A six-year-old boy was yes­ter­day nurs­ing in­juries at hos­pi­tal fol­low­ing a mass shoot­ing on Sat­ur­day in Ari­ma, which left his moth­er, fa­ther and un­cle dead.

The pri­ma­ry school pupil was shot in both legs dur­ing the dead­ly home in­va­sion at La Re­treat Ex­ten­sion, Heights of Gua­napo, Ari­ma, which claimed the lives of Ani­cia James, 47; her broth­er Anslem James, 49; and her com­mon-law hus­band Mitchell Fran­cois, 30.

The na­tion’s first triple homi­cide for the year as a State of Emer­gency (SoE) re­mains in ef­fect, gal­vanised se­nior po­lice of­fi­cers in­to ac­tion as Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (DCP), In­tel­li­gence and In­ves­ti­ga­tions, Suzette Mar­tin; and act­ing DCP, Op­er­a­tions, Curt Si­mon both vis­it­ed the scene.

Po­lice said Ani­cia James would have been in the process of lock­ing up the mod­est mi­ni-mart she op­er­at­ed at the front of her home, around 10.15 pm when two masked gun­men stormed the small house, kicked in the door and opened fire on the oc­cu­pants.

The sus­pects re­port­ed­ly came from the back of the prop­er­ty which was blocked by dense veg­e­ta­tion.

Min­utes af­ter the shoot­ing, the sus­pects ran off via a track lead­ing to a gar­den on the op­po­site side of the road and dis­ap­peared in­to the for­est.

Neigh­bours went to the aid of the three af­ter alert­ing the po­lice.

A male rel­a­tive yes­ter­day claimed po­lice of­fi­cers were present on the street at the time of the shoot­ing, but ac­cord­ing to him, “They did not re­spond as they should have.”

While he re­mained bereft and shak­en he re­count­ed what hap­pened but he was un­cer­tain if the fam­i­ly would get jus­tice for the deaths of the three.

But he ad­mit­ted to be­ing re­as­sured by the vis­it of Mar­tin and Si­mon as he said, “I feel kin­da com­fort­ed by what they tell me, but we will have to see what hap­pens.”

Of­fi­cials were un­able to de­ter­mine the mo­tive be­hind the killings as they said con­flict­ing the­o­ries were be­ing of­fered up in­clud­ing a re­sump­tion of the war be­tween feud­ing gangs in the area; a con­clud­ed court mat­ter in­volv­ing Anslem who was struck by a car; and even a pos­si­ble threat from an af­fil­i­ate of one of the war­ring gangs.

And as in­ves­ti­ga­tors re­turned to the scene of the shoot­ing yes­ter­day to ac­quire aer­i­al footage of the sur­round­ing ter­rain via a drone, they were sur­prised to learn that they were in turn un­der sur­veil­lance by un­known peo­ple al­so us­ing a drone more so­phis­ti­cat­ed than theirs.

Af­ter con­firm­ing that me­dia per­son­nel present had not sent up a drone, of­fi­cers went in search of the op­er­a­tor but were un­suc­cess­ful in lo­cat­ing them.

Speak­ing with re­porters, the rel­a­tive of the slain woman said the fam­i­ly moved to the area more than ten years ago and were not known to be in­volved in any il­le­gal ac­tiv­i­ty.

Ani­cia was a moth­er of four whose el­der two chil­dren are in their 20s and did not live with her; whilst the younger two in­clude a 12-year-old girl and a six-year-old boy.

Claim­ing the fam­i­ly had been op­er­at­ing as nor­mal when they were am­bushed and killed, the rel­a­tive said, “Ani­cia is a hum­ble per­son, help any­body.”

“She would help all her broth­ers and sis­ters...she was just a good soul. She was just try­ing to do the right thing to take care of her chil­dren.”

Anslem on the oth­er hand he claimed, was, “Kin­da men­tal but nor­mal at the same time.”

He clar­i­fied, “He go give peo­ple lil talk and ar­gu­ment or what­ev­er, but no­body didn’t pay him no mind as they know his state.”

He was un­able to say much about Fran­cois.

Even as in­ves­ti­ga­tors combed the area yes­ter­day, peo­ple liv­ing along the street re­mained locked in­side their homes, re­fus­ing to speak or even ven­ture out ex­cept for one man who came to pur­chase two loaves of bread from Ani­cia’s shop.

The rel­a­tive con­firmed, “Every­body is to them­self up here.”

In­di­cat­ing the wel­fare of Ani­cia’s two younger chil­dren would now fall on the shoul­ders of her two el­der chil­dren, he said the fam­i­ly would do their best to pro­vide for them now.

To the gun­men, he urged, “It ain’t mak­ing sense. Yuh killing in­no­cent peo­ple.”

“Even self you come for one per­son, yuh shoot­ing up a house and yuh know it have chil­dren and old­er peo­ple in the house. Look for who­ev­er you want and doh kill in­no­cent peo­ple. It not mak­ing sense.”

It was un­known up to yes­ter­day, if the three CCTV cam­eras in­stalled along the front of the prop­er­ty were op­er­a­tional.

His­to­ry of vi­o­lence

The qui­et com­mu­ni­ties of Dump Road off La Re­treat Road and Heights of Gua­napo came in­to stark fo­cus last year af­ter a se­ries of vi­o­lent shoot­ings claimed the lives of sev­er­al peo­ple in a par­tic­u­lar fam­i­ly.

An­tho­ny John of Riv­er Val­ley Road off La Re­treat Road, was killed on Ju­ly 15, 2024, as he drove in­to his yard.

His mur­der was fol­lowed by the mur­der of Ey­on Mur­ray on Ju­ly 24, 2024 at Dump Road; while Mur­ray’s niece Jamiela Cum­ber­batch was killed af­ter gun­men stormed her house at Dump Road on Ju­ly 30, 2024 and opened fire on the oc­cu­pants.

Cum­ber­batch’s death was fol­lowed by a sim­i­lar gun at­tack on her broth­er Ja­mal Cum­ber­batch on Au­gust 10, 2024, at his moth­er’s house at Par­adise Lane, Va­len­cia.

His 51-year-old moth­er along with his 18-year-old sis­ter and 16-year-old girl­friend were all in­jured dur­ing that in­ci­dent.

In Oc­to­ber 2023 four sib­lings from the Pert­erkin fam­i­ly were shot dead.