Deadly weekend

TWO MEN from Gall Hill communities were murderered, one shot and the other brutally stabbed.Kobea Kemar Brathwaite, a product of No. 20 Gall Hill, Christ Church, was shot and killed in Briar Hall while Colin White was stabbed in the throat in Gall Hill, St John, making it a bloody weekend following the death of Pinelands basketball point-guard Kirk Patrick, who was gunned down on Friday near his Hilltop, Princess Avenue home in The Pine.Brathwaite, 21, was shot in the back of the head in the wee hours of Saturday morning while attending a fete and his mother, Kathy, is crying out for an end to gun violence.“There are too many guns on the street. Anybody that can pick up a handgun and shoot someone in the back of the head is a coward and a murderer,” she said.A grief-stricken Kathy can’t even bear to look at her son’s lifeless body.“Up to now, I haven’t seen my child. I can’t handle it. The person who shot my son has inflicted great pain on my family. My son has gone to a resting place and it is his family who is feeling it now.“I don’t work and I can’t afford to bury my child. They have hurt his family and we haven’t done them anything,” she said.There were several black flags draped on fences and posts in memory of Brathwaite, a product of St George Secondary, who also leaves to mourn sisters Danielle, 21, Nikita, 13, Alexis, 8, brother Terrence, 17, and girlfriend Aretha Franklyn.“He was strong-headed and stubborn, but he was a good brother and was generous,” Danielle said.“He was a good son. He would take the shirt off his back and give you. He loved his sisters, especially his sister, Alexis, who lives in New York,” Kathy added.Brathwaite passed away late Saturday night, just a few hours after White was fatally knifed after a dispute with another man about 8:30 p.m.White, 46, was rushed by ambulance to the hospital but passed away on arrival.Inspector David Welch of the Royal Barbados Police Force said he was  extremely concerned at the high level of violent crime and “disregard for human life”.Welch said he was seeking the public cooperation in providing information that would lead to the capture of the perpetrators.