A shoot­ing at An­drew Lane, Diego Mar­tin, on Thurs­day night left two men dead and sent three oth­ers to hos­pi­tal, in­clud­ing the el­der broth­er of one of the de­ceased men.

Griev­ing the loss of Deck­lon Allert even as the fam­i­ly prayed for his in­jured sib­ling to pull through yes­ter­day, a close fe­male rel­a­tive said, “He likes drink­ing his lit­tle pun­cheon and that is what it was they were do­ing last night...he and his friends were out­side.

“Drink­ing the pun­cheon, play­ing their mu­sic and just hav­ing a good time, a nor­mal thing for them.”

The self-em­ployed 30-year-old op­er­at­ed a mi­ni-mart along An­drew Dri­ve, Blue Basin, Diego Mar­tin.

Al­ready fa­ther to an eight-year-old, Allert was ex­pect­ing his sec­ond child in March.

Po­lice said Allert was part of a group of six men who had been lim­ing at the mi­ni-mart at the cor­ner of An­drew Lane and Blue Basin Road around 10.25 pm, when three men armed with firearms got out a white Suzu­ki Vi­tara and opened fire on them.

Apart from Allert, 58-year-old Con­rad “Pro­to­col” Sealey, of Wa­ter­wheel Road, Diego Mar­tin, was al­so killed.

Among the in­jured were Allert’s broth­er Dex­ter Allert, 33; Ja­ma­ley Sandy, 32; Sha­kee­mi Small, 29; and Shana­do Calderon, 30. The four in­jured men were said to be in a sta­ble con­di­tion at hos­pi­tal up to last night.

Crime scene in­ves­ti­ga­tors re­cov­ered eight 7.62; 19 5.56; and 18 spent 9mm shell cas­ings at the scene.

Speak­ing with re­porters at the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre, St James, yes­ter­day, griev­ing rel­a­tives ques­tioned why this had hap­pened.

“We were ask­ing that this morn­ing, won­der­ing what he did to de­serve the way that they killed him.

“It was very bru­tal, it was bru­tal...just bru­tal. He was a per­son of small stature. He was slim and small. He stood no chance of sur­vival, none,” a fe­male rel­a­tive said.

She re­peat­ed, “I just want to know what my broth­er did to de­serve what he get. Why? That’s what I need to know. Why? Why?”

They said Allert’s moth­er had been dis­traught since the shoot­ing. She (sis­ter) said her last in­ter­ac­tion with him was when he dropped her off at the nail tech­ni­cian.

Asked how she felt about the crime sit­u­a­tion and the gun vi­o­lence which con­tin­ued to claim in­no­cent lives, the teary woman said, “It is kin­da hard to think about un­til it reach home. You see what oth­er peo­ple’s rel­a­tives are go­ing through, but when you reach home, you know ex­act­ly what they are feel­ing.”

She said she did not see the sit­u­a­tion im­prov­ing soon ei­ther.

“Right now, I don’t think I have any hope it’s go­ing to im­prove any time soon. It could...but I don’t think it would im­prove any­time soon.”

Asked if she want­ed to send a mes­sage to those pick­ing up guns, she an­swered, “I would ask them if they know what war they fight­ing for, and if they re­alise it’s all sense­less.

“Mean­while, peo­ple cry­ing and it’s on­ly tears, tears on this earth, tears on this na­tion. Moth­ers, sis­ters, broth­ers, every­body, grand­par­ents, every­body...just tears. They need to re-eval­u­ate their lives and see it is not work­ing, it’s not.”