St James residents reeling following mass shooting

A heavy cloud of grief and disbelief hangs over the Lower Carlton community as residents struggle to come to terms with the Sunday night mass shooting that has left families shattered and a neighborhood in mourning.

Jamar Leon Edwards, 34, of 4th Avenue Lower Carlton, St James, Lyle Anderson Robinson, 33, of 1st Avenue, Lower Carlton St James and Jamar Kareem Ramsey, 33, of Brownes Gap, Sargeants Village Christ Church, died after being shot at around 8:42 p.m. at Thunder Bay.

​While many close relatives of the victims remained too distraught to speak, neighbors and long-time residents described a scene of pure terror that has permanently scarred the community.

Back at Lower Carlton a resident, who requested anonymity, recalled the chilling moment the peace of the evening was shattered by a hail of gunfire.

​”I was in my bed with a headache and I heard about what could be 30-something shots,” she  told Barbados TODAY. 

“My son come and said to me, ‘Mommy, you hear them?’ I said, ‘Get down. All you’re going to do is get down.'”

​The resident described an eerie silence that followed the gunfire, broken only by the harrowing sounds of screams coming from the beach. 

“It was terrifying, to be honest. When I look outside, outside was still… you didn’t know what was going on until probably 15 minutes after,” she said.

​

Robinson and Edwards were described by neighbors as staples of the area. 

One resident said she watched the victims grow up from children.

​”I don’t have a problem with none of the three of them,” the resident shared. “These are children that I see raise as small children. He (Lyle) and Jamar… they were fun people. I come out, I talk with them, we laugh, we make jokes, we party together. I can’t say anything bad about them.”

​The tragedy has reignited a fierce conversation about the influx of high-powered weapons into the country, with residents expressing frustration with what they perceive as a lack of deterrents for gun crimes.

​”It’s affecting all of us because we have children in the community,” a Lower Carlton resident lamented. 

“They said years ago, if you get caught with [a gun], you will get 25 years. That ain’t happening. That needs to be put in place.”

​The sentiment across Lower Carlton was one of frustration toward the evolving nature of crime in Barbados. 

“Years ago, you used to hear about a .22… now they gone for bigger things and bigger things,” one man noted, adding that despite weekly arrests, the guns seem to be everywhere.

“Every boy like them got a gun. It’s real serious.”

​

​As the community begins the long process of healing, some elders in Lower Carlton have made a desperate plea for peace.

​”They could solve their problems in a different way,” the resident urged. 

“We need to come together and find a solution and try to talk them out. Parents are the ones grieving each and every day. Tell the boys, the girls, remember who they’re leaving behind… the people they leave behind are the ones who feel it the most.”

Barbados TODAY also visited the Browne’s Gap community, where a number of young men huddled in a small group at Ramsey’s home declined comment. Other residents there also remained tight lipped about the incident.

​Police say investigations into the shootings are ongoing.

(RR)