By SANCHESKA DORSETT

Tribune Staff Reporter

sdorsett@tribunemedia.net

A 16-year-old boy was shot multiple times and killed early yesterday morning, minutes before police suspect the teenager was about to commit a crime.

The homicide took place shortly before 4am off Kemp Road and was the second fatal shooting in less than nine hours in the capital.

So far for January there have been 11 killings, according to The Tribune’s records, already surpassing the eight people killed in the entire month of January, 2016.

Amid rumours that the teen, who was dressed all in black, wearing a mask and gloves, was shot during the commission of a crime, Commissioner of Police Ellison Greenslade said if the teen was not stopped “you may have had a description of (a) crime that you have never seen before in the Bahamas.”

The dead boy has been identified as Ricardo Leonard Fawkes.

Commissioner Greenslade said police suspect that if the victim was able to “continue what he was doing, you could have easily had a lot of innocent victims.”

“We have to respect the fact that someone is dead, irrespective of the circumstances,” Commissioner Greenslade said during a press conference at Police Headquarters yesterday.

“We are satisfied based upon the signature at that crime scene, that unfortunately the deceased was not on his own property. There were other things we took note of to suggest that had we not intervened as quickly as we did, the complexion of what occurred would have been quite different and you could have easily have had innocent people as victims. I will go further and say, I am trying to be very careful as not to prejudice the investigation, you may have had a description of the crime this morning that you have not seen before in the Bahamas.”

Chief Superintendent Clayton Fernander, officer in charge of the Central Detective Unit, said officers also found a pistol near the teen’s body.

“We received reports shortly after 3.50am that rapid gunshots were heard being fired in the Williams Lane area,” Chief Supt Fernander said.

“On arrival they met a young adult male, who appeared to be in his early teens, he was lying in the street, lifeless with gunshot wounds to the body. At this present time we do not have a motive for the shooting. We have officers doing inquiries to speak to residents to see if they would have seen or heard anything. We also recovered a weapon not too far from the body, a pistol was recovered, we are following with that line of inquiry at this time.”

Anyone with information on this homicide is asked to contact police at 911 or 919, the Central Detective Unit at 502-9991 or Crime Stoppers anonymously at 328-TIPS.