Brian Barnes’ voice shook with a mixture of rage and grief as he tried to describe what he and other family members went through on Monday night.

“I just watched that little boy lying there at the hospital last night….it’s so hard,” Mr. Barnes said on Tuesday. “It’s an innocent four-year-old child.”

Brian’s grand-nephew, Jeremiah Barnes, was shot in the face inside his father’s Chevrolet Malibu at around 8.25pm Monday.

The four-door sedan was stopped at the Hell Esso petrol station in West Bay when police said two men approached from behind the building. Witnesses said at least one of the men opened fire into the passenger side of the vehicle.

The bullets missed Jeremiah’s father and mother and his older brother.

Jeremiah wasn’t so lucky.  

In a shocking revelation Tuesday afternoon, police said that two men involved in the deadly shooting lay in wait behind the Esso station, anticipating the arrival of the Barnes family.

When the white Chevy Jeremiah’s family rode in pulled up, Royal Cayman Islands Police Commissioner David Baines said two men got out of a vehicle that was parked behind the station, walked up to the Chevy and began “firing indiscriminately”.

Jeremiah’s family members said all four people were in the Chevy at the time shots were fired.

“It could have been all four of them in the car that had been shot,” said Brian Barnes. “We must see justice done.”

Jeremiah’s father, Andy Barnes, his mother Dorlisa Ebanks and his older brother were not the only people to witness the shooting Monday night.

A group of school children using the football pitch at John Cumber Primary School across the road from the Esso station heard the shots and some of those who were there saw what occurred. 

One witness described a dark-skinned male shooter who fired off three rounds before running back behind the gas station. Others in the area said they heard four shots ring out.

A get-away vehicle was then spotted leaving area immediately afterward.

Mr. Baines said during a Tuesday afternoon press conference that the manner in which the shooting was done smacked of gang retaliation tactics. He declined to state who might have been the target of Monday’s shooting.

“We believe the (suspect) vehicle was already in position behind the gas station,” Mr. Baines said Tuesday. “We have to pursue all lines of enquiry, but there are some facts that would indicate that this was a targeted shooting into that particular vehicle.”

How the gunmen might have known the Chevy Malibu would be at the station at that time was unclear.

The Chevy was driven to the West Bay Police Station immediately after the shooting. It remained there, cordoned off with crime scene tape – while the child was taken to the Cayman Islands Hospital in George Town.

He was pronounced dead a short time later.

A crowd of about 50 people gathered in the hospital car park, some vowing vengeance against the shooter.

At around 9.15pm Monday, a hospital doctor told Jeremiah’s mother her child was dead.  The child’s father collapsed on the pavement upon hearing the news, while the boy’s mother and grandmother screamed and cried with grief.

A crowd of several dozen people also gathered briefly at the West Bay Police Station, but had mostly dispersed by 9pm – about half an hour after the shooting.  

Police response to the shooting was immediate. Within minutes of the report, traffic checks had been set up in West Bay near the fire station for outgoing vehicles.

Police sirens could be heard all over the district and the Cayman Islands Helicopters aircraft was also up searching the area late into the night.

The two suspects were taken to George Town Police Station for questioning Monday night. The Caymanian Compass is not identifying them because no charges had been filed at press time.

Commissioner Baines described the shooting as a wake-up call for Cayman.

“Perhaps now that this poor little boy has lost his life people will start to come forward and give up these so-called gangsters who terrorise the public while they carry out their deadly feuds,” Deputy Police Commissioner Anthony Ennis said in a prepared statement. 

‘Terrible loss’

Cayman Islands Governor Duncan Taylor called the shooting a “terrible loss” and vowed to push legislative changes in the upcoming Legislative Assembly session later this month to assist police in investigating and solving violent crime.

One of the changes would allow witnesses to give anonymous testimony in criminal court proceedings. The other would be the passage of the revamped Police Law that allows, among other measures, the ability for a “negative inference” to be drawn by jurors and judges if a suspect refuses to answer police questions during an investigation.

Mr. Taylor said similar “negative inference” legislation is already in place in the United Kingdom.

Mr. Baines said even though two men had been arrested in connection with Monday night’s shooting, police were still looking for witnesses who could assist – including the children from across the street at John Cumber Primary at the time gunshots rang out.

He said appropriate counselling and family assistance services would be provided for those children, many of whom were 11 and 12 years old.

The commissioner warned the community not to act rashly in the face of a crime that had left many shaken.

“I’m conscious that there’s been some suggestion…about the public using vigilantism and arming themselves,” he said. “I understand your concerns, but I ask you to leave it in our hands.”