“Sudden, fast and devastating!”
That’s how a resident of Merricks, St Philip, described a shooting in the area that occurred on Wednesday, which left a 25-year-old man receiving medical treatment at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital and neighbours frustrated and upset.
On Wednesday at approximately 2 p.m., residents reported hearing several gunshots at a shop along the highway near Bayleys Primary School.
According to a police report, a group of people was socialising outside a business establishment when a motorcar approached at about 2:25 p.m. An occupant of the vehicle discharged a number of shots before driving away from the area.
Residents told Barbados TODAY that two masked men in the vehicle later drove to River Land, St Philip, where additional shots were fired and others were allegedly injured.
One man who lives in Merricks said he was preparing his lunch when the shooting occurred.
“A fella got shot in his hand and the other in some other part of his body. He was hollering real loud. It was really loud, a heavy gun too, about 20 shots,” he said.
“When the ambulance came… they tied his hand cause air got in the wound.”
He said this was not the first shooting that occurred in the area.
“Three months, another shooting happen ‘bout here, same time too. Two people got shot.”
An elderly woman who also lives nearby said she has lived in the community all her life and had never experienced anything like this before.
“I was eating soup. I live here all my life and I never see a thing like that,” said the 89-year-old.
She explained that her daughter, who lives elsewhere, called to inquire about the incident and noted that this was the second shooting in the area in the space of three months.
Reflecting on the past, she said disputes were once resolved differently.
“If the drunk people behave badly, they would say, ‘go home’…. I live ’bout here and people fight at that pipe, they fight and agree back,” she recalled.
Meanwhile, a male resident expressed disgust at what he witnessed.
He said young men needed to get off the streets and find work.
“This thing cruel, man. When a man could be hollering so hard, he in the ambulance, and you hear him hollering.
“Get work. Work never does anybody anything. When you always liming on the block, what you expect going to happen? Gunshots have no direction. It is very disturbing, though. You gotta be looking over your shoulder all the time,” he lamented.
He said it is only after incidents like Wednesday that the neighbourhood becomes quiet.
“Out here like a ghost town this morning. If you come like yesterday morning, [they are] smoking, there’s cursing and all kinds of things, loud music. Out here is mayhem. They don’t want to die, you know, but they want to be a bad man,” the concerned neighbour said.
He placed some blame on parents for not having a stronger hand in their children’s lives.
“The children leave home on a morning and come out on a block to smoke. You don’t befriend your children, you need to be stern. Children need to learn to do things, help around the place or you build that child for destruction later on in life.
“When you wake up on a morning, sweep the yard, weed the yard, but all the time on a block so? Man, something wrong with you head,” he said.
Comparing Barbados to Jamaica, he said there appears to be an attempt to mirror trends seen in the larger Caribbean island.
“We going on like Jamaica, they practicing to be like Jamaica… a lot of turf wars does be going on. Barbados too small for that.”
The father of two called on the government to clear out blocks across the country, saying the situation was “out of hand”.
“Nuff need to clean up. This country is in trouble. It’s a shame and disgrace. That culture is not a good culture,” he said.
When Barbados TODAY visited River Land, a resident there said she was at work in Six Roads when she heard an ambulance pass by. She said when she returned home and enquired about what happened, no one was willing to speak.
While grateful that none of her family members was injured, she is calling for the establishment of a hotline separate from what is currently offered by the police, saying residents fear speaking out.
louriannegraham@barbadostoday.bb
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