Shooting victim Nicholas “Horse” Blaggrove got caught up in a crossfire of an ongoing gang war in the Fairfield, St Michael area.
This is the view of several persons in the vicinity, who said they believed there would be more bloodshed.
Blaggrove, 34, was playing dominoes with a group of men when they were rushed by gunmen around 3:45 p.m. on Saturday. He died on the spot, metres away from his Promenade Road, Bush Hall, St Michael home.
Relatives, including his mother Leslay Prescod, were at the crime scene but declined to comment, and a trip to their home yesterday also proved futile.
When the DAILY NATION revisited the “garage” where Blaggrove died, a group of people liming spoke favourably of him.
One woman said he was polite and the last time they spoke, he had asked her for a Barbados Labour Party campaign T-shirt.
A man who requested anonymity, said Blaggrove would be remembered for his positive energy and love of Chelsea football club in England, which was often a topic of heated debates at the play table.
“Sometimes he would talk to himself but he wasn’t mad; that’s just how he was. And he wasn’t a trouble person either; he would always come here and breeze,” he said.
A stone’s throw away, some residents were lamenting the string of shootings in the past week as they came to grips with his death.
One of the incidents occurred at Marshall & Parkinson Gap, Fairfield, which disrupted a session at Guiding Light Tabernacle. However, efforts to reach the pastor up to press time were unsuccessful.
An elderly man estimated there were four shootings within four days.
“This seems to have become the new normal. You got a lot of youngsters with a lot of guns but little sense,” the handyman said. He explained that while in the past the area was known for crime, it had quietened down for some time.
“It used to happen before, but then it stopped because a number of the people who did it in the past either died or lock up. Now it seems we got another group of youngsters who seem to take pleasure in doing nonsense. And I don’t believe it over yet,” he said grimly.
Police public relations officer acting Inspector Rodney Inniss confirmed there were a number of shootings, and that there were a “tit-for-tat” disputes going on over the past week. (TG)
