{"id":2258,"date":"2019-03-20T19:42:57","date_gmt":"2019-03-20T19:42:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/westernmirror.com\/?p=2258"},"modified":"2019-03-20T23:21:50","modified_gmt":"2019-03-20T23:21:50","slug":"catherine-hall-erupts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/?p=2258","title":{"rendered":"Catherine Hall erupts"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Michael Nattoo<\/em> <\/strong>– Staff Reporter<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Monday morning, the middle-class community of Catherine Hall in St. James was a mixture of clouds of smoke, burning debris across the roadways, and angry residents, all in protest of Saturday\u2019s fatal shooting of 22-year-old Tony Barrett, who was downed in an alleged confrontation with the police.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Under the watch of members of the security forces, firefighters go about the business of clearing debris from a section of the roadway in Catherine Hall following the mass protests.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

According to the police, Barrett was shot around 2:35 p.m.,\nafter he reportedly challenged the lawmen who were on duty in the area. A\nBrowning single action 9mm pistol, loaded with a magazine containing two rounds\nof ammunition, was reportedly taken from the deceased Catherine Hall resident.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MOTHER IN SHAMBLES<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTony was no gunman, and I\u2019m not just saying that because\nhe\u2019s my son. He was really the most caring person I knew, and he would never\nchallenge the police\u2026 in fact, Tony was afraid of the police. Sir, Tony never\nkilled anybody,\u201d shared Natalie, mother of the deceased man, who revealed to\nthe Western Mirror<\/strong> that the death of her son has only left her with\ngrief and frustration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhy are they tarnishing his character like this? I just\ndon\u2019t understand why they would be saying these things. I really don\u2019t know,\u201d\nthe grieving mother said. \u201cHe was my first child, and I could depend on him for\nanything.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Natalie, who is physically challenged as a result of a\nstroke she survived some years ago, explained that Barrett, on Saturday, was\ninitially at home before tragedy struck. \u201cHe was at home downstairs playing\ngames with a friend who had come to visit,\u201d she shared, adding that playing\nvideo games was something the 22-year-old enjoyed doing very much. \u201cHis friend\nasked him to buy some rum, and when he went to the shop, his sister, who was\ndoing his hair at the time, didn\u2019t see him coming back.\u201d While that was not\nuncommon, Natalie shared that her suspicions grew when a bad feeling suddenly\novertook her. \u201cI felt like I wanted to go to the bathroom, but I really didn\u2019t\u2026\nI just knew I felt really bad, and I could tell that something wasn\u2019t right.\u201d\nShe further shared with the Western Mirror<\/strong> that not long after those\nfeelings, Barrett\u2019s sister, who had gone to look for him because he had\ndisappeared for a suspiciously long time, came back crying, \u201cDem kill mi\nbredda, dem kill mi bredda!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018NO, TONY IS ALRIGHT\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The alarm raised by her daughter forced Natalie to come out\non her verandah, where she called her daughter, who was crying uncontrollably,\nto come to her. \u201cWa happen? Stop the crying man, Tony isn\u2019t dead, Tony is\ndownstairs playing game, stop the crying man,\u201d said Natalie, an attempt to\nconsole her daughter. She shared that she wasn\u2019t in denial, and was honestly of\nthe belief that her son had returned from the shop and was back to playing his\nvideo games.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As her daughter\u2019s crying continued and her attempts to\nconsole her failing, Natalie\u2019s worst fears were realized when she got a phone\ncall. \u201cThey asked me if I knew where Tony was, and asked me if I was OK, and I\nsaid \u2018yeah\u2019, and after talking, I realized that it was true \u2013 Tony was dead,\u201d\nshe added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Natalie said that she was informed that Tony had been\ncarried off in a jeep, but, as she later learnt, that was after he had been\nshot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cRight now, his sister is trying to cope and she\u2019s taking it very hard. I can\u2019t even say his name without crying. You have to understand, he was the one who was always checking on me. He always ensured that I was being taken care of. If anybody needed a helping hand, he was always there to help them. That\u2019s why the community was so angry. Even people I didn\u2019t think he was friends with, all came out and were protesting, and that\u2019s because of the kind of person he was. He always spoke his mind, but he never held grudges, and was very forgiving.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Firefighters put out the blaze from this section of the ignited roadblocks in Catherine Hall on Monday.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

According to his mother, Tony had been recently married, and\nwas away in the United States with his wife, before circumstances forced him to\ncome back to Jamaica, where he continued to take care of her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As far as run-ins with the law were considered, Natalie\nshared that Tony had never been to jail, and was only detained under the State\nof Emergency for a few hours, released the same day he was detained.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

FATAL SHOOTINGS MOUNT<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Barrett\u2019s fatal shooting comes on the heels of that of Kayon\nWellington and another man, who were reportedly shot in confrontation with the\npolice in the community of Belmont. Wellington was, according to the police,\nleader of the Dean\u2019s Lane Gang, and was also involved in the March 10 Jarrett\nStreet shooting and double murder.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

PERSONS OF INTEREST NABBED<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In relation to the above-mentioned incident, the St. James\npolice are reporting that two men \u2013 26-year-old Demeir Brown, otherwise called\n\u2018Bummie Squeeze\u2019 and Dwayne Barnes, otherwise called \u2018Tickerous\u2019, were arrested\nin a raid in Chester Castle, Hanover, on Friday, March 15.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The men are believed to be the other accomplices in the\nmuch-publicized robbery\/murder.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On Monday morning, the middle-class community of Catherine Hall in St. James was a mixture of clouds of smoke, burning debris across the roadways, and angry residents, all in protest of Saturday\u2019s fatal shooting of 22-year-old Tony Barrett, who was downed in an alleged confrontation with the police.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2261,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[214,30],"class_list":["post-2258","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-catherine-hall","tag-western-jamaica"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2258","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2258"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2258\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2263,"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2258\/revisions\/2263"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2261"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2258"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2258"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2258"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}