Deadly Clarendon drive-by leaves grief in wake
Published:Thursday | July 28, 2022 | 12:11 AMCecelia Campbell-Livingston/Gleaner Writer
The last thing Juanita Allison said to her son, 16-year-old Demaro Gibson, before he died is that he would be receiving a beating for “tiefing out the meat”.
She clung to that memory as she tried to come to grips with the fact that he was among the six persons hit in a mass shooting Tuesday night at about 8:45 at a shop on Hollywood Drive in the quiet community of New Town, Hayes Phase Two.
She said she had no idea why Demaro, a Bustamante High schoolboy and lover of the outdoors, was shot.
The family is now trying to cope with the loss even as they look for answers on a night that went wrong after Demaro visited a corner shop where he hung out with friends as men played dominoes.
Forty-year-old labourer Christopher Romany, otherwise called ‘Lucky’, also succumbed to his injuries. Romany’s son was spared, said residents, because he had collected a key from his father before leaving the location.
Romany’s son’s mother, who gave her name only as Tiffany, said the boy was very close to his father.
The mother of a 24-year-old man who is now in the hospital credits his being alive to the constant prayers she offered up for him before the incident.
Her son, who was with his father in Antigua, decided he didn’t like it there and returned to Jamaica.
“So him come and him just come take him clothes and stay a one a him guy friend. From him come, mi tell him stay home, stay home, leave that guy company,” she told The Gleaner.
Hearing gunshots ring out and the screech of a speeding car, the mother, who requested anonymity, said she instantly started to worship, hoping that her supplications would bear fruit.
“There is no tears, and mi can’t cry. Just pure worship mi a worship. Mi feel weak and mi feel it fi all of them.
“But that little boy, if you ask him fi move mountain, that little boy is Demaro. No tears can’t come,” she said of the 16-year-old who lost his life in the incident.
Councillor for Hayes division, Scean Barnswell, who visited the community to offer support to family members, said he would be soliciting the help of pastors in comforting relatives.
Condemning the crime, he also encouraged residents to share information with the police.
“It is really sad. It is not something I was anticipating. It’s a quiet community with decent, law-abiding people,” Barnswell said.
Deputy Superintendent of Police Owen Brown urged residents not to resort to vigilante justice, which could result in more lives being lost.
“We will investigate, we will find the persons who have committed this crime, and we will ensure that they are brought to justice,” Brown said.
No motive has yet been established for the shooting.
The latest data from the Jamaica Constabulary Force show that 43 people were murdered in Clarendon up to July 16, nine fewer than for the corresponding period in 2021.
Shootings have fallen 27 per cent from 37 at July 16, 2022, to 27 for the corresponding period this year.