Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

One of the two school­boys shot in Bras­so on Wednes­day has died.

Dar­ius Shadrack, 16, a Form Three stu­dent of Tabaquite Sec­ondary, died around 3.30 am yes­ter­day. He was one of four young men shot dur­ing an at­tack at an un­fin­ished struc­ture on the same com­pound as Shadrack’s fam­i­ly home at Ca­paro Val­ley Road.

Christo­pher Joseph, 20, died at the scene. Joseph’s broth­er Col­ly, 23, re­mained ward­ed in a se­ri­ous con­di­tion at the hos­pi­tal yes­ter­day, while Shadrack’s school­mate Jerell Gan­ness, 15, was dis­charged on Thurs­day.

In a brief tele­phone in­ter­view yes­ter­day, Shadrack’s heart­bro­ken moth­er, Cheryl Cole, was still try­ing to un­der­stand why they were at­tacked. She said all of them were sleep­ing in the un­fin­ished house, which be­longed to her but which was not yet se­cured with doors or win­dows.

She last saw them on Tues­day night be­fore she went to bed. When she heard the loud ex­plo­sions, she ini­tial­ly thought res­i­dents were burst­ing fire­works un­til some­one shout­ed, “Gun­shots!”

She said that al­though her son nev­er opened his eyes in the hos­pi­tal, he was re­spond­ing to her.

“Last night I spoke to him, and I told him I love him. I say, ‘If you love me, squeeze my hand,’ and he was squeez­ing my hand. He raised his hand and rest it on his bel­ly,” she said.

When she told him she was leav­ing to al­low his sis­ters to vis­it him, he shook his head, as if ask­ing her to stay.

Cole said she shared a close bond with her son, and Shadrack and Gan­ness al­so had a broth­er­ly re­la­tion­ship.

“I don’t know how I will go on, hon­est to God,” she lament­ed.

Gan­ness’ moth­er, Jamie Gan­ness, said that al­though he was dis­charged from the hos­pi­tal, he was not do­ing well. He was shot five times and is un­able to walk due to in­juries to his legs. The sin­gle moth­er said she of­ten spoke to her son about be­ing a leader and not a fol­low­er.

Two months ago, she said, he left home af­ter a dis­agree­ment, and she lat­er dis­cov­ered that he was stay­ing with Shadrack. She de­cid­ed to let him re­main there un­til she fin­ished re­build­ing her home, which was de­stroyed in a fire last year.

The moth­er urged young peo­ple to be wary of the com­pa­ny they kept and to lis­ten to their par­ents.

Giv­en his in­juries, she was un­cer­tain when her son, who is in Form Five, would be able to re­turn to school. Of­fi­cers from the Homi­cide Bu­reau of In­ves­ti­ga­tions, Re­gion 3, are con­tin­u­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions.