Saturday was a violent day in the city. Mayher Singh was gunned down just before dawn and less than 12 hours later another man was killed. He is 25 year old Jonathan Faber and his death was no mistake, no stray bullet. As Jacqueline Godwin found out, he was marked for death.
Jacqueline Godwin Reporting,
Twenty five year old Jonathan Josiah Faber was reportedly sitting on this concrete fence socializing with friends at the Yarborough Cemetery when sources tell 7News a car drove twice around the block. Shortly after three armed young men were seen running through the cemetery and they started firing at Jonathan Faber better known as Chop.
Faber started to run and jumped over the fence. That is when one of the bullets caught him in the leg which caused him to drop on the street by the corner of Yarborough Road and Dickenson Street. The killer or killers then ran to the victim, stood over him, and fired several more shots that caught him to the side of the face and in the head. It happened around two ten on Saturday afternoon
and there were many witnesses to the cold-blooded, broad daylight killing.
Today however there was hardly anyone on the street willing to talk. Anna Young did not witness the shooting but she was home when she heard the gunfire and quickly became concerned for her children.
Anna Young, Area Resident
“Well I was home with my children, we were talking upstairs but my son was on the veranda and I heard about eight shots so I jumped up and I grabbed my son off the verandah and I went inside and I asked my kids if they heard the shots and they said yes. So I ran to my window because I know my nephews are always downstairs on the street and it sounded as though the shots were right on our street. So when I looked I saw them downstairs of my mother’s house and so I told them to go upstairs and by the time I told them to go upstairs another three shots came out. So I did not come outside because I didn’t know if the guys were already gone. But when I looked, I saw my neighbour running down the street and she was crying and I asked her who got shot and she told me it was Chops. So I came downstairs and I went to the lane and when I saw him on the ground, I was just, you know I started to cry. It was so, everybody was so hurt and didn’t expect him in the condition we saw him and apparently he was on the ground and from the position that he fell, he was trying to get up to continue running but he didn’t not make it because apparently they were right there standing over him.”
According to neighbours, many bystanders rushed to help Johnathan Faber who was still clinging to life, but they claim the police pushed back anyone who tried to render assistance. Faber was finally grabbed by one of his brothers who took him to the Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital where he was pronounced dead. He was killed only a stone’s throw away from where he lived with his family.
Voice of Niece of Murdered Victim,
“Well we heard an amount of gunshots and we never were so sure dah who until somebody come and told us that it was our uncle got shot. So our family went out there and we found on the ground.”
The family say they do not know why their loved one was killed but word on the street is that it has to do with an ongoing rivalry between two southside groups. The family did not speak to us on camera but they lamented that gun violence has now taken the life of a second brother. On September sixteenth, 2007 Hubert Faber Jr. was killed after he was shot multiple times in the neck and stomach.
Voice of Niece of Murdered Victim,
“We just want to find who killed my uncle, what the police will say about it, because this noh right. None of this noh right, all a we are human beings.”
But area residents like Anna Young have been left shaken and scared of leaving their own home because they are surprised that the shooting occurred just after two on Saturday afternoon when area residents were at home and children were out playing.
Anna Young,
“Because normally I would have expected something to happen like that during the night. During the day, I was very frightened and I think everybody was scared for that to happen at that hour, knowing that we have our children on the street, sometimes in the burial ground, we send them to the shop, so it was frightening.”
Jacqueline Godwin,
Has it changed the way how you do things now, especially where your kids are concerned?
Anna Young,
“Yes it has. I don’t even want my doors to be opened during the day much less as it gets dark. I try to close up my house by the time sun set.”
Jacqueline Godwin,
So it is like you’ve become a prisoner in your home.
Anna Young,
“Yes. It is very scary.”
Belize City Police say they have one suspect in custody. Jacqueline Godwin reporting for 7News.
In what has to be a disturbing coincidence, Mayher Singh and Johnathan Faber were cousins. Police today charged Alex Underwood for murder. He has an abetment to murder charge pending before the Supreme Court.
