Besides the child, 2 others shot – 1 man, 26, dead; the other, 23, was shot in stomach but survives
BELIZE CITY, Thurs. Feb. 22, 2018– The destructive ongoing gang rivalry between the George Street Gang (GSG) and the Taylor’s Alley Gang, informally referred to as “Westmoreland”, has added two more dead bodies to the long list of casualties.
A promising Standard 6 student at Queen Street Baptist School, David “Capo” Morrison, 12, fell victim to the gangs’ feud at about 7 o’clock on Wednesday night, when a lone gunman on a bicycle rode up to the corner of Cemetery Road and Pregnant Alley and opened fire. The boy was shot in the head and legs and died on the scene.
Lloyd Valentine, 26, who is no stranger to police, was also shot multiple times in the body. He succumbed to his injuries while receiving medical attention. His family declined comment to our newspaper.
Albert Wagner, 23, also was shot, in the stomach, but he survived. After the shooting, he was taken to the Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital (KHMH), where he was treated and released.
Police later collected nine expended shells from the crime scene. They have not yet detained the shooter, but have revealed that he came from the direction of West Street.
Amandala spoke today with Linda Whylie, 33, Morrison’s mother. The distressed mother recounted that she, her son, and other friends were socializing while they waited for a bus to take them to their home in Ladyville, when she heard gunfire.
“I mi feel like da mi dynamite, so I never run. Some ah we didn’t run, some did. But then, when I conscious that everybody run, I run tu, because I get frighten,” she said.
Whylie said she ran into a bar on Orange Street and a few seconds later, when the shots stopped, she made her way back to the mouth of the alley, where she made a tragic discovery.
“As I reach by the alley entrance, my baby mi done deh down deh, done dead. I just gone and I pick up him and I back him in my hand, but he mi already dead already. He dead instant,” she said.
According to Whylie, police quickly arrived on the scene and transported the injured persons, and her deceased child, to the KHMH. She spoke of the condition of the victims when the police arrived.
“Three of them get shot. One just get shot in his side, but he mi okay enough to move, and help with my baby. Then the other one, Lloyd Valentine, he never dead yet, he actually dead at the hospital. But my baby dead pan di spot,” she said.
Whylie will remember her son as an intelligent child who was well-loved by everyone with whom he came in contact.
“He loved learning, and had even learnt barbering and drumming,” she told us. According to her, his teachers had confidence that he would have done well in the upcoming Primary School Examinations (PSE).
Sadly, young Morrison will not have the opportunity to sit that examination, scheduled for March. He will also not have the opportunity to graduate in June and send his application to Wesley College, the secondary school of his choice.
Today, his mother visited his school to recover his Mount Everest school bag.
Patricia Wade, Morrison’s homeroom teacher, told Amandala, “David was a humble, outgoing and funny child. He loved dancing and he was the life of the class.”
She explained that when Morrison’s classmates showed up to school this morning and heard the news of his demise, it was “very heart-wrenching.”
“The last thing David and I talked about was his wanting to go home at 3 [p.m.]. He said, ‘Ms. Wade, it is three past three and I want to go catch my bus.’ That was our last conversation,” she said.
The staff and administration at Queen Street Baptist School will hold a memorial for Morrison later this week. In the meantime, his classmates will receive counseling. Amandala learned that a permission slip was sent to parents for their consent.
When asked how she would move on from this tragic ordeal, Morrison’s mother told Amandala, “I don’t know how I will move on, because he is my baby. I can’t have no more pikni; dat da mi last pikni,” she said tearfully.