Sunday, September 28, 2008
GLEN Green last spoke to his three-year-old daughter Gabrielle yesterday morning. She called him and said she had something to tell him which she couldn't tell anyone else.
But before Glen got to hear the secret, he got news that his baby girl, also called Gabby, was dead. She had been shot in the face.
A distraught Orinthia McCalla, grandmother of three-year-old Gabrielle 'Gabby' Green who died at hospital yesterday, is comforted by close friends of the family. The little girl was accidentally shot by her eight-year-old brother at their home in Independence City, Portmore yesterday. (Photo: Garfield Robinson)
A distraught Orinthia McCalla, grandmother of three-year-old Gabrielle 'Gabby' Green who died at hospital yesterday, is comforted by close friends of the family. The little girl was accidentally shot by her eight-year-old brother at their home in Independence City, Portmore yesterday. (Photo: Garfield Robinson)
Even more tragic was that the fatal blow was dealt by the girl's eight-year-old brother as the two played innocently with a loaded gun.
"She call mi and say 'daddy hurry up an come home because mi have something to tell yuh, an mi nuh waan tell nuhbaddy else'. An mi sey it so strange because yesterday (Friday) mi an har and har mother go buy some tings and she just stuck on to me. She nuh lef me. Mi carry har go shop an she say 'daddy mi want dis', an mi buy dem give har. An now mi nuh get fi hear wha shi did waan say," he said, using a black handkerchief to wipe the tears that had welled up and were streaming down his face.
And although the impact on the father and other relatives must be unbearable, it is Gabby's brother whose memory will perhaps be forever haunted.
When the Sunday Observer visited the house where he lived with his sister, mother and maternal grandmother in Independence City, Portmore near midday yesterday, he was crying uncontrollably.
He sat at the feet of his grandmother, Orinthia McCalla, laid his head in her lap and wept sorrowfully. He is only eight, but he knew what had happened. He knew his sister had died. He knew he had accidentally caused it.
"Ah [him] mi sorry fah," one woman said. "Di poor thing look like him ah tun eediat. Him nuh stap scratch scratch himself like supp'n ah bite him."
Neighbours soon after took him to the paediatrician at the nearby Child Care Medical Centre to be examined
and counselled.
McCalla said she and her daughter were in the kitchen preparing breakfast at the time of the tragic incident. They thought the children were at the front of the yard where they had left them playing. They didn't know the game had changed or that it had moved inside the house until the ear-piercing explosion rang out, signalling that something had gone horribly wrong.
"Ah di explosion we hear an we bolt go inside. We meet him ah di doorway ah bawl and then we see har," McCalla said, sitting in a chair across from her house as the police processed the scene.
She went from staring blankly into space, glancing up at the skies calling on God.
"Wha mi a go do? Wha mi a go do?," she cried out. "Mi gran' pickney dem, mi gran' pickney dem."
The children, she said, had apparently been rummaging through the suitcase of an uncle who had just returned from abroad. He had told them he carried gifts for them but the children couldn't wait; they went to find it themselves. What they found however, was not sparkly gift wrap or shiny ribbons. It was their uncle's 9mm pistol.
The Gregory Park police reported yesterday that the firearm was licensed, but they took the uncle in for questioning. He was released pending investigation.
"Yuh know why mi feel it so?," asked McCalla. "If mi did have pickney weh bad and weh go outta di way [mi probably woulda seh is pay back, but mi nuh have no pickney like dat. Ah dat mek mi feel it so," the mother of four said. "Mi family come so far. Everybody big now and nutten [bad] neva happen. Why now? Why now Jesus? Satan is a liar. Ah bind him and sen him back to the pit of hell where him belong," she said, her tone sad and low.
Neighbours described Gabby as "nice", "friendly", "pretty" and "bright". "Nobody nuh pass pan di road an she nuh call to them," one man said.
"She was a pretty, pretty baby. She was sweet and sensible, we lickkle sunshine," McCalla said, recounting things her granddaughter had said.
"To how she pretty and bright, mi just say to miself maybe she neva come here to stay."
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