One or more armed robbers forced a teen to strip naked before shooting and killing him in Bridgeport's Hollow neighborhood Wednesday, police say.

Police say the gunfire struck Jeri Kollock, 19, multiple times, in a Harrall Avenue community.

Kollock's relatives say he was working hard to improve himself after facing some challenges. Arlene Mercer, who says she knew Kollock for all of his life, says he had recently lost a friend to similar violence.

Violence has been plaguing the community. The friend, Eric Diaz, was also from the city's East End. And Mercer says her own son barely survived a different shooting.

Police say they believe whoever shot Kollock likely knew him. After sustaining multiple gunshot wounds, he fled downstairs into a basement, where he collapsed. He crawled outside, shouted for help and died before paramedics arrived.

"It's hard to put into words the senselessness of what took place there last night," says AJ Perez, Bridgeport's chief of police. "How cowardly these people were, to make him strip off all his clothes, jewelry...you don't even do that to an animal."

Investigators initially said the victim may have used the drug PCP, but they later determined that was not the case.

Police are asking for the public's help in solving the slaying.