By LEANDRA ROLLE

Tribune Staff Reporter

lrolle@tribunemedia.net

POLICE say they will beef up security in the Coconut Grove area after a 26-year-old woman and her uncle were killed in the community only a day apart last week.

A police spokesman confirmed this when contacted by The Tribune yesterday.

“That’s ongoing as we speak,” the police spokesman said, when asked about increased patrols/manpower in the area in view of the recent shootings which killed two and injured two others.

Shavonna Adderley, a mother of a seven-year-old boy, was killed after gunmen discharged shots at her and a group of other people outside a home on First Street around 8pm Friday.

Her uncle, Gladstone Francis Jr, was fatally wounded at the same address a day earlier.

In that incident, police said a light-coloured mid-size vehicle pulled up to the Grove residence and discharged a weapon at a man and woman after 9pm Thursday.

They were both taken to hospital by private vehicle, however, Francis Jr died later.

Close relatives said Shavonna was visiting family members that day to offer condolences concerning the death of her uncle, Francis Jr, before the shooting incident happened.

“All of us was there giving our condolences to the family, sitting down talking and hanging,” her mother Yvonne Adderley told The Tribune on Sunday.

“But then I left them there because I had another little job to do. So, I told (Shavonna) “I’m going now, I’m going to leave and make sure when Shawn come, y’all go home.” Shawn is her brother.

“An hour later, I got the call and they told me that someone shoot up the yard again and my daughter get shoot.”

Videos purporting to be of Friday’s incident circulated on social media, showing two men getting out of a white car and firing shots at a home before leaving the scene.

However, this could not be confirmed by police yesterday.

Family members believe the killings were an act of retaliation for a shooting that occurred in March, when several women were shot at on Second Street, the Grove.

“From what I understand, (someone in the area) just got out of jail and I don’t know if you remember the shooting that happened a few months ago with the four girls in the car. Well, he was the one who (allegedly) do the shooting for that,” Mrs Adderley said.

“He just come out of jail and that’s who they want so that’s what it is. So, they just don’t care, and I guess they saying because they can’t get him, they will get whoever close to him.”

Shavonna leaves behind a seven-year-old son, whose father was killed in 2019.

Francis Jr also leaves behind several children, The Tribune was told.

Police say they are still searching for suspects in connection with both shooting incidents. However, anyone with information is asked to call police at 502-9991/2 or Crime Stoppers at 328-TIPS (8477).