For a city inured to the daily reports of violence in the streets, the night of Friday and early Saturday morning, February 8 and 9, produced a level of violence never before seen in this violent city.
The dust of Thursday’s general elections had not even settled yet, and in the space of six hours, seventeen individuals were sent to the Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital with various chopping and gunshot injuries, two of whom later died, with three others still hanging on as of today.
In the first, and as it turns out, least deadly of the night’s events, Kirk Craig, 44, was hanging out at the corner of Saint Joseph and Nurse Seay Streets at about 11:00 p.m. on Friday when he became involved in a misunderstanding with a Hispanic man. The individual pulled a machete and chopped Craig’s head open, sending him to the KHMH, the night’s first victim. Police continue to investigate.
About four hours later, at about 2:45 a.m. Saturday, the night’s first shooting took place, at Putt Putt Bar and Grill on Newtown Barracks. Police reports say that a party was in progress when two men jumped the back fence and fired into the group, injuring ten people and killing Deandra Zetina, 19, of #40 Cleghorn Street by way of Price Alley.
Zetina, a fourth form student of St. Michael’s College due to graduate in June, was working part-time as a waitress and bartender at Putt Putt, and according to family members, was quite excited to return to work on Friday night.
Deandra’s grandmother, Clarine Young, 67, last saw her granddaughter, with whom she was very close, on Friday night as she was preparing for work. Today she told Amandala she wanted justice for the slain young woman, asking why anyone would want to hurt an individual as quiet, sweet and innocent as Deandra. The incident has unnerved her family members and strained a family already forced to deal with the pain of losing their relative to violence.
17-year-old Michelle Cattouse’s family would like the same answers after also losing their relative to indiscriminate violence within fifteen minutes of the events at Putt Putt. At about 3:00 a.m. shots were fired on the Belcan Bridge, reportedly from the occupants of a dark-coloured car that pulled up alongside partygoers who had left Putt Putt just minutes earlier.
According to police, the car stopped a short distance away and a man exited and opened fire with a handgun. Four persons were injured to varying degrees, with Cattouse eventually succumbing to her injuries.
Apart from being a “party girl” and therefore susceptible to bad influence, Bernadine Cattouse, 43, says her daughter was “loving” and “dependable.” She last saw Michelle late Friday night, the teen having decided to go out to celebrate on account of the United Democratic Party’s victory at the polls the previous day. She was not known to party often, however.
Michelle, adds sister-in-law Tanisha Young, was a fun, active and outgoing person and not affiliated, so far as her family knows, with any members or associates of gangs in the area. Having dropped out of Nazarene High School due to bad advice, young Michelle had recently begun to set her life back in order, and was preparing to return to high school when her life was taken.
Rounding off the night’s events, 16-year-old Linton Broaster is critical after being shot three times while with a female companion on Racoon Street Extension. Police were called out to the area around 4:15 Saturday morning. The Pen Road resident was reportedly with Cecilia Madrill and a male companion when his assailant, with whom he had reportedly had a misunderstanding earlier that night, pulled up and fired on the group, wounding Broaster and missing Madrill.
In a police press conference held today, police announced the arrest and/or manhunt for several suspects.
As regards the Putt Putt shooting, Jason King, 29, and Charles Moss, 35, were charged in Magistrate’s Court with one count each of murder and nine counts of attempted murder. King further stands accused of two counts of keeping an unlicensed firearm and ammunition in relation to the two 9-millimeter pistols recovered from the scene. Police say they have also recovered thirty-seven expended shells from the scene, suggesting that the attack was planned and executed with specific targets in mind, but that Zetina was not one of them. According to police, the persons injured are all residents of the George Street area.
For the shooting on the Belcan Bridge, one suspect, Roy Bennett, 20, of Gill Street, has been charged with one count of murder and four counts of use of deadly means of harm, and dangerous harm. Bennett is no stranger to the police, having been involved in a number of incidents over the past two years. He is the son of community activist Therese Felix.
Finally, Linton Broaster positively identified his attacker to police as one Leroy Ramsey. Ramsey, 22, of George Street, is currently on the run from police, who seek his arrest.
ACP Crispin Jeffries, Sr., told the media that reports of planned retaliations have led to increased security on the streets. His colleague, Senior Superintendent Chester Williams, first on the scene at Putt Putt, added that police are looking at information that links the incidents to retaliation for the murder of Jason Munnings last weekend, an investigation that still continues.
Williams further commented that many of the individuals involved in the shooting spree, whether victim or attacker, are affiliated to the George Street and Back-A-Town gangs. Certainly, the Belcan Bridge and Racoon Street shootings are considered retaliations for the Putt Putt incident, itself in retaliation for the Munnings murder, they believe.
The department’s newly installed security cameras at Belcan provided instrumental evidence, says Supt. Guzman, in apprehending Bennett for the shooting there.
The women’s murders are numbers eight and nine for the New Year, which is just one month and 9 days old, at the time of the last shooting on Racoon Street Extension.