Zwade Al­leyne fought hard to stay alive but his bat­tle end­ed trag­i­cal­ly yes­ter­day, as he suc­cumbed to in­juries he sus­tained one week ago af­ter he was shot in the head by a stray bul­let as he limed with friends near his home.

The 17-year-old foot­baller was in­jured on May 10, as he stood in front of Build­ing 12, Mal­oney Gar­dens, me­tres away from his front door.

Rel­a­tives con­firmed the young man was pro­nounced dead at 4.15 pm by med­ical of­fi­cials at the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex, Mt Hope.

The Form Five Ari­ma North Sec­ondary School stu­dent was in­jured af­ter a gun­man opened fire on the group he had been lim­ing with. The bul­let en­tered near his left ear and ex­it­ed through the back of his skull.

As con­fir­ma­tion of Al­leyne’s pass­ing came from fam­i­ly, the school’s foot­ball team post­ed a tear­ful trib­ute on so­cial me­dia in which they prayed, “Rest in peace, Zwade Al­leyne.”

They paid trib­ute to his im­pres­sive foot­ball ca­reer, which fea­tured him as the 2022 East Zone Un­der-14 Run­ner-Up, the 2023 East Zone In­ter­col Cham­pi­on, the East Zone Se­nior Knock-Out Cham­pi­on, and the East Zone Un­der-16 League Cham­pi­on. The team as­sured, “You will nev­er be for­got­ten.”

Al­leyne’s rel­a­tives said de­spite his pass­ing, they will be mov­ing ahead with a planned Prayer and Peace Walk, which is sched­uled for May 18, at the Ari­ma Velo­drome.

One man called for the na­tion to adopt a firm and col­lec­tive stance against vi­o­lence as he urged peo­ple to be­come unit­ed and fight back, “Not with vi­o­lence, but with hu­man­i­ty.”

He wept as he said, “Love is the on­ly force pow­er­ful enough to dri­ve out the hate we’re see­ing in this coun­try.”

Delv­ing fur­ther in­to what was caus­ing the vi­o­lence among youths, he ar­gued that young men were go­ing out and act­ing with­out a con­science, which he laid the blame for, square­ly at the feet of par­ents.

He claimed, “A lot of it starts at home, with how they’re treat­ed by par­ents.”

Se­nior po­lice of­fi­cers yes­ter­day ex­tend­ed con­do­lences to Al­leyne’s fam­i­ly, as they lament­ed, “Each life is valu­able.”

They added, “Rest as­sured all the ap­pro­pri­ate re­sources are at­tend­ing to this mat­ter and we are pos­i­tive it will bring re­sults.”