A well known Belize City man was killed on Friday night – and best accounts say, he was shot a bullet which was intended for someone else. Emmerson Bruce Faber, known as Bo was a stevedore, and a former semi-pro basketball player. And the 43 year old was in his neighbourhood on Friday night when death came looking for him. Jacqueline Godwin found out more today.

Jacqueline Godwin Reporting,
The motive is still unclear but one thing is certain, the area residents strongly believe that Emerson Faber was not the intended target. He was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Norma Raynard, Common Law Wife of Murder Victim
“He makes a lot of noise, tease everybody, makes everybody happy. Everybody sad about what happened but I don’t think they meant to kill him. It wasn’t him they meant to kill because nobody wants him dead. Nobody wants Emerson dead.”

Voice of Josephine Faber, Daughter of murder victim
“He was innocently shot because I don’t know anybody who would want to hurt my father because my father is a friendly person. Before he quarrelled with you, he would prefer to drink something and done so I don’t see what is the problem for them to come that night. I don’t know what is the problem or what incident gone on. I don’t know what to say.”

What is known is that sometime after nine on Saturday night forty three year old Emerson Faber popularly known as “Biggy Bo” was sitting around this makeshift table to the back of an alley off East Collet Canal. He was enjoying a game of dice with four other men when they came under fire. The shooters described only as two armed young men were hiding behind this zinc fence at the back of the yard about fifty to seventy feet from where the men were seated. They let loose with more than eighteen shots.

There is no evidence that suggests the gunmen jumped the fence but took aim. The bullets ripped through this zinc and cement fence as everyone tried to get out of harm’s way. But Emerson Faber was hit several times in his upper chest. He managed to make it out of the alley but collapsed just around the corner in front of this Chinese grocery store on East Canal Street.

Bernard Bradley, Victim of Gun Violence
“About twenty minutes after I got in then I heard the blasts. So I came through this door but I didn’t see none of the men who got shot. All I saw was blood down here and blood by the chiney.”

One of the first persons to rush to his side was his daughter Josephine Faber. Still in shock and grief over her father’s murder, Josephine declined an on camera interview but told her she had just left her dad’s side when all hell broke loose.

Voice of Josephine Faber,
“And I see all of them back there with their heads down, everybody into the dice game. Now I swing around to tell the person who came to holler for me that I was going back home because I already saw him. I didn’t even finish telling the person that and I just heard the shots started to fire. When the shots started to fire I saw everybody run to the ground but I saw him drop and hold his chest but at that time I thought he was frightened. So I ran towards the bridge and headed home. But then I became conscious that the shots were done and I said my father still hasn’t come through the alley yet. So I ran back and when I ran back, I saw him turn and was walking through the alley going towards Berkeley Street side and I hollered for him and he didn’t look back. But before he could even look back, all I noticed is that he collapsed.”

Josephine with the help of neighbours rushed her father to the Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital but he died close to two hours after he was shot. Thirty six year old Calvin Nicolas was also shot and he is hospitalized in the KHMH. He is one of the group who reportedly sought shelter behind this zinc fence but he still got shot to the left side of the chest, right arm and right wrist.

Word on the street is that the shooting is as a result of an ongoing feud between two groups of young men.

Voice of Josephine Faber,
“We are just going by what people say. We don’t know, we are just going by what we hear; like hearsay.”

Jacqueline Godwin,
And what is it they are saying?

Voice of Josephine Faber,
“Hearsay is saying that it is the younger one are coming to shoot because the younger ones who hang around here, I don’t really know. But barely anybody is out here at night, it is just him and like the next one who got shot and another next friend out here. It is three of them who are always the last ones to go home.”

Norma Raynard,
“Just some I would say simple little boys because those big boys, nobody deh pan that. Those boys are on party timing. Those boys aren’t shooting anybody. When was the last time you heard something happen on George Street. You don’t hear anything about George Street. It is just little ones who are coming out with guns in their hands, trigger happy, and doing a lot of simpleness but it is not really George Street like what people are saying; George Street and Rocky Road. No, George Street would never hurt Bo.”

Grace Flowers J.P., Concerned Family Member
“The older guys don’t really the deal with this, it is only younger ones like 14 or 15. We don’t have problems with those older guys around so and I don’t think they have problems with the older ones down this side but these are only young ones. I don’t know where they pop up from.”

The area is known for gun violence but following the shooting deaths of twenty four year old Kenrick Johnson in 2004 and in 2005 the murder of twenty one year old Sydney Bradley things had relatively been quiet and there was even a strong police presence. Today violent crime has returned to the neighbourhood and there seems to be a lack of security in the area. Delma Bradley lost her common law husband, brother and now her cousin to the senseless shootings.

Delma Bradley, Victim of Gun Violence
“Most of the times is those little boys from around all over the place and those ‘lil boys who hang around here, they don’t even live here and that is causing the confusion. I don’t know what is the problem with them but they seem to come hang around here and they don’t come associate with everybody else and well everybody laugh and talk and we don’t know what is happening.”

Jacqueline Godwin,
You think they were sending a message and unfortunately the wrong individual got shot here?

Delma Bradley,
“Miss I really don’t what to say about that situation. I honestly don’t know but I just get tired of this nonsense which is happening here every time. Every time man di drop because of other people and I get enough of it. This is three persons gaan down, three persons.”

Jacqueline Godwin,
And three persons close to you.

Delma Bradley,
“Exactly. Three persons; my brother, one of my cousins and first it was my common-law.”

Jacqueline Godwin,
Why do you remain in the neighbourhood after losing so much?

Delma Bradley,
“Dah yah I live. I born and grow up here. From I know myself, dah yah so I live.”

Bernard Bradley,
“I couldn’t believe that somebody dead. I just believed that somebody was shooting just like that. Three somebody, my son got killed.”

Jacqueline Godwin,
And your son was shot right through this alley.

Bernard Bradley,
“Right at the lamp post right there. The lee bally mi get life time.”

Jacqueline Godwin,
And now another individual has lost his life.

Bernard Bradley,
“He was my nephew in law who got shot and then my son in law got shot right there.”

Jacqueline Godwin,
But one spell things mi die down through this neighbourhood. You think something is starting up again?

Bernard Bradley,
“Well I don’t really know but good while nothing never happened.”

In fact area residents said on the night of the murder head of Eastern Division David Henderson told them that there should have been a police presence in the area.

Delma Bradley,
“Henderson the tell we out here that he sent walking man on the block and none was here and when he came it is like it surprised him because he said that they belonged out here and he will go and deal with them right now, he would them on suspension or fire them.”

Voice of Josephine Faber,
“The only thing I did try to say is that when they were supposed to be out here they weren’t out here and every time a shooting happens around here, somebody ends up dead around here, it is here they come and trigger. They don’t go where they say the gunman comes from. It is here they come and harass the young men who aren’t even doing anything because when they are gambling back there, it is only grown people. No young person is back there. It is only people in their thirties, jump thirties. So I don’t know what is the problem. I don’t know why they are coming to kill people like that for. To me they are not solving anything.”

Delma Bradley,
“I would want them to be around here twenty four seven. But most of the time some of them come, walking man pass, go about their business, and when something happens it is then they haul up here.”

Grace Flowers J.P.,
“First we used to have police presence but since they shifted around and they changed up, that hasn’t happened. To be honest, that noh di happen and I try reach out to high peoples and they say they will do this and nothing gets done. We mention it to them that somebody will get killed around here and it is so said, so done.”

The families who reside in the alley are now forced to live like prisoners in their homes scared to venture beyond their screened front doors.

Grace Flowers J.P.,
“I have my mom who lives in this neighbourhood. I born and grow up around here, only that I don’t live around here again. My kids don’t live around here but I have family through this same alley where three somebody done get gun down and we really need for them to stop. Everyday we are around here and we watch what is happening. I try to reach out to people for help but they don’t pay you any mind. I don’t know what is going on.”

Bernard Bradley,
“I don’t really fear, only if I hear gunshots then I get fear. But other wise I don’t stay out late, I am a man who is in from around 7 most of the time.”

Jacqueline Godwin,
You have to lock down from early because you never know when you will hear those gunshots.

Bernard Bradley,
”But those boys live through the alley here too but I say I don’t have any reason to be out.

From the number of children’s clothing hang out to dry on this line it is truly worrisome that so many kids lives are at risk

Emogene Trapp, Area Resident
“I want it to stop because they have innocent children in the yard so it has to stop. Something has to stop.”

Voice of Josephine Faber,
“By eight o’clock everybody has to lock up. Sometimes you are out here and you see them riding pass on bicycles; every minute they are circling. Sometimes they would be at the lane di stand up and people will holler we have to watch out and we would have to run. The last time we were out here they came to shoot up and a lot of children out here. That is what they fail to realize, a lot of little pickney live through here.”

7News understands that the police have one person detained

Voice of Josephine Faber,
“My father lives around there so I don’t know what is the problem. He is not a trouble man. My father is a hardworking man you can ask anybody because he is a well known person so I don’t know why they would want to kill my father.”

Norma Raynard,
“I would just want this crazy death be an example to just stop because I know who shot him is sorry they shot him because he didn’t do that person nothing because he didn’t do anybody anything. So I would just want it to done right here with Bo, no kind of retaliation. Make it done, make Bo cause it to done, make Bo’s death makes the violence stop.”

Grace Flowers J.P.,
“I concerned because like I tell you my mom lives around here and she says she is not moving to please nobody. So we really need to make somebody in authority come and mek wi get together and deal with this problem.”

Norma Raynard,
“I would a want it stop, I don’t want them to retaliate and I think Bo wouldn’t want any kind of retaliation neither. I think Bo would want it stop too, make it done. Make the shootings just stop. An innocent person get dead. Just make it stop.”

Jacqueline Godwin for 7News.

Though neighbours told us who had been detained, police could not confirm that detention.