(Jamaica Observer) LITTLE LONDON, Westmoreland — Leroy Robinson was only doing what always came to him naturally — help a fellow human being in distress.
But Monday night, Robinson’s propensity to assist his neighbours cost him his life. A masked gunman pumped four shots into the 54-year-old hotel worker as he ran to rescue a woman from her house after it was fire-bombed.
Residents of this normally quiet community believe the killer was responsible for fire-bombing the house and was apparently angered by the sight of Robinson and his two friends sprinting to the trapped woman’s rescue.
Yesterday, Robinson’s two friends — still shaken by the sight of the gun pointed at them and the muzzle flash that made them feel, initially, that they had been shot as well — related their ordeal to the Jamaica Observer.
They explained that about 8:30 Monday night they were hanging out with Robinson, also called Carl, at his home in McNeil Land, Little London, when a house across the street burst into flames immediately after a loud explosion.
The female occupant of the house cried out for help.
“I heard something like glass a lick out over the house and when me look me see fire and the woman in the house started to cry out for help. When we ran to help her the masked man run come from the back with a gun and start firing shots. All now I think I get the shot. Although I am standing up with you here I still feel I get shot because I was at close range,” one of the terrified men told the Observer.
“After he shot Carl, he turned around and point the gun at me and when he fired the shot I saw the fire come out and I dropped to the ground, dead. The gunman ran away and I got up,” the man said.
His friend joined in.
“Me feel like me don’t inna the world because all now me feel like me get shot too,” he said.
“The three of us were sitting over by Carl and him eat a plate a food, then as he was about to eat a second plate we saw what was happening. The woman bawl out and by we enter the gate, bam! bam! bam!
“Me run weh go hide and when me come up me hear say Carl dead. Me coulda dead too,” he said as tears flowed freely down his cheeks.
Robinson was described by residents as a kind individual, who gave no trouble.
“Me feel very bad because that guy was a very, very nice guy. We knew each other from long ago. We never quarrel. He has always been a nice person, especially to children, but gave a helping hand to everybody,” said Paulette Munroe.
“Last night when I lie down in my bed and when I heard the explosion and saw the fire and when I went over and saw him lie down I didn’t know what to say,” Munroe added.
The violent incident has left some of the residents fearful.
“This is not a bad place, but we still fearful. People who work at nights will now have a problem as no taxi man will want to come in here late at nights,” one woman was overheard saying.
The woman whose house was torched escaped, and at the time the Observer visited the community she was said to be at a police station.
