Rio Claro man gunned down

LAUGHTER, dancing and general merriment at a party held to celebrate the christening of a three-month-old baby girl, turned into screams of horror, when a gunman opened fire at the crowd, killing one man instantly and leaving another critically wounded on Sunday night. Shocked eyewitnesses told police they heard several loud explosions around 11 pm, which they mistook for firecrackers and saw murder victim Justin Cooper, 20, slump to the ground. However, even as Cooper lay lifeless on the ground, several of his friends thought he was clowning around and one limer even stood over him and shouted, “Justin boy, stop fooling around and doing like if you get shot. Get up boy, get up.”  The limer recoiled in horror and started screaming as blood oozed from several wounds about Cooper’s legs and torso. At the time, three-month-old Jayda Rigues, for whom the party was thrown, was sound asleep inside.

Cooper was shot dead at the home of his good friend Jameson Rigues at Central Branch Road, Clear Water Road, Rio Claro. Another man, Marlon John, who was reportedly standing next to Cooper at the time of the shooting, remains warded at San Fernando General Hospital in critical condition with several gunshot wounds about his body. Yesterday at the house of mourning, sombre relatives of Cooper could offer no explanation for his murder, except that his shooting was a case of mistaken identity.  “This has to be a case of mistaken identity because I can safely say my brother Justin was not the type to cause any trouble with anyone. He was a good guy... and ask anyone for yourself, they would tell you the same thing I have said, ” grieving sister Rose Cooper told Newsday.

She added that although Cooper was only 20, he had lofty ambitions and while he was employed with the URP, he was making plans for the future. Cooper’s mother Margaret, 47, reportedly had to be taken to a doctor after she became very emotional on hearing of her son’s death. A dazed Denesse Gomez, mother of newly christened Jayda, told Newsday at the time of the shooting, people were liming in the yard of her home. “When I heard the loud noises, at first I thought they were firecrackers, so I started shouting that firecrackers should not be used because I had two young children inside the house,” Gomez said.  “I only realised there was a shooting when fellas began shouting, ‘He dead, Justin get shot’,” she added.

The young woman described Cooper as a close friend of her common-law husband and added that the two played football in the village regularly. Gomez’s father Norville said he was asleep when he was awakened by the gunshots. “I came out with a torchlight to see what was happening and I saw young Cooper lying on the ground.” Eyewitnesses told police during and immediately after the shooting, no vehicles passed along the road outside the house, leaving investigators to believe the killer came to the party on foot and escaped by running away. Up to late yesterday, police could offer no motive for the killing, nor were any arrests made.  However, police sources said they were not ruling out the possibility that the shooting could have been a random act. Cpl Awong Cole of the Rio Claro CID is spearheading investigations.