The Tribune

By SANCHESKA DORSETT

Tribune Staff Reporter

Sdorsett@tribunemedia.net

TWO white teddy bears now hang from the tree that Dennis Moss used for his car wash business.

The 24-year-old entrepreneur was killed in a hail of bullets Monday evening as he was walking through a short cut on Farrington Road.

It was an incident that would also claim the life of eight-year-old Eugene Woodside Jr, as he sat inside his home doing homework with his older sister.

Inner-city communities are rapidly becoming cemeteries, according to Khandi Gibson, president of Families of All Murder Victims (FOAM), as she advocated for safe spaces to shelter at-risk youth.

With an office in Farrington Road, Ms Gibson recounted numerous area murders within the past few years, telling The Tribune that the violence has only increased with little to no support for poor communities terrorized by gun violence.

She placed two teddy bears on the spot where Mr Moss, who she said was a friend of hers, would hang out and wash cars.

Ms Gibson said she hopes to erect a tent for a car wash in his honour and hire neighbourhood children to give them a chance to earn money and "get off the streets".

"The communities are now turning into cemeteries," she said.

"The guys hang here they don't want them hang here, they go across there, they don't want them hang them there. So where must they hang? Where can they come together, if the police see them together they will arrest them. Where is their freedom? They saying don't hang out but DJ (Dennis) got killed walking through the cut.

"The other day two brothers got killed right across the street, in the back of this office there was another young man killed and about a year ago another man got killed across the street as well, come on man!”

Ms Gibson said: "Something needs to be done. These boys are being gunned down on the street in cold blood. We need a solution. We are in a crisis in this country. Our Bahama land should be a beautiful place, it is not. We are not safe. No one feels safe. We are in fear."

The brazen daytime attack in the densely populated area came after the gunman chased Mr Moss, running between houses in the Rosebud Street area as he firing. The killings took the country’s murder count to 105 for the year, according to The Tribune’s records.

Mr Moss' grandmother, 75-year-old Florence Rolle, told The Tribune that she just wants to know why someone killed her "baby boy", who she described as a loner. She said Farrington Road is no longer the calm, peaceful community it once was. The sound of bullets is an almost weekly occurrence, she said.

"I feel very bad about what happened, it was sad and shocking news and I did not expect that to happen. He never bothered anyone, he stayed to himself, he never messed with no one. He never carried on with the boys that hang around on the blocks, not to my knowledge," she said.

"I don't know what happened, the police haven't told us anything. I feel very bad that the little boy died too and it was nice that the Prime Minister visited their house, it is so sad what happened. They are my neighbours and I feel their pain too. It is a hard time for everyone. We are all just trying to deal with it. This area is so violent now, not like how it used to be. It's so much shooting, so much death."

On Wednesday, police said they had found the getaway vehicle they believe was used by the person responsible for the senseless daylight shooting that left Eugene and Denis dead.

The silver coloured Nissan minivan was found early Wednesday morning in bushes on Boyd Road, near a cemetery.

Anyone with information is asked to contact police at 911 or 919, the Central Detective Unit at 502-9991 or Crime Stoppers anonymously at 328-TIPS.