Gun­men opened fire at a recre­ation ground in En­ter­prise, Ch­agua­nas on Sat­ur­day, cre­at­ing may­hem and end­ing the life of a nine-year-old child.

Po­lice said Jo­mol Mod­este, lov­ing­ly called MJ by friends and rel­a­tives, was shot in the back around 8 pm while he and oth­er chil­dren were run­ning to es­cape a bar­rage of gun­fire at the African Recre­ation Ground. Po­lice said a white pan­el van stolen from a bak­ery work­er con­duct­ing sales was used by the gun­men dur­ing the at­tack.

In­ves­ti­ga­tors be­lieve gun­men sprayed bul­lets in­to the play­ground in­dis­crim­i­nate­ly but could not say if they were tar­get­ing any­one specif­i­cal­ly.

Jo­mol was tak­en to the Ch­agua­nas Health fa­cil­i­ty but suc­cumbed to his in­juries.

When Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed the fam­i­ly’s house, his fa­ther Joel Mod­este was in­con­solable.

Mod­este said he worked hard to give his son a bet­ter life. He said Jo­mol was a Stan­dard Two pupil of the Cara­pichaima RC School. He re­called that Jo­mol, his on­ly child, had a bright fu­ture ahead and scored a grade B on his last test and was look­ing for­ward to get­ting a grade A in the up­com­ing Christ­mas term test. Mod­este said Jo­mol want­ed to join the army and be­come a sol­dier.

Jo­mol’s pa­ter­nal great-grand­moth­er Ger­maine Mod­este, 74, was al­so dis­traught about the mur­der of her nine-year-old great-grand­child.

Ger­maine said she had spo­ken with Jo­mol ear­li­er that evening be­fore he left for the sa­van­nah to play and have a good time with his friends. She said she heard gun­men re­port­ed­ly hi­jacked a bread van from a near­by bak­ery and sped in­to the sa­van­nah and start­ed dis­charg­ing their weapons.

“Like they couldn’t con­trol the gun, it sound­ed tuh, tuh, tuh, tuh, tuh like it could not have even stop. They shoot up the whole place, every­body had to run for cov­er.”

Ger­maine said some peo­ple were hav­ing a par­ty near the recre­ation ground and had to scam­per to safe­ty as well as all the chil­dren who were play­ing.

“It had plen­ty chil­dren around, it had foot­ball in the sa­van­nah and these fellers just come and shoot up the place. There was no po­lice around, usu­al­ly there is po­lice around where there is a foot­ball match, but no po­lice around.”

She said when they heard the news that Jo­mol was shot he was quick­ly rushed to the hos­pi­tal. But she said that based on his in­juries, she knew her great-grand­son would not make it.

“Since he get shoot it look like he done dead al­ready.”

Ger­maine lament­ed the lev­el of crime in the coun­try and what she de­scribed as the dis­re­gard for life by gun­men.

“I find is too much a crime now. The po­lice sup­posed to be around the clock, es­pe­cial­ly in En­ter­prise be­cause them young fellers eh have noth­ing to do. Plen­ty chil­dren were in the sa­van­nah, chil­dren were play­ing with fire­crack­ers and foot­ball was on the oth­er side. There was a lil boy who does be with him (re­fer­ring to a friend of Jo­mol) and he was so trau­ma­tised that his fa­ther had to come and pick him up.”

Ger­maine said the fam­i­ly wants jus­tice for Jo­mol.

Ger­maine, a Spir­i­tu­al Bap­tist said if the law does not de­liv­er jus­tice for the fam­i­ly she will pray un­til God does.

“If I eh get it by law, I will get it by God, I be­lieve in the true and liv­ing God, I is a Spir­i­tu­al Bap­tist and God does not give you what you can’t bear.”

She con­tin­ued “I live all my life here in En­ter­prise and this is the worst. It hard, it re­al hard. Them young fellers want peo­ple to fraid them and the po­lice sup­posed to be shoot­ing them to kill them.”

It is not the first time this year that chil­dren have been shot while play­ing or out in pub­lic at­tend­ing a func­tion.

In Au­gust two boys ages 9 and 11, were se­ri­ous­ly in­jured, with the nine-year-old boy be­ing shot in the head. The two were at the Mon Re­pos Bas­ket­ball court when gun­men chased their tar­gets leav­ing one man dead and an­oth­er wound­ed.

MP: More po­lice need­ed

Van­dana Mo­hit, MP for Ch­agua­nas East—where En­ter­prise falls— said crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty is on the rise in the vicin­i­ty of Africa Recre­ation Ground. Mo­hit said she met with the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice who in­di­cat­ed a lot of fo­cus was be­ing placed on En­ter­prise.

“The life of a child has now been tak­en by crim­i­nal el­e­ments, I am call­ing on the Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty and the CoP to act swift­ly. There is a com­mu­ni­ty cen­tre lo­cat­ed on the African Ground, I am call­ing for part of the com­mu­ni­ty cen­tre to be con­vert­ed in­to a po­lice post. There are too many ac­tiv­i­ties tak­ing place there that in­volve the loss of lives. The com­mu­ni­ty can­not take it any­more.”