RALPH BAN­WARIE 

Free­lance Cor­re­spon­dent

A de­liv­ery dri­ver was shot dead and a pen­sion­er was in­jured dur­ing a shoot­ing out­side a bar in Va­len­cia on Thurs­day night.

Po­lice iden­ti­fied the mur­dered man as Dwight Saun­ders, alias Sha­fu, 39, of Palm Road, Old Va­len­cia Road. He was em­ployed as a de­liv­ery dri­ver with Courts. The in­jured man is Stan­ley Car­ring­ton, 72, of Mal­oney Gar­dens.

The duo was among pa­trons at the Bulls Bar, Old Va­len­cia Road, Va­len­cia, at the time of the at­tack. Eye­wit­ness­es told of­fi­cers that at 9.10 pm, two masked in­di­vid­u­als en­tered the bar and opened fire on Saun­ders. Pa­trons ran for cov­er but Stan­ley, who was near­by, was struck on the side of the head and fell in­to a drain. Saun­ders died on the spot.

A joint po­lice and army team on pa­trol heard the gun­fire and ran to the scene, where they found Saun­ders dead and peo­ple as­sist­ing Stan­ley.

Stan­ley was tak­en to the San­gre Grande Hos­pi­tal where he re­mains in sta­ble con­di­tion.

In­ves­ti­ga­tors re­cov­ered sev­er­al spent 9mm cas­ings at the scene.

Nek­isha Clement, Saun­ders’ rel­a­tive, said they were puz­zled as to why he was killed.

“I doh un­der­stand the mo­tive for the killing, we are de­pressed, it is un­fair. It is trau­ma­tis­ing be­cause I had an­oth­er killing of a rel­a­tive in Jan­u­ary 2024. It is mere wicked­ness. He just came from work to be mur­dered,” Clement said.

She be­lieves the mo­tive was jeal­ousy.

“Saun­ders is a favourite in the neigh­bour­hood, when he comes he brings joy. He is the life of every­thing you have. We liv­ing in a jeal­ous na­tion. I pray that these young men who did this have a con­science and ask for for­give­ness be­cause they took a life which they did not give. I am beg­ging men of the na­tion to think! To think! And be smart be­fore do­ing any­thing,” she said.

“I trust God for jus­tice for the fam­i­ly and an ar­rest for the gun­man who snatched life from a young man who was nev­er in­volved in any il­le­gal ac­tiv­i­ty.”

The rel­a­tive called on the na­tion to pray.

“This is a spir­i­tu­al some­thing. The dev­il roam­ing to and fro, so I want us as a na­tion to wisen up and to un­der­stand Eph­esians 6:12, the bat­tle is not against flesh and blood, but against prin­ci­pal­i­ties and pow­ers. I want us as a na­tion to un­der­stand the fight is not be­tween me and you,” Clement said.