Murder victim felt he would not see 2021
Weeks before his death, Daniel McLean told his babymother, Shanice Clarke, that he had a gut feeling that his death was near.
Last Saturday, his feeling proved accurate, as he was gunned down in his yard in central Kingston.
The police’s Corporate Communications Unit reported that about 8:40 p.m., McLean, 26, and Rolando Lindo, 32, were shot in a drive-by shooting at the corner of East Queens Street and Maiden Lane in central Kingston. They were taken to hospital where they were pronounced dead. Another man was also shot and injured.
“Him text mi and say, ‘Shan, mi not even feel like mi a go live out da year ya, eno. Right now mi nuh feel di vibes like mi a go live out di rest a da year ya and mi don’t know whe da vibes deh come from’,” Clarke tearfully recalled. “Mi tell him say him must pray and bind it up, because him can’t go way left mi and we son. Him ask mi mother fi pray fi him and she pray with him, but mi nuh if we prayer go in vain or God a try tell we something and nah see what him a try tell we.”
SMALL PRAYER MEETING
Clarke said shortly before the shooting, McLean had promised to video call her to speak with her and their son, but he had to get some food first. She said that she sat waiting for the call while she had a small prayer meeting with her mother.
“As mi madda done pray we hear di shot dem, but mi still never a pree him because I was telling myself that he had already reached home. Afterwards, mi brother come call mi and tell mi say mi babyfadda get shot, and mi try call him and text him before mi run go ‘round deh. When mi go ‘round deh, mi see him on the ground dead,” she cried. “I don’t know how we are going to get over this. This morning (Sunday) mi son wake up and all him is saying is ‘Mi wa fadda.’ Him take up mi phone and say, ‘Call fadda nuh.’ How mi tell mi baby say him father nah go come back?”
Clarke described McLean, a shoemaker, as a hard-working individual and a doting father who had major plans for his son. She and other residents said that neither McLean nor Lindo were troublemakers.
“He (McLean) would see the good in any bad situation and he would try to get something positive out of any negative situation that he was in. Even yesterday (Saturday) when he got shot, he was fighting hard to live. He fought so hard with every breath that he took,” Clarke said.
A neighbour said Lindo was only at home because the taxi he usually drives was not functioning.
“Every day dem man deh out a do dem work. The man dem a good people, everybody loved dem. More time a night-time ,everybody who live here pack up inna the two a dem house a cook or a play game or even a run joke. We all live good,” he said.