Rad­hi­ca Sookraj

Pan­icked af­ter a gun­man shot his teenaged broth­er and then fired at him, a hor­ri­fied Nathaniel Roberts saw a ray of hope when a marked po­lice car came up to­wards them on a dark emp­ty street in San Fer­nan­do on Sat­ur­day.

But in­stead of turn­ing on the siren and at­tempt­ing to ap­pre­hend the gun­man, Roberts said the two po­lice of­fi­cers stayed in the ve­hi­cle al­most as if they were afraid to re­spond to the gun­fire, while the gun­man and his friend fled through a track near Rush­worth Street.

Roberts' broth­er An­fer­nie Hamil­ton, 19, of Sun­flower Av­enue, Pleas­antville died from the bul­let which sev­ered a main artery in his left leg. Up to late yes­ter­day, po­lice were search­ing for two sus­pects from San Fer­nan­do.

Dur­ing an in­ter­view yes­ter­day, Roberts and his moth­er Philli­pa An­cil­la -Roberts called on act­ing Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Stephen Williams to in­ves­ti­gate why the of­fi­cers failed to as­sist the broth­ers.

Say­ing Hamil­ton's life could have been spared if the po­lice had act­ed swift­ly, Roberts said he was hurt and dis­ap­point­ed by the poor re­sponse.

"The po­lice saw the man shoot­ing at us and I had to pelt a cup to de­fend my broth­er while he lay bleed­ing on the ground. &nb­sp;The po­lice stood there look­ing on. The gun­man was back­ing back to­wards the po­lice ve­hi­cle and shoot­ing and when he re­alised the po­lice was there they ran down a track be­hind a Chi­nee shop on Rush­worth Street," Roberts said.

Re­call­ing the in­ci­dent, Roberts said they were lim­ing at a bar with three girls when a man whom he knew came up to him and de­lib­er­ate­ly bounced him on the shoul­der.&nb­sp;

"I knew him be­cause he lives by my child moth­er but he and I don't have any­thing. What­ev­er dis­agree­ment we had four years ago, we patch that up. Those fel­las were drink­ing and the al­co­hol was in their head so they were look­ing for bac­cha­nal thing be­cause they had their piece (gun) on them," Roberts said.&nb­sp;

To avoid a con­fronta­tion, Roberts said he ad­vised his younger broth­er to leave the bar and they start­ed walk­ing up Cipero Street. The as­sailant and his friend fol­lowed and Roberts said he be­gan telling the man to "stop drink­ing and get­ting on wild."

In­stead of lis­ten­ing to his pleas, Roberts said the man jump kicked Hamil­ton and a scuf­fle broke out fol­low­ing which he shot Hamil­ton at point blank range on the leg just af­ter the po­lice car drove up the street. Stand­ing over him, the gun­man then at­tempt­ed to fire an­oth­er shot but Roberts said he threw a cup at the man, hop­ing that the po­lice would save them.

Hamil­ton's moth­er Philli­pa said he left the Pleas­antville Sec­ondary School in Ju­ly last year and was study­ing weld­ing at Met­al In­dus­tries Com­pa­ny (MIC). He planned to do elec­tri­cal en­gi­neer­ing at the Na­tion­al En­er­gy Skills Cen­tre, Philli­pa added.

&nb­sp;"He was nev­er liv­ing a bad life and he did not de­serve this. He want­ed to make some­thing of him­self. He was my ba­by and be­fore he went to the par­ty I warned him to be care­ful," Philli­pa re­vealed.&nb­sp;

An au­top­sy will be done on Hamil­ton's body to­day at the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre in St James.

"The po­lice saw the man shoot­ing at us and I had to pelt a cup to de­fend my broth­er while he lay bleed­ing on the ground. &nb­sp;The po­lice stood there look­ing on