Dad distraught as daughter fatally shot
Sylton McLeod cut a dejected figure trying to accept the reality that his daughter, Tashekia McLeod, a mother of six, will no longer be around.
The 35-year-old bartender was shot dead during a confrontation with the police early Monday morning after she reportedly went to her babyfather’s home on Seaward Drive, off Molynes Road, St Andrew.
“Mi start dream ‘bout she and har son when somebody come a call outside mi gate early dis mawnin (Monday),” McLeod told THE STAR, while trying to hold back the tears. “A last night (Sunday) she and har likkle son come a mi yard and she ask mi fi a money fi buy ice cream, so mi give har it and when she leave mi go back inside go lay down.”
The Independent Commission of Investigations (INDECOM) says the police have reported that two cops were sent to respond to a domestic dispute involving three persons, two women and a man. It is further reported that while being transported to the police station, McLeod became enraged and allegedly made attempts to attack the man and then the cops. It is alleged that she used weapons, an ice-pick and two knives, that were in her possession, to carry out the attack. INDECOM says during the attack on one of the cops, he reportedly discharged his weapon in McLeod’s direction. She was shot and later transported to hospital where she was pronounced dead.
Enraged residents took to the street and blocked the road in protest, alleging police brutality. McLeod said he also does not accept the manner in which his daughter died.
“Di police dem could a hold har and discipline har different as a woman. One likkle knife and four police and yuh affi kill har? Yuh could a do supn else, like use yuh spray gas or lick har wid yuh baton,” he said. McLeod said that his daughter always wanted to become a doctor but after having her first child early, her dreams quickly faded. However, he said that he was proud of how she put her children first in all that she did.
With Sunday’s passage of Tropical Storm Elsa and the subsequent rising of the Rio Cobre in Spanish Town, St Catherine, the family of 28-year-old Tomar Henry was forced to relive a collective trauma.
Nine months ago, Henry, otherwise known as Jerry, lost his life in the river that was in spate. His family members say they have yet to come to terms with his passing.
Henry’s aunt, Leonie Bryce, remembers him as a jovial person who enjoyed video games and never got in any trouble. “He had a lot of friends, but he wasn’t really an outside person,” she said.
Bryce told THE STAR that that fateful day was much like any other. Henry returned home from a 12-hour night shift with N.E.T.S Security where he was employed, and had breakfast as usual. Unlike other days though, Henry decided to go swimming in the river with his friends.
“Is a thing that they always do, not really him, but I don’t know what. They had it planned from the Saturday,” she said. With tears in her eyes, Bryce recounted the story she heard from his friends.
“Coming down from Ensom, riding the swift, I don’t know if him got tired or whatever, but the water was really heavy,” she said. Referring to a video of the event that circulated on social media, she said “In the video you can hear the voice of a female saying ‘how Jerry a dip suh?’ and another voice saying ‘him can swim.’ But the first voice keep on saying but him a dip.”
Henry disappeared in the raging muddy water and has been presumed drowned. His body was never recovered.
“His birthday was the 25th of May and his father had a real breakdown just remembering him. There’s no closure to this.”
Bryce said they had a candlelight ceremony after his death but never had a funeral because it wouldn’t have felt right without a body.
She said that she wouldn’t advise anyone to swim in that river, especially when it was that heavy. She cited the experience of two other men including her own son who experienced the river that day saying “everybody had a bad experience of the water that day.”