Eight-y-o among two killed in Burgher Gully shooting

Not even the deafening screams from frantic females, pleading for the children who were present, could stop two marauding gunmen from shooting indiscriminately into a house, leaving an eight-year-old boy and an adult male dead in Burgher Gully, Kingston, late on Sunday.

The deceased have since been identified as DJ Dawes, and 34-year-old Joel Lemmanous.

Dawes was a student at Norman Gardens Primary School.

The Gleaner understands that two other men were also shot and injured during the attack, which saw the gunmen expending several rounds.

Investigators say the scene was littered with spent casings.

DJ’s mother, Suzanne Barrett, was a shadow of herself as she leaned her head against a door splattered with her son’s blood.

“The two gunman dem stand up a fire the shot dem same way like dem nuh business,” she told The Gleaner.

“Look like a when the baby get shot, him bawl out. His brother lift him up and a bare blood a spray out.”

Barrett wept uncontrollably as she recounted the ordeal she witnessed as she herself had to take cover.

“Mi can’t believe DJ just dead so ... . A way up deh so mi get a taxi, mi affi run wid him. On the way mi a beg and pray to Father God nuh mek him dead ... . When mi reach hospital, dem say him heart nah beat,” Barrett said.

She could not understand why the gunmen kept firing their guns, even when they themselves heard the screaming children.

“Two gunman at the gate a fire shot inna di yard and the pickney dem a bawl out,” she said as she questioned why her son’s life had to end that way.

According to her, DJ was shot once in the chest.

The other fatality, Lemmanous, is said to be the brother of an influential person from the community.

The Gleaner understands that he resides in western Jamaica but was in the community following the burial of his father on the weekend.

Reports are that he was given a warning to leave the area by factions who oppose his brother.

“Dem tell him him a go dead like him father if him nuh leave. A him bredda, the last one dem (really) want kill because him nah tek no talk,” Lemmanous’ mother told The Gleaner.

According to her, there has been tension in the community over ‘don ship’.

The Kingston East police said the injured victims were still hospitalised and investigations were ongoing.

As at July 29 this year, the East Kingston Police Division had recorded 29 murders, the same as the corresponding period last year.

Reports of shooting, injured persons, rape and robbery were showing slight decline.

Break-ins, however, were up 17 per cent while the national murder tally was at 786.

This represents a 12 per cent decline year-on-year.

andre.williams@gleanerjm.com