Girls shot in deadly Lawrence Tavern attack
Published:Tuesday | March 31, 2020 | 12:25 AMAndre Williams/Staff Reporter
One girl was eight years old. Her sister was nine.
Both are victims of gun violence who survived a cold-blooded attack in a country otherwise distracted by the displacement wrought by COVID-19.
John Brown, their uncle, is thankful to be alive after a home invasion Sunday night in Mount Ogle, Lawrence Tavern, which claimed the life of one man. A 17-year-old was also shot.
Dead is 28-year-old Zailan ‘Prime’ Duncan, an upholsterer of an S-Corner, Mount Ogle, address.
The sisters are being treated at hospital and were said to be in stable condition up to press time. The girls’ identities are being withheld by this newspaper.
The 17-year-old was treated for a graze to his left shoulder and released, The Gleaner understands.
Brown, who was at home yesterday with close friends, recounted the terror of the evening attack and the fear that seized him when he was at the mercy of the lone gunman. He said he was chased through house before falling to the ground.
Still in shock
The Mount Ogle resident said that he is still in shock that he is still alive.
“Mi run and spread out over there so, and when me see him back a mi, me a say me dead, ‘cause him see when me drop, that’s all mi could say, ‘Mi dead’, and when mi look back a mi, mi see him walk weh,” Brown told The Gleaner.
“Mi tun fool ‘cause me never expect it.”
Brown was not aware that his preteen nieces were shot until another relative entered the house and took the frightened kids off the bed.
One girl was shot in the chest and the other sustained a bullet wound to her side.
“The nine-year-old one, her lungs kinda puncture where she get shot. The other one, dem get out the bullet. The two a dem deh a children’s with tube shut down inside a dem body,” he told The Gleaner.
Duncan was trying to leave the house after his wife returned to England late February, Brown said.
The St Andrew North police reported that the incident happened at 7:50 p.m. Sunday at an area called S-Corner. Residents reported hearing explosions and summoned the police, who assisted in transporting the victims to hospital where Duncan was pronounced dead.
The Constant Spring CIB is investigating.
Up to Saturday, March 28, the St Andrew North Police Division had recorded 28 murders compared to 12 for the corresponding period in 2019.