed while he was in a vehicle.

“He was basically set up for an ambush,” Hampton said. “I know my son. He’s like me, he trusts who he trusts. He wouldn’t have met up with nobody for no mess.”

“The person he met up with, he was lured there and ambushed,” she said.

The teen was Hampton’s first born. He was born when Hampton was 18, the same age as her son when he was killed.

“I had him young,” said Hampton, who is expecting her fourth child next month, “and we grew up together.”

The loss has been difficult.

“Life is different, and you don’t realize how much a person does for you until they’re not here to do it anymore,” Hampton said.

“He took his sister and brother to school every day, picked them up every day,” she said. “He took his sister to gymnastics when she had practice. I have a party rental business – he basically ran that doing my deliveries and pickups.”

Bennett, his mother said, was genuine and caring.

“He was really loyal, a real good friend,” she said.

When Bennett was in eighth grade, he played on Huffman’s high school baseball team. He played baseball and football for two of his four years at Huffman.

Outside of school, Bennett worked with his grandfather as a security guard and planned to pursue a career in welding.

The impact he left on others will be his legacy, Hampton said. More than 300 people, including teachers and classmates, attended Bennett’s funeral.

“They all spoke really highly of him,” Hampton said. “All his friends said he motivated them.”

“He was a positive person,” she said. “He was just different.”