Harding gunned down

2020 has ended on a sad note for Ann Harding, who discovered her 27-year-old son Mekail Harding’s lifeless body in a pool of blood in front their Williams Road, Upper Collymore Rock, St Michael home around 9:15 p.m., on Tuesday.

Holding her belly as tears rolled down her cheeks, and grabbing onto a gate to support her weak knees, the 62-year-old mother cried that heartless criminals had robbed her of a good child and a five-year-old girl of a father.

According to police, they received reports of a man shot and injured and when they arrived at the scene, Mekail had already been taken to the hospital in a private motor car. He was pronounced dead on arrival.

Complaining of an aching heart, Harding lamented that Mekail was killed shortly after reaching home.

“I saw him for five minutes and then he was dead and I just don’t understand. They robbed him of his cellular phone and his chain and they shot him and shot him and they just left him there,” the grieving mother cried out.

Harding recounted the minutes leading up to the fatal shooting.

“As usual, when he comes home he would call me to open the gate. I came downstairs and I opened the gate and he was out there with his bike so I went back inside. By the time I went back upstairs I heard ‘pax’, and I was saying to myself where could it be. And then my grand said ‘Granny, Granny, Uncle Uncle’.

“So, I ran down the stairs and he had gotten another shot. He had two shots in him and he was laying right there on that ground all by himself. The hurtful thing is how he felt when he saw these people, how he felt when he knew he was going to die and his mom wasn’t even there to help. They just took my son from me. When I got to him he was just barely there and I called out to him so he could hear his mom’s voice for the last time,” she recalled as she cried uncontrollably.

“He like he tried to fight them off, but I don’t know how many they were. And nobody was out here, and that is the strangest thing because there are always guys out here sitting at all hours up to 10 o’clock and thing; and the one night that he needed help no one was out here. But normally when he comes in and he goes back out I would come and nag him and say ‘what you doing?’ or ‘where you going?’, but I didn’t last night and I feel that maybe if I had come down in time…”

The mother of three said her son, a former student of St Paul’s Primary and Parkinson Secondary Schools, was a quiet person who tried his best to stay out of trouble. She said he was focused on working hard on a farm and even cleaned an area in his yard to start a farming project at home as well.

“He had so many dreams and so many plans, but in a minute all of those were gone. He was kind to everyone and he tried to help everyone that he could. He had his farm that he worked on every day. He had chickens, pigs, dogs and different animals because he loved animals.

“He had his plans of what he was going to do for the coming year. He was a nice son; he was just a nice person. He did the best he can for himself and his daughter. He would go out by his friends and he would go by his daughter’s mom and by his cousin,” Harding said.

The 62-year-old lamented that in light of Barbados’ murder toll for 2020 standing at 42, she was struggling to understand what was causing all the crime and violence in society.

“It needs to stop. It is youth on youth. Young people are killing each other. Why? What are they gaining from it? What are they accomplishing from killing out each other? For a piece of gold or a phone? They take a life like it is nothing to them.

“How can you look somebody in the face and just shoot them and just take off and leave them there to die? You just destroy a family and a young person’s life because you can. It’s wrong, it is so wrong. I just don’t understand it. It is too much for a mother to bear. My heart is aching, my heart is broken, I can’t take it,” she cried.

Anyone with information about the shooting incident is asked to contact Police Emergency 211, Hastings/Worthing Police Station at 430-7614, Crime Stoppers at 1-800-TIPS, or any police station. (anestahenry@barbadostoday.bb)