Him gone like that

 

CASCADE, Hanover — The pain of losing a loved one was evident on the face of Merly Lewis.

“Him gone like that,” the elderly woman lamented on Thursday, hours after her grandson, 27-year-old beekeeper Tavaris Stephens, and three-year-old Kamoil Williams had been shot dead by criminals travelling in a Toyota Axio motor car.

Stephens and the little boy were among a group of people standing outside a small wooden shop in this normally quiet community when the gunmen attacked at approximately 7:00 pm Wednesday.

A second man, who was also shot during the drive-by, has been hospitalised.

Lewis was unable to hold back the tears as she described her grandson as her favourite relative. He had grown up in the church and was not a troublemaker, she told the Jamaica Observer.

Stephens’ sister, who gave her name only as Sushi, said the murder has left the family badly shaken.

An undated photo of three-year-old Kamoil Williams, who was shot dead by gunmen Wednesday evening in Hanover.

“I am heartbroken. He is my favourite brother,” she said before breaking down in tears.

One resident, who gave his name as Mr Burgess, said the shooting had left him distraught and shocked.

“We always hear about it in other places on the news, but mi neva know seh this one woulda so close to wi yah now. Fi wi community is usually quiet and nice. The whole a wi live as one,” he said.

Police say the shooting may have been payback for an attack that took place late last month.

“We know that it is a reprisal to a March 26 shooting that occurred in that same space,” Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) Clifford Chambers, who is in charge of Area One, told the Observer.

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“The police have relentlessly pursued the persons who are responsible for that shooting and we were not able to arrest them, but we know that they have fled from the space and out of the parish,” he added.

ACP Chambers said the rugged terrain of the Cascade community, which the police do not consider a crime hot spot, had hampered efforts to nab the perpetrators of Wednesday’s incident.

Tavaris Stephens was also shot dead Wednesday evening in Cascade, Hanover.

“We were not able to get the kind of investigative traction that we would have wanted, but we have a clear idea of what it is that they are looking for, and now we are doing some operations in St James and a section of Hanover,” he said, adding that the victims of Wednesday evening’s attack were innocent people.

“They were in the vicinity of… the man who is alleged to have shot this man [on March 26],” ACP Chambers said.

The shop in Cascade, Hanover, where the shooting took place on Wednesday evening.

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