The Tribune

By EARYEL BOWLEG

Tribune Staff Reporter

ebowleg@tribunemedia.net

A MAN leaving an early-morning workout was shot dead yesterday in the parking lot of the Shirley Street Shopping Plaza, just steps from the gym he had attended for nearly three years.

Police said the victim, a man in his late 30s, had exited a business establishment shortly after 9am and was walking toward his car when a Japanese vehicle pulled up. A man got out, produced a firearm and opened fire before fleeing.

His body lay on the pavement opposite the gym where he had trained minutes earlier.

Press liaison Chief Superintendent Sheria King said the police control room received the report after 9am.

The gym manager said the victim arrived around 5.30am and had already finished his workout when they last spoke.

“We were joking around about his progress,” the manager said. “We were joking around about him losing more weight because he wanted to lose more weight and look more lean and more muscular, and so, you know, summertime coming, so he wanted to get a summer body together.”

The manager did not hear the gunshots and learned of the shooting from gym members after police sealed off the plaza, forcing businesses to close temporarily.

He said the killing left him shaken.

“Acquaintance that come in and out the gym, and we have conversations,” he said. “I basically have conversations with all of the customers. So it leaves me shaken, because I interact with all of the members of the gym. I take them as friends and so any one of the customers get hurt or anything happen to them, I feel personally, that happens to me not because the money thing, but it's just something that I have become so accustomed to knowing them and talking to them. Some of them tell me their personal lives and so forth and so on.”

The manager described the victim as motivated and focused on improving his health and said he regularly appeared cheerful.