NASSAU, BAHAMAS — As this year’s homicide count levels with the number of recorded killings last year, many families are still struggling with the trauma of losing a loved one to gun violence and lingering grief.
Dellarese Collie, a mother of three living in Nassau, said the death of her son Kendino McDonald as a result of gun violence is a pain that she has not gotten over to this day. According to her, McDonald was fatally struck as soon as he came out of prison on bail.
“I still can’t get over that, it’s still a blow,” Collie said.
“Because this kind of time now, he would have been home getting ready, getting stuff to paint the house. […] he would look out like our watchman, like if anybody would come to my house or the neighbor’s house and stuff. He was always, he was a loving child.”
Collie maintains that her son was innocent, honest, and upfront about issues. Almost two years after his passing, she believes that the person who shot him killed him in a jealous rage.
Over the past decade, the number of homicides has remained elevated, reaching an all-time high in 2015 when 156 murders were recorded. Numbers trended downward in the years following with 79 people killed in 2019 and 73 in 2020.
Numbers shot back up in 2021 with 119 on record as the country eased out of lockdowns and the COVID-19 pandemic, and this year, the country is on par with last year’s count with a little over a month left.
Collie said that she has become bitter after the family had to deal with law enforcement and the slow-paced judicial system in which her son spent three years in jail awaiting a court date. She also alleged that police beat her son to get him to sign a document that incriminated him.
“The law is unfair […] I really don’t think it’s fair, my whole child done gone. That ain’t a dog that’s a human, but like I said God don’t sleep you know, God don’t sleep and he don’t slumber you know.”
A close friend of the bereaved mother said that she became physically ill after McDonald died and she was admitted to the hospital as a result of the stress which triggers a heart condition. Collie said that after the incident with McDonald, she has been more protective of her other two sons.
[…] I have two other boys and I held them to my heart, they don’t see company from work, home, we’re all still bitter because of their brother, and my son, Kendino was the life of the party,” she said.
Sangia Griffin said her brother, Michael Thompson, died from a bullet to the head at the age of 19, twenty-four years ago. Additionally, she expressed disappointment in witnessing the rate at which many young people are affected by crime, and murder in particular. She recalled the words of a child a few years ago when a shooting took place in the Montel Heights neighborhood.
“One little girl was only about three years old who was living in that area, she ran inside and was like, ‘aw they just kill another one’ like that’s something common you know.”
The Bain and Grants Town resident also recalled when her other brother was fatally stabbed 27 times and struck in the head with a concrete block by a group of individuals. She said she was not satisfied with the sentencing after the matter came out of court, and only felt justice took place after she and her family heard that the convicted murderer had been violently killed.
“We had to wait for ten years until the person who killed him got killed, that was our justice, because when my sister had found out that he (their brother’s murderer) had got shot and he had gotten killed she come by me […] and she said I waited ten years for this.”
She said that she thinks nepotism in the police force is a hindrance to justice and suggested that the Bahamas bring in officers from other countries to assist in the crime fight who are neutral and unbiased.
“You see if I go to report a complaint against you, you have someone in the system who is an officer, my complaint never gets put through. […] you trying to make sure that your family doesn’t get locked up but your family doing the crime.
“[…] if you ain’t their cousin, you ain’t their nephew, you ain’t their brother, then I feel like the law could be enforced; but right now we have too much family on the force and everybody is try to call this cousin, this brother, this uncle, this daddy, and then you don’t ever get your punishment so you don’t ever learn not to do it again.”
Having lost six of her brothers and three to four of her nephews to violence, Griffin is a single mother of seven, six girls and one boy, she said that she continues to cover him in prayer because of the harsh realities of criminal activity in the country that has also bled into schools.
“I have one son, he is six years old, […] in the next seven-eight years I gatta be fretting and worrying about sending my child to school because he going around these aggressive young men who if you look at them too hard or he doesn’t want to answer them, they will jick my child up.
If the number of killings in the country surpasses last year’s 119-person count, it will be the fourth-highest within the last decade.
