Last night was violent on the city's southside with a spate of shootings, which began at 8:15 with the murder of Glenroy Broaster. The 27 year old was heading home on in his bicycle in the area of the Wilton Cumberbatch Field when he was hit with three bullets and died on the spot. 7NEWS was on the scene last night and Keith Swift has the story.
Keith SwiftReporting,
The 7NEWS Team was on the scene minutes after the shooting as Glenroy Broaster's body lay in the middle of Faber's Road, next to the Wilton Cumberbatch Field, with his bicycle next to him and with what appeared to a plastic straw in his mouth. And as police removed his body and crime scene investigators examined the thick pool of blood for forensic evidence, there was the spectacle of death as dozens of onlookers crowded the crime scene including his uncle Michael Garnett who spoke to us off camera.
Michael Garnett, Victim's Uncle
"He had just finished drinking tea."
Keith Swift,
When did you hear something had happened to him?
Michael Garnett,
"I was playing dominoes and some guys told me my nephew got shot and when I came out this is what I saw."
Today back at the family's home, a three-minute bike ride from the murder scene, his girlfriend Shona Oshon says Glenroy, known to most simply as "Love," had left his Sanker Street home to go 'hang out' about an hour to before he was apparently executed.
Shona Oshon, Victim's Girlfriend
"He went out to go hang out and I guess when he was coming home, because he was coming home, they shot him. I sat down in his aunt's house last night and I heard three gunshots and I told her I hope it isn't him because he is out there. Before I finished saying that and come up the back stairs, somebody come hollered that they shoot 'Love.'"
It is a personal loss for his girlfriend and a professional loss for his employer Rupert Marin of Sanitation Engineering Limited. Glenroy started working with SEL in March of 2004 and by October he had worked his way up to a supervisor.
Rupert Marin, Victim's Employer
"He has been a supervisor now for about 4 months. He started assisting and he had his own crew, his own gang, which he ran. There are some workers who have been there for a long while and he just went up the ladder at fast speed, he really has a lot of leadership skills. That young boy had the potential to lead and he ran his gang with no problems. Last night when he heard this thing, all the phone started to buzz and everybody ran out because one of our number one boys had gone down."
Keith Swift,
I can imagine its then both a personal and a professional loss for you?
Rupert Marin,
"Definitely because any function, anything we need, or whatever kind of assistance we can always call this young boy any hour of the night or day we could call him and tell him we need help. He didn't care if it was manual or administrative, whatever it was he was just there. It is really a blow for us."
A blow also to Youth for the Future and their Operation Positive Reinforcement where Glenroy was a poster boy for reform featured here in this photo layout for the current newsletter. And while he was never a gangbanger, Douglas Hyde says Glenroy's lateral move from street captain to a street supervisor set a good example. Hyde speculates that Glenroy was reformed from his past but was never removed from it and that's what caught up to him.
Douglas Hyde, Youth for the Future
"Basic understanding what we received and the understanding from the police is that its an old beef, an old rivalry between a next group and his group. Broaster had changed a lot and I will say that. I will that many of the youths who go through this program change physically and mentally but what they have not done is take themselves out of their group. Every day or some part of the day they will visit their group, they will still hang out, they will still play, and they will still do certain activities but they wouldn't get caught up in negative or criminal activities. But I will say with Broaster, whether or not he was with SEL or with YFF, he was basically a leader in the streets and a lot of these young persons looked up to him for leadership and stuff. While being a part of YFF and SEL, he carried his leadership to the streets back and every time we would go out there it was not a negative discussion with Broaster, instead he was paving the way for these other young persons in terms of what they can come here at YFF or SEL for. So again it hurts."
Shona Oshon,
"He talked to me about the past and he said he tried change his lifestyle and I said okay we could work with that and we could deal with that if that is what you want to do and I guess they say when people are changing their lifestyle, that is when something happens out of the ordinary and I guess that is what happened."
So 'Love' it seems left a lot of love for family, his employers, and those who helped him change his life. But last night someone had no love, only three bullets.
For clarification, Broaster got his job at SEL through Youth for the Future. It is a job which they claim was his first real job. He had no kids and funeral arrangements are pending. Police meanwhile have a suspect detained. He is yet to be charged and police say they don't believe he is the shooter. In a few, minutes we will hear from the office commanding CIB on a possible motive for Broaster's murder.
