Two weeks af­ter his cousin was stabbed to death by an­oth­er cousin, a St Joseph man was gunned down in what was ini­tial­ly thought to be a reprisal hit for the mur­der of a gang leader in the area.

Ac­cord­ing to po­lice re­ports, around 9 pm on Thurs­day, Ker­wayne John, of Caiman Road, St Joseph was at a bar along the Mara­cas Roy­al Road, when a gun­man en­tered and or­dered every­one not to move.

Oth­er pa­trons ran leav­ing John, a labour­er at the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA), be­hind. John was shot and lat­er tak­en to the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex where he died.

The shoot­ing was first thought to be a reprisal for the mur­der of Ker­lan "Mice­man" George, who ear­li­er had been mur­dered along with Shameel Ali, af­ter leav­ing the Mara­cas Val­ley Po­lice Sta­tion hours ear­li­er. Po­lice said the killings were not re­lat­ed and sus­pect­ed John might have been at the wrong place at the wrong time.

Speak­ing with the me­dia at the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre, St James yes­ter­day a rel­a­tive of John's said the 23-year-old, fa­ther of two, was not in­volved in any­thing il­le­gal. The rel­a­tives said John was the type of per­son to nev­er back down and be­lieved that this may have led to his death.

On Jan­u­ary 9, Nigel John, 33, and his cousin got in­to an ar­gu­ment af­ter John tried to re­cov­er $40 he lent the man. Dur­ing the fight John was stabbed and lat­er died at the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex.

A sus­pect was held and ques­tioned in re­la­tion to the death but was lat­er re­leased pend­ing fur­ther in­ves­ti­ga­tions.