RALPH BAN­WARIE

With his hands raised to the heav­ens, Levi Paul wept as he ques­tioned why his 14-year-old son was mur­dered while play­ing foot­ball on Sat­ur­day night.

Paul’s son, Kiel, died on the scene af­ter gun­men stormed a foot­ball game at the KP Lands in Va­len­cia on Sat­ur­day night, open­ing fire on the play­ers.

When the gun­men left, Kiel’s life­less body was found in the crick­et nets, while a 26-year-old man iden­ti­fied as Bri­an Bur­nette was found nurs­ing gun­shot wounds.

Bur­nette was rushed to the San­gre Grande Hos­pi­tal, where he is said to be ward­ed in crit­i­cal con­di­tion.

In a brief in­ter­view at the fam­i­ly’s home in Va­len­cia on Sun­day morn­ing, the el­der Paul said he was in shock over his son’s mur­der.

Paul said he had been cel­e­brat­ing his birth­day in Ari­ma on Sat­ur­day night and on­ly learnt of his son’s death on Sun­day morn­ing. Paul said he sep­a­rat­ed from Kiel’s moth­er some years ago and the teen lived with his moth­er and step­fa­ther in Va­len­cia.

Weep­ing, Paul said Kiel was sup­posed to vis­it his home for a “big bash.” He said in­stead of hav­ing a birth­day cel­e­bra­tion, he was mourn­ing the death of his first son.

The dis­traught fa­ther said he last spoke to Kiel on Fri­day.

“He said, “Dad­dy I have to go to school, I need mon­ey.” He asked me to open a bank ac­count for him,” Paul said.

Kiel’s moth­er, Sarah Sub­ah, was too dis­traught to speak.

His grand­moth­er, who gave her name on­ly as Eva, de­scribed Kiel as a nice, re­spect­ful and dis­ci­plined child.

“It is hurt­ing me to see good gone and bad re­mains,” Eva said.

Quot­ing Bible scrip­tures, she added, “God says vengeance is mine, leave it to him. God al­lows this to hap­pen so that oth­ers will learn a les­son.”

Kiel’s step­fa­ther, who gave his name on­ly as An­to­nio, said Kiel left their home at around 9.15 pm on Sat­ur­day, say­ing he was go­ing to meet his sis­ter. In­stead, the teen met up with his friends for the foot­ball game at the near­by sa­van­nah.

An­to­nio said he heard the gun­shots that killed Kiel but paid no mind to the sounds un­til he looked out the win­dow and saw the foot­ballers run­ning for their lives.

He said when he looked close­ly, he re­alised Kiel’s body was on the ground.

“We were shocked, his moth­er be­gan scream­ing and con­tin­ues to cry, I al­so cried and we were not able to con­trol our­selves. This teen was alive and with us on­ly a few min­utes ago and to see his life­less body on the ground shocked all of us,” An­to­nio said.

He de­scribed Kiel as re­spect­ful and obe­di­ent, say­ing the teen nev­er gave him or his wife any cause to wor­ry about his safe­ty.

“I am still to come to terms with his killing,” An­to­nio said.

He said Kiel was a bright stu­dent and a mem­ber of his school’s foot­ball team. He want­ed to play in­ter­na­tion­al foot­ball and was in­spired by Ar­gen­tine foot­baller, Li­onel Mes­si.

Sev­er­al res­i­dents told Guardian Me­dia the gun­men showed no re­spect for hu­man life, de­scrib­ing the shoot­ing as a scene from the “Wild West.”

Call­ing for speedy jus­tice, the res­i­dents said it is time for crim­i­nals to put their guns down.

One res­i­dent said if the oth­er foot­ballers had not scam­pered to safe­ty, the death toll could have been much high­er.

Kiel’s body was viewed by Dis­trict Med­ical Of­fi­cer Dr Gi­na White who made a pro­nounce­ment and or­dered the body be re­moved to San­gre Grande Hos­pi­tal mor­tu­ary from where it will be tak­en to the Foren­sic Sci­ences Cen­tre for post-mortem.

Asp Jankie, Sgts Ed­wards, Leon, Pc Sookdeo and oth­er of­fi­cers at­tached ERP and Spe­cial Pa­trol of Va­len­cia Po­lice Post vis­it­ed the scene. CCTV footage of the in­ci­dent was hand­ed over to the of­fi­cers.

Kiel’s mur­der has pushed the to­tal for the year so far to 131.