Uncle remembers ‘quiet’ young man after fatal shooting

Still grappling with shock, the great uncle of 26-year-old UWI law student Daquan Roberts said on Wednesday the family was struggling to come to terms with his sudden death, following a shooting along Spruce Street, The City on Tuesday night.

“He was quiet and he didn’t go anywhere. He was studying law in school,” Anthony Ifill told Barbados TODAY, describing his nephew as he reflected on the loss. “It’s unfortunate,” he added, still visibly shaken.

Roberts, of Church Hill Road, Gall Hill, Christ Church, was with relatives outside the family home around 10:50 p.m. when gunfire rang out in an apparent drive-by shooting. The attack unfolded as they gathered to celebrate Roberts’s grandmother’s 63rd birthday.

“It actually was a drive-by, right, it’s a drive-by,” Ifill said. “When I hear the shots, I actually run, I fall over the table.”

In the chaos, Roberts and his father tried to escape.

“He and his father ran… straight down the gap. But then when the father realised that he had been shot, he started screaming out,” he said. “He ran from here to the end of the gap… and then he fell.”

Roberts, who lived with his two uncles in Christ Church while his mother lives overseas, was later transported by car to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, where he died from his injuries.

When Barbados TODAY contacted the deputy head of the Faculty of Law at the University of the West Indies at Cave Hill, Dr Ronnie Yearwood, on Wednesday, he was too distraught to speak.

Police said a white motor van approached from the Beckwith Street end before several shots were fired. This incident was the 19th shooting for the year.

Detectives are continuing their enquiries.