By EARYEL BOWLEG

Tribune Staff Reporter

ebowleg@tribunemedia.net

OMAR Davis Jr’s death has stunned and “totally shocked” members of a church he attended at St James Road, in the Kemp Road community.

Pilgrim Baptist Temple Pastor Leroy Major said the death was hard to process as Davis was a good example to his peers and people in the area.

“I can’t believe that this happened (to him),” Pastor Major told The Tribune in an interview recently.

“We’re very sad about it. Totally shocked. He was one of our hopes you know in the area. You know it’s so sad to know he died so suddenly. He was a good example to his peers and the community, and a lot of his peers did look up to him.”

The Tribune also spoke to Christopher Roberts, who was a guidance counselor at DW Davis Junior High School, when Davis was a student there.

While he did not deal with Davis specifically in terms of a case matter, Mr Roberts recalled the young man was known to the guidance counselling department as one of the school’s “high flyers”.

Mr Roberts and Davis attended the same church.

The former guidance counselor was also the guest speaker at Davis’ graduation from CI Gibson School.

“This is a difficult one because here you have a young man who tried so hard and was obviously being successful in making and cutting a different road,” Mr Roberts told The Tribune.

“You know coming out of the Kemp Road area it was so easy to fall prey to what you know and what you see modelled before you and to have the strength and the fortitude to say no, I’m not going to follow this road, I have a different plan, I’m going to take a different path in the face of what Iknow would’ve been peer pressure… it speaks to the strength and the character of him as an individual.”

Mr Roberts recalled that recently Davis attended church and was called to the pulpit. “A few Sundays ago, when he got in town, he went to church. Pastor called him up to the pulpit. Pastor said to him we took care of you. We poured into you. Now you gotta make this money so you can take care of us and he promised. He said yes pastor I’ll do that.

“So, the congregation knew him and they celebrated him, and so this news hit us like a brick wall yesterday. Nobody is understanding this. I can’t swear for anyone, but there is nothing in this young man’s life that would’ve suggested in any way that this would be his end – not like this.

“We’re all trying and I’m encouraging them not to speculate because it doesn’t do anything for your psyche and your emotion because your mind could run from one place to the other, but it’s difficult not to put yourself in that place like ‘What happened’ because there was nothing about Omar that would say he would be killed in this manner and dumped. This is so baffling,” Mr Roberts said.

National Security Minister Wayne Munroe urged the public to be careful with “what they run on with” regarding the matter.