The year, 2011 will be remembered as the bloodiest year in Saint Lucia’s recent history, a record that was once held by the previous year.
With 12 police shootings and 37 murders so far, and with just two weeks left before the year vanishes, never to return, 2011 has certainly left its mark on Saint Lucia.
But the 49 homicides recorded to date are but one part of the bloodshed that dominated the headlines throughout the year.
Shooting incident after shooting incident plus other violent confrontations involving other weapons, like knives and cutlasses resulted in more spilled blood.
One recent shooting incident at Hospital Road Wednesday night fortunately did not end in spilled blood but served to frighten a woman here on vacation.
The terrified woman, who miraculously came out of the ordeal unscathed, did not sleep in the one bedroom structure that night and shudders every time she remembers the incident and the bullet riddled walls of the apartment.
Neighbours claimed that the woman opened the door after it was knocked on by someone outside. She jerked back immediately after recognizing that the person who knocked was not there to make her acquaintance but rather was there to hurt someone after she recognized a gun in his hand.
Reports are that she jerked back at the same time a bullet was fired, an instinctive reaction which probably saved her life as the bullet missed her.
The shooter then fired eight shots into the house standing directly in front the opened door. Bullets clipped the walls in the house others broke the door’s glass pane. None lodged in human flesh.
Reports circulating are that the shooting was intended for a male occupant who lived in that apartment. That male occupant was recently released from Bordelais having spent several years there.
(Source http://www.thevoiceslu.com/local_news/2011/december/17_12_11/Bloodiest.htm)
