The Tribune

By EARYEL BOWLEG

Tribune Staff Reporter

ebowleg@tribunemedia.net

THE man who was shot dead on Monday night was killed a day before his eldest daughter’s 11th birthday, his mother has revealed.

When she spoke to The Tribune yesterday, the victim’s mother Antoinette Fernander said she had not yet told her grand-daughter that her father was dead.

Antonio Russell, a father-of-two, was fatally shot on Monday near L W Young High School. Police were alerted to the sound of gunshots in the area of Bernard Road shortly before 10pm.

“Officers responded and found a male lying on the ground unresponsive just outside the northeastern boundary of the L W Young High School, with what appeared to be gunshot injuries. Emergency Medical Services visited the scene and pronounced the body lifeless,” police said in a crime report.

Ms Fernander said her 30-year-old son was walking home at the time he got killed. She recalled hearing the shots.

“I started calling him. He was last seen online (at) 9.31 and my daughter started calling him and he would not answer. Apparently after a little while, say like hours later, an officer then answered the phone. I said ‘Tony, where are you? I was calling you’ and then the officer identified himself...”

Ms Fernander said she was not allowed on the scene that night. She described Russell as her “protector” and called his death as her “first pain”.

“I can’t believe he’s actually gone… He isn’t in no gang. He wasn’t in none of those things... (someone) take his life just like that and he was just trying to get home. He was like a few seconds away from home.”

Russell’s homicide pushed the murder count to 22 for the year, according to the Tribune’s records.

Last week alone, from the period of February 21-25, there were six killings - with two separate incidents occurring an hour apart on February 22.

Anyone with information on this shooting is asked to call police at 502-9991.