Three killed as Barbados Govt condemns latest outbreak of violence

Po­lice in Bar­ba­dos say three men have died fol­low­ing a shoot­ing at a beach bar in Low­er Carl­ton, St James, west of Bridgetown, on Sun­day night.

Of­fi­cials from the Bar­ba­dos Po­lice Ser­vice (BPS) con­firmed they had re­ceived re­ports of gun­shots in the area, where a group of peo­ple had gath­ered on the beach. They al­so said the in­ves­ti­ga­tions have so far re­vealed that three men ex­it­ed a sil­ver ve­hi­cle and opened fire, in­jur­ing four males.

One of the vic­tims died at the scene, while three oth­ers were trans­port­ed by pri­vate ve­hi­cles to a med­ical fa­cil­i­ty. Two of those vic­tims lat­er suc­cumbed to their in­juries.

The names of the de­ceased have not yet been re­leased.

Mean­while, the Bar­ba­dos gov­ern­ment says it “strong­ly” con­demns the lat­est out­break of dead­ly vi­o­lence in the coun­try, pledg­ing full sup­port for law en­force­ment as in­ves­ti­ga­tions con­tin­ue.

In a state­ment, Le­gal Af­fairs and Crim­i­nal Jus­tice Min­is­ter, Michael Lash­ley, ex­pressed “sin­cere con­do­lences to the fam­i­lies of those per­sons who passed away and deep re­gret to those who were in­jured in this re­cent act of sense­less vi­o­lence in our coun­try.”

Min­is­ter Lash­ley said the Bar­ba­dos Po­lice Ser­vice (BPS) is ac­tive­ly pur­su­ing its in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to the mat­ter, “and will con­tin­ue that work with fo­cus and ur­gency in or­der to swift­ly bring those re­spon­si­ble to jus­tice.”

“At the same time, it is clear that this ap­par­ent state of war be­tween cer­tain gangs of young men has spi­ralled com­plete­ly out of con­trol, with re­tal­i­a­tion and reprisal now seem­ing­ly the or­der of the day. We will not tol­er­ate this be­hav­iour,” the Crim­i­nal Jus­tice Min­is­ter stat­ed.

“Let the word go out that, from this mo­ment, the po­lice and oth­er na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty forces will be em­pow­ered to use every law­ful means at their dis­pos­al to bring this un­ac­cept­able sit­u­a­tion un­der con­trol and bring it to an end,” Min­is­ter Lash­ley said.

He urged “every law-abid­ing Bar­ba­di­an who loves this coun­try to stand with the Po­lice Ser­vice in this ef­fort.” —BRIDGETOWN, Bar­ba­dos (CMC)