Fourteen-year-old shot,
killed in Dutch Quarter
DUTCH QUARTER--A teenager’s life was cut short by a gunman on Wednesday during an apparent drive-by shooting in Dutch Quarter after an argument about missing motor scooters turned violent and then deadly.
The 14-year-old victim – identified only as A.L. by police – was pronounced dead at St. Maarten Medical Center (SMMC) about 2:30pm after sustaining at least four gunshot wounds to the torso and chest in the area of the Dutch Quarter emergency homes.
Officially, the boy, who was just five days away from turning 15, is the third murder victim on St. Maarten for this year.
Police and ambulance personnel found L. barely alive at the intersection of Brazilia and Cayenne Roads near Union Farm and tried resuscitating him on the scene before rushing him to the hospital. He had a very weak pulse and his breathing was shallow when paramedics found him, according to information The Daily Herald has received.
Residents in the area reported hearing about four gunshots going off about 2:00pm Wednesday and leaving their homes to find the young man rolling about on the dirt road in apparent agony near house #1 on Cayenne Road. They called the police soon afterward.
Although police could not officially confirm a motive for the shooting, this newspaper understands the teen had been accused of stealing a scooter and then assaulted as part of growing district conflict that has young people from different areas on St. Maarten sporting their gang colours and vandalising property.
It was said that he had been attacked while on a scooter earlier that afternoon, and then the shooter arrived in the area in a French-licensed car, rolled down the window and fired several shots before pulling out of the area. The identities of the persons who attacked him and fired the shots are not known for certain.
The young man’s identity is being withheld by police because many of his family members have not yet been notified about the death. He was born in French St. Martin on June 23, 1993, was a resident of Belvedere and was known to frequent the Dutch Quarter area on scooters.
Unconfirmed reports said he had been involved in one of the many altercations that marked St. Maarten Carnival 2008 and there were people out to get him. One person who knew him said, before he died, “If he doesn’t die from this, they might keep trying to kill him.”
L. joins this year’s murder victims Dmitri Trotman (March 2) and 21-year-old Stanley Orlando Gumbs (March 31). Trotman’s shooter J.G. confessed to the crime within one week of the killing in Oyster Pond under advice from his lawyer. Gumbs’ murder remains unsolved.
J.G. is expected be tried next week for killing Trotman (25) and possessing an illegal firearm.
The April 11 death of 44-year-old Francis Ferdinand Fleming still has not been officially classified as a murder, despite his family’s belief that the March 1 stabbing in St. Peters that landed him in intensive care led to his death. The pathologist’s report from an autopsy done in mid-April is still not available.
