Shooting victim Shaquon Stafford remembered as ‘a cool fella’

An unborn child will never get the chance to know his or her father because of the callous actions of a gunman, who on Saturday night carried out the first killing of the year.

On Sunday morning, residents of Skeete’s Road, The Ivy, were still shaken from the loud and rapid sound of heavy artillery, as they washed the blood of Shaquon Stafford from the street.

The 25-year-old was a stone’s throw from the wood and wall structure he shared with his mother and pregnant girlfriend when the attacker opened fire. Stafford was taken to hospital with multiple gunshot wounds, but he didn’t make it through the night.

Close relatives were not at home when a Barbados TODAY team visited the area. However, a close friend of Stafford, Che Yearwood, said she rushed to the hospital when she heard about the incident and stayed with mourning family members until her friend was pronounced dead.

“Shaquon would hustle hard. He liked to look for money. He liked nuff girls and he liked a lot of laughing. He was never someone who liked war or anything like that. Shaquon was always calm, cool,” said Yearwood.

“If someone had an altercation with somebody, Shaquon would run first,” she added.

Her memory of Stafford was consistent with those expressed throughout the community.

Also distressing for many in the area was the brazen act of violence to affect that section of the sprawling St Michael neighourhood, residents revealed.

One grieving friend, who spoke on condition of anonymity, recalled hearing seven loud shots and two men running — one the victim and the other, the suspect.

“Someone would have had to send for him. I believe someone was paid to kill him, because that is how other people do it in other places. They would send a man to kill. I can’t tell you why they would want to target him, but I could tell you that the person emptied the gun. That means the person came to kill him,” explained the resident.

Another resident recalled that many children who were playing in the streets when the violence erupted, are now traumatised.

“I have children, other people have children who are around and they could have been hurt. I really fear for the kids, because they haven’t seen anything yet. I don’t want that one of the kids get hurt foolishly before they get the chance to experience life as yet,” the resident complained.

She added: “I am really sorry to hear that he is gone and he did not even get to see his son or daughter.”

In addition to his mother and his girlfriend, Stafford leaves three siblings to mourn.

Meanwhile, another man who has been living in the area for 40 years admitted that The Ivy had evolved over the years, in some ways for the worse. But he was adamant that for many years, the Skeete’s Road area was quiet.

“You hear about it all over, but when it hits home, that is a different story. This is a neighbourhood with many young kids. It could easily have been someone’s child coming through there,” said the longstanding community man.

“We have to learn to put down these guns. There’s more to life than guns or wanting to be a gangster or bad boy. There’s a bigger picture in life and we have to set a better example in our communities.

“[The inciden] really shocked me for truth because Shaquon was a cool fella. He would make his jokes, but he was always a cool little man. He liked to enjoy himself, he liked to dress up. One thing about him, he was ‘Mr Pretty’,” the resident concluded with a chuckle. (KS)