Relative calm had prevailed on the city’s streets for the past six weeks, but it ended last night around news time when gunshots rang out on Mahogany Street. When it was over- two men had been shot in a drive by. One of those men is dead tonight and another is seriously injured in the KHMH. Keith Swift has the story.
Keith Swift Reporting,
This morning Marla Perez wept as she cradled pictures of Dillon Bennett, her common law husband and father of her three year old daughter, who was shot last night and died this morning.
Dillon Bennett and Akeem Gotoy were shot here at the corner of Central American Bouelvard and Mahogany Street. According to eyewitnesses, Gotoy and Bennett were at the stoplight waiting for it to turn green when a red car pulled up in front of them. A gunman jumped out of that car and he opened fire. Dillon’s
grandmother Cherrymae Belgrave was inside her home – just down the street when she heard the shots.
Cherrymae Belgrave, Grandmother of Murder Victim
“I was home last night just about shortly after 6:30 when I heard the shots ring out. When I came outside my daughter was running down the stairs and she said it is Dillon. When I went up there, I went up on the boulevard, I saw the car practically into the health center and when I peeped in the car it was him there.”
Both Bennett and Gotoy were shot in the head. They were rushed to the KHMH and underwent surgery. Dillon Bennett died at 8:30 this morning. His family doesn’t believe he was the target – but if he was – his sister Keniesha Velasquez says he didn’t deserve to die.
Keniesha Velasquez, Sister of Murder Victim
“The only thing I want to say to the people who killed my brother, my brother has a daughter who he had to live for. My brother didn’t take anyone’s life. I am not saying my brother was good but he didn’t take anyone’s life so I don’t see why man had to feel like they are God and come and take my brother from us. He dead left a common law wife,
a daughter, his mom, and everybody else who loves him.”
Cherrymae Belgrave,
“We know how painful it is because we had a brother of Dillon they had killed already about three years ago. They had killed him and it wasn’t that this brother was doing anything wrong and to this guy we cannot get the understanding of why they killed this brother and I guess Dillon was on the run from then from these boys; three years ago and it took them three years for them to get to Dillon.”
And that’s why the only thing this family wants now is justice.
Keniesha Velasquez,
“I just want to ask for them to try to do something about this gun violence, make them stop it because when people lose their loved one they don’t know how we feel and I would want their family to put themselves in our position and the pain we are going through because they don’t know what we are going through and they don’t know nothing about people’s feelings and I don’t think they care. I really don’t think they care.
We don’t really want no retaliation. Everything will be left into God’s hands. The wheel of justice will go slow but it will go far. We don’t want them to feel we’ll do something like that, we have nothing to do, we will leave them to God. God will deal with them. Once they feel they have gotten away from the Lord, they haven’t gotten away because God is seeing everything they do and everything they do to we they will get it back. He will make sure they get it back. That’s all I have to say.”
But Dillon’s family concedes not even that will ease the pain of losing their grandson, son, brother, and father.
Akeem Gotoy was shot twice and the family says doctors have removed the bullet from the back of his head. Gotoy and Dillon Bennett were friends and lived in the same area. Bennett’s family confirmed to us that the car he was driving belonged to the infamous Police Constable Delmar Moguel. Police say they have several suspects detained and are narrowing it down. Police believe it is related to an ongoing rivalry between two neighbourhoods.
