Parents say they heard shots, but had no idea it was ‘Smokey’

The parents of shooting victim Recardo Roberts both say they heard the barrage of gunshots that claimed their son’s life, but had no idea that he was the receiving end of the assault.{{more}}

Elrick and Gloria Roberts spoke to SEARCHLIGHT on Sunday evening, three days after the 28-year-old died as a result of multiple gunshots in Kingstown Park.

According to witnesses, Roberts was standing at the side of the road, speaking with others, when a tinted brown car pulled up next to him.

Three men, wearing masks, jumped out of the vehicle, shot Roberts about his body, re-entered the vehicle and drove away in the direction of Redemption Sharpes.

“I was round there washing and I heard the gun shots… and I say if is gunshots, that person get it good, but I didn’t think it was ‘Cardo’ because I know he does go studio every night… so I keep washing still….” Gloria told SEARCHLIGHT.

“And the neighbour daughter run down and say ‘Miss Roberts, Miss Roberts, Cardo get shoot and he dead,’ and I say ‘no’ and I drop the clothes and run up the road.”

The mother of four said that when she reached the area where Recardo, also known as Smokey fell, she was calm and composed at the time.

“I sit down next to him and while I sit down I just doll down his hair, and soon as I lift up his shirt and I look down and I behold… the blood and the holes in his chest I start to cry, and I scream ‘til my pressure fly so high I end up in the hospital.”

Elrick on the other hand, said he saw his son about 15 minutes before he was killed.

He recalled that his son had met him down the road, and asked him for some ice, because he was going home to make juice.

“I was out the road… in the junction when I hear the bullets them. I say I wonder who get the bullets them. I say any body who get them gone through.

“Then I hear people screaming up the road, so I walk up the road.

“In the junction by the church, a man run down the road and say is ‘Smokey dead up dey you know, go tell he mother’ so I say ‘you go tell she,’ and I go up.

Elrick said that when he got to the area, Smokey was not quite dead, but was gasping for breath and his eyes were blinking.

Shortly after that, Smokey took his last breath.

The parents say that although they are grieving, they are trying to hold it together for the rest of the family circle, which includes two of the dead man’s children, an eight-year-old son and a seven-year-old daughter.

A third child, aged two years old, lives with his mother in another community.

Smokey was the 12th of 16 children for Elrick, who has eight sons and eight daughters.

The parents say that they were unaware of all of their son’s activities, and that he never complained about anything.

They say Recardo was sometimes blamed for things that he was not responsible for.

“We have no idea who and why. We are not pointing fingers,” his father declared. “He had friends, he had enemies. We might be hearing he did things, but we can’t confirm, because he will come here, make he lunch, eat and drink and then we don’t know where he is going or what he is doing for that matter.”

“At home, he was loving and friendly and make jokes with everybody… but he was a kinda rough guy, and nobody could trouble anybody when he was around.

“His name call up in things, which we know definitely is not him. It have things he name call in when he was here in he bed.

“But it might have people who might like him for it and people who wont like him for that, but at this point in time, we have no fingers to point at anybody.”

Gloria also pointed out that her son was an aspiring musician, who was on the verge of releasing a number of tracks.

He also was a music vendor, plying his trade in Kingstown under the ACE gallery, close to the Salvation Army church, and also owned a snack shop.

Roberts will be laid to rest at the Kingstown cemetery tomorrow, after a funeral service at the Grace Community Baptist Church in Kingstown Park. (JJ)