A young father of two, one a newborn, was among two men shot dead and three others wounded in separate gun attacks on Easter Monday, prompting urgent calls from communities for a police crackdown.
At about 10:05 p.m., Raul Clarke, 22, of Gall Hill, Christ Church, was among a group in the last hours of the Oistins Fish Festival when a disturbance broke out. Gunshots were fired, hitting Clarke, another man and a woman.
Clarke was transported to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital (QEH) by private car, where he died from his injuries. The other two victims were taken to the hospital by paramedics, where they received medical treatment.
When Barbados TODAY visited the Gall Hill community, a neighbour described him as a respectful and helpful young man.
The neighbour said: “He didn’t deserve that; nobody deserves that. I’m a mother, and I buried two of my children for that same thing, eight years apart. It ain’t easy. I know how his mother must feel. It’s very sad.”
Clarke’s family was too distraught to speak when Barbados TODAY visited his home.
A resident said she is fed up with the gun violence: “It’s about time that this foolishness stops, cause it’s no help to people. It is just leaving a lot of children fatherless because of this. It’s a lot of senseless killing. It ain’t worth it.”
In St Michael, during Easter beach celebrations at Brownes Beach, Hastings/Worthing police responded to a call at about 6:57 p.m., after gunshots were heard in the area.
Police later found the body of a man lying near a business.
In another incident at St Stephen’s Hill, a known hotspot in St Michael, at about 8:50 p.m., a group of people were outside a home when a car approached. An occupant exited the vehicle and fired several gunshots, injuring a man.
One business owner in the area, Jojo, said that while she is not afraid, she is tired. “Its pretty close to where I am, so I am weary of it as I’m out by the road and there is anywhere I can run to if something happens but there isn’t an urgency when it comes to danger so far.”
The entrepreneur said she feels it would help her feel safer to have someone with her, but it is not a necessity.
Another business owner in the area, who wished to remain anonymous, said that while he does not live there, his family has been concerned about his safety.
“I does try to not really hurt my head cause you can’t be safe no where, regardless of how you look at it. Whether you inside, outside, at work wherever, you can’t control where things happen.”
He said the state of crime in the country suggests no one has control over it, adding that it may affect his clientele. “You don’t know how your customers feel about it, you still have to look to see what effect it will have on the business outside of what we know personally.”
Arkay, a businessman near the Montgomery playing field in Cave Hill, called for a stronger police response to crime in the area.
“The police gotta do their work, so if the police decide to lock down any area, to get the criminals out, even if they combine the Police Force and the Defence Force, get the job done.”
The businessman said that as a former taxi driver, he often boasted to tourists about the island’s low crime rate, but said that is now a thing of the past.
He said crime has been seriously affecting business operations in the area. “At seven o’clock at night, everybody is off the streets. Before, men used to come to a bar, drink some drinks and go wherever they live, now nobody want to come out and drink.”
The business owner, who has operated in the area for more than 10 years and also lives there, fears that people will soon be deterred from visiting Barbados. “Because it affecting the citizens of the country obviously it’s going to affect the visitors. They need to do something about it.”
People no longer value the lives of others, he said, noting that those involved are getting younger. “The age group getting involved in these criminal acts is within the working force in society, that’s the age that’s suppose to be the next generation to push Barbados forward. If that generation is destroyed, what’s gonna happen to Barbados?”
