The Tribune

By LEANDRA ROLLE 

and KEILE CAMPBELL

Tribune Staff Reporters

THREE people, including a man reportedly on bail for murder and a woman who recently became a mother, were killed in separate incidents during a violent weekend in New Providence.

The killings, which bring the country’s murder count to five for the year, follow a period of relative calm in recent weeks.

The latest incidents, which occurred less than 12 hours apart, claimed the lives of Mario Brown, aka “Ridge”, and a 23-year-old woman who recently became a mother. An earlier shooting saw a man killed outside a bar on Cowpen Road on Friday.

Mario Brown, a father of three, had just arrived in front of a home in Cooper’s Terrace off Kemp Road when he was ambushed by gunmen driving a light-coloured vehicle.

 Records from The Tribune confirm that the home was also the scene of a fatal shooting in 2020.

 Police provided few details on the shooting but could not confirm whether Brown was known to them or if CCTV footage of the area exists.

 Videos later surfaced showing Brown speaking to a resident before pulling off on a motorbike, just moments before he was gunned down in the area. When The Tribune arrived at the scene, many onlookers had gathered as police combed the scene.

 Brown’s mother, who lived a few homes down from the crime scene, was inconsolable.

 His sister, Siminique Simmons, 22, told reporters Brown is the second brother she lost to gun violence. The first, Darrnario Saunders, was killed in a notorious shooing on Jerome Avenue that left six men dead.

 Brown was placed on probation after he admitted going beyond the crime scene tape in an attempt to get to his dying sibling. Ms Simmons said while her brother was no saint, he was not a monster.

 “I never said my brothers them don’t do what they have to do to get where they is,” she said. “But in order to love somebody, you got to know this person and when I tell y’all, I know my brother.

 “Things is happen and everybody gotta die at the end of the day, but it does be the way things happen.”

 Relatives claim Brown was working to keep the peace in the Kemp Road community. His cousin, Petra Turnquest, called him someone who wanted to see everyone win.

 Meanwhile, Ms Simmons described his murder as devastating for the family, as he leaves behind a grieving mother and three young children who are now fatherless.

 “My mummy can’t take this,” she said. “She can’t take this. My brother have three children. The last baby is three months. None of my brother’s children over the age of ten. Come on, they need their daddy. He love his kids.”

 According to The Tribune’s records, Brown was charged with murdering Jamaal Kemp on February 10, 2019. He was granted bail but returned to court for violating his bail conditions in 2022, resulting in a $7,500 fine.

 In 2023, he faced charges of possession of an unlicensed firearm and possession of ammunition.

 His sister accused police of constantly harassing her brother.

 “They monsters what y’all create,” she said. “They don’t beef with nobody, you know. They beefing with y’all. Y’all turn them into what y’all calling them.”

 A woman was shot and killed in Bain Town in yesterday’s other shooting incident.

 According to preliminary reports, the incident occurred shortly after 3pm on Finlayson Street when two men got out of a silver coloured jeep and opened fire on a group of people gathered in the area, hitting the victim who was sitting in a car.

 The suspects fled the scene, heading south on Finlayson Street in the same vehicle.

 The victim was taken to the hospital in a private vehicle, but died of her injuries.

 In the Cowpen Road killing on Friday, police said a man arrived in a vehicle outside the bar and unsuccessfully tried to get in before returning to his car, getting a firearm and shooting in the victim’s direction before driving away. The victim was pronounced dead at the scene.