Wednesday, August 30, 2023
By RASHAD ROLLE and LYNAIRE MUNNINGS
Tribune Reporters
THE mother of an eight-year-old girl shot in the leg in Flamingo Gardens on Monday night said she is afraid to return home, is struggling to sleep and can’t stop replaying the moment when a man in all-black sprayed bullets on her and her children, endangering their lives.
Up to press time, Teresita Rolle’s daughter was stable in the hospital. The family was still in shock, trying to understand what happened and why.
“All I know is we were sitting on a porch, waiting for my son to reach home, a car pulled up, so I assumed it was him because I know he usually gets dropped off, but when I looked up again, the gunman just came out and started shooting fire,” she said, adding the man was wearing a face mask. “He said nothing. He just started shooting directly at us.”
She believes the shooting could only have resulted from a mistaken identity.
“When the shooting start, I just grabbed the two of them and got low,” she said. “After he emptied the clip, they then sped off and my daughter started screaming ‘my leg, my leg’.”
Ms Rolle, 43, can’t recall how many shots were fired.
“It was a lot,” she said. “I thought it was never gonna end.”
When the shooting ended, she had to regain composure and help her daughter quickly.
“I had to put my feelings aside,” she said. “I fumbled for someone to call for help.”
She said she was too afraid to return home and planned to stay with relatives for a few days.
She is trying to understand why someone would shoot at her and her children.
“For me, it’s just work and the kids,” she said. “My son, he just works and hangs out with a few of the guys from the corner, but that’s basically it. It’s no problems, it’s none of that. And it was just me and the two kids on the porch. All of that has me wondering what happened, what went wrong, what did I do? It’s confusing.
“Every time I close my eyes, it’s like the same scene repeating itself over and over again. It’s difficult to sleep.”
Ms Rolle said her children would likely require a counselling session.
Monday’s shooting comes almost a week after a four-year-old boy was among three people requiring hospitalisation after being injured in a shooting. The victims in that incident were gathered at the front of a residence on Rupert Dean Lane and Ferguson Street when occupants of a silver coloured Japanese vehicle opened fire in their direction. The boy was hit in his left leg.
Comments
Sickened says...
I would be scared to go home to especially if your son is living with you. It's fairly obvious that your son is in hot water with some fella's. Maybe the the same fellas he hangs out with on the corner?????
Let me guess, when your good son got home and found out about what happened, he grabbed his pistol and said that he would take 'them' out?
Posted 30 August 2023, 9:47 a.m. Suggest removal
John says...
You are such an idiot. Even if there is a beef between her son and others, what type is suck, emasculated coward would empty a clip on helpless and defenseless children are a woman, The same type of sick, deranged cowards that go around shooting up churches and schools and food stores and kiidnergardens. And when you try to justify their actions, you are even more sick than they are. Sick, not sickened and sickening as well.
Posted 30 August 2023, 11:48 a.m. Suggest removal
DWW says...
that person who fired the bullets is one lady's 'good son'. get real, face the music. This all happens because someone turns a blind eye to their inner circle of family. You sir, may just be part of the problem.
Posted 30 August 2023, 1:49 p.m. Suggest removal
John says...
And whose sons and uncles and fathers are those who did all the mass shootings in the US this year. Yes, get real. Why does America have a war on drugs, but not a war on guns or a war on deranged gun owners?
Posted 30 August 2023, 4:41 p.m. Suggest removal
bahamianson says...
Name calling is truly not appropriate.
Posted 30 August 2023, 2:07 p.m. Suggest removal
Alex_Charles says...
The Bahamas is surely a S***hole country
Posted 30 August 2023, 10:17 a.m. Suggest removal
John says...
Sure is and you loves it
Posted 30 August 2023, 4:43 p.m. Suggest removal
John says...
When these shootings and murders first started to happen, the country bought into the narrative that ‘ O it’s just a ‘small’ group of gang bangers shooting up and killing up one another. Nothing to worry about. The general public is safe and can carry on with their regular lives. Fast forward to today. There has been a murder at government house, police and defense officers have been gunned down, woman shot and killed on her way to church and innocent children shot and killed or left struggling for their lives. In fact some NINETY cases of police involved shootings ( that resulted in at least one death) are waiting to be heard in the coroners court. Almost four decades of double-digit and triple-digit murder. Young men are more obsessed with owning a gun ( and using it) than they are with owning a house or car or having a family and dying young or seeing many around them die young doesn’t phase them. They go to funerals and sip Hennessy then wait for the next ‘homie’ to be buried. Done written by a 20 y/o days ‘all my friends are dead.’ Can’t do much with a people that glorifies death but doesn’t value life, except bury them.
Posted 30 August 2023, 12:02 p.m. Suggest removal
Emilio26 says...
John maybe the National Security Security should deploy defense force marines on our streets to assist police with carrying out patrols in our neighborhoods like how it's done in Jamaica and Trinidad.
Posted 30 August 2023, 4:54 p.m. Suggest removal
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