The dark and cloudy skies – along with light drizzles – that covered Marley Vale, St Philip today aptly captured the gloom of a community staggered by the shocking slaughter of two of its own.
The still of a balmy Tuesday night was shattered by gunfire last night, and when it was over, cousins Renaldo Gittens, 23 and Kyle Rico ‘Sad Boy’ Burgess, 21, both of Eastpoint, were dead.
The cause of the shootings was not immediately known, but police said in a statement that a number of persons were liming in the area “when suddenly there was a number of loud explosions which caused the crowd to disperse. The two deceased men were then discovered lying motionless on the ground”, one on the outside, the other on the inside of a makeshift shed near the old Ralphie’s Minimart building.
There was a hive of activity outside the abandoned outlet today, as a team of detectives scoured the scene for clues and canvassed the neighbourhood seeking information from residents, many of whom sat outside their homes trying to make sense of last night’s double homicide.
One detective was overheard pleading with the residents, “if you know anything tell us.
“Are you going to let these two lives go down so?” he asked.
“Officer, all I heard was puh-pax, pax,” a woman responded, trying to explain what the gunshots sounded like.
Over at Geza’s Bar, a group of people had assembled, one of whom told Barbados TODAY he heard the “plap, plap, plap” of gunshots, before “all these people coming down through here running left and right, screaming”.
The man, who did not want to be named, said several of them were watching the T20 cricket match between the Barbados Tridents and Guyana’s Amazon Warriors when the shooting occurred.
“We were all here backing up there watching TV. As long as sports on we does be here. Just imagine if . . .,” he recounted as his voice trailed off.
The residents spoke in complimentary terms of the victims, insisting that both were good men who were never in trouble.
“They didn’t used to trouble nobody. They . . . [were] no bad men. I could put my neck out pun the block and swear for the two uh dem,” one woman told Barbados TODAY, using words to describe the dead men that were almost identical to those used by a male resident, who vouched that “none of them were bad men. They were two good fellas.
“None never thief, never break in no way, never went jail. You coulda call them to do anything for you and they would come. You see, Conan [Renaldo] had it hard coming up . . . he mother dead and he father home there so sick,” the man said, while wondering what would happen to the elderly man now that his son had been killed.
Decklon Jordan was Reco’s diving partner, and earlier in the day they were out to sea together.
They discussed returning to the water today, before saying goodbye to each other.
Moments later, Rico was dead.
“When I left him, I told him I going in the sea tomorrow [today]. I going home and get some rest and that he could shout me. Two minutes later, I hear my mother say, ‘Decklon, I hear like something like gunshots down the road’, so I just get up, put on my shirt, come outside and I come down the road. Before I get down the road I hear my brother saying, ‘two uh dem dead there in de road’. I just come down the road and see two of them here dead.
“When I get here I see one here laying down and then I see another one of my friends here inside the shed here dead. I went and hold he hand and I tell he, ‘I now tell you I gine home. I can’t believe you gone,’” Jordan said.
“He never used to get involved in nothing. He just used to go in the sea. He ain’t no trouble person.”
He said Marley Vale was a quiet community, suggesting that this sort of activity was unusual.
“Nothing so don’t go on so bout here. The most the fellas does do [is] drink, play cards, smoke dem lil’ ting and that is it. They don’t be no stabbing up, they don’t fight wid one another. If there is a dispute they does ‘gree back in the next five minutes. It don’t be nothing personal, it don’t be nutting like that. You would fall out now and quick so you and the body that you fall out wid is friends. You giving then something to eat, something to drink, and that is it. It does be a cool vibe up here.
“It don’t be nobody shooting at nobody, nobody want to kill nobody. It don’t be nothing so. The two uh them fellas that dead, them don’t be involved in nothing and that is the sad thing ‘bout it. Them was just unfortunate and dead. . . . I feel that the people that do this . . . didn’t come to pick and choose who to kill. The body come to just kill, and they come and do it too,” Jordan suggested.