The Tribune

By RASHAD ROLLE

Tribune Staff Reporter

rrolle@tribunemedia.net

MARIO Williams wants to forgive the man whose truck careened down East Street on Labour Day, killing his sister, but first he wants to see the findings of the investigation into the tragedy. 

“There might be some things I don’t know that certainly might change my mood,” said Mr Williams, brother of Tammi Gibson, one of four women killed during the Labour Day parade on June 1.

Nearly two months after the accident, Chief Police Superintendent Ken Strachan said the investigation’s findings are not yet ready to be made public.

For the victims’ families, closure continues to be delayed, even for people like Mr Williams who is inclined to forgive the person at the centre of the investigation. Mr Williams doesn’t rule out the possibility that a fact might be unearthed during the investigation that changes his attitude, but he is interested in conciliation.

“There’s a possibility that something else might step in there that for a moment would want you to think differently (about forgiveness),” he said. “There’s different stories I’ve heard at this point about what happened that day. I read some things out there in the media. I still will more or less be on the side that says there’s some forgiveness that needs to be done because it was an accident. It might hurt to learn some of the truth unfortunately but it might also be what people look for in terms of closure.

“I think forgiveness still has to be there if we want to get over everything. That’s something I believed from the very beginning without knowing much of the story. It was not a young man who came out there with the intention of harming anybody, because then my feelings would be different.”

Mr Williams isn’t comfortable with the length of the accident investigation. 

“I’ve never been in this type of situation before,” he said, “but I would say I think my sister would probably like for somebody to come talk to her and say, ‘this is what we can give you as closure, this is what we can come up with.’ We don’t want things to drag on and on.”

A relative of Kathleen Fernander, another woman killed that day, was more emphatic about her feelings on the police investigation, saying the family feels “it is taking a bit too long.”

“It isn’t easy,” she said, describing Fernander’s death as “fresh like it happened yesterday.”

The relative, who did not want to be named, said: “I still can’t come to grips with what happened. We need some closure. What happened? How did it happen?”

The families want to meet the driver of the truck.

Asked what he would say to him, Mr Williams said: “I might want to say to him be careful in the future. Be more cognizant of the situation around you and the things you do.

“Unfortunately, this is a hard lesson for him but then he has to also sit down and be thankful to God that one, it wasn’t worse because this was bad but in the situation going on it could’ve been worse. From my point of view, I probably would say ‘I can forgive you and you now have to pray to God to forgive you.’”

Mr Williams knows family and friends of the truck driver. Talking to them has softened his attitude toward the young man, he said. 

“I didn’t know him personally but his mom and my sister and other persons who I know were very closely related in terms of their work and environment and them being in the same organisation and the fact that she encouraged him to come and be a part of this by taking them and then this happens,” he said. “It was tragic for more than a number of people.”

In addition to Gibson, 48, and Fernander, 51, Dianne Elizabeth Ferguson, 55, and Tabitha Charlene Haye, 41, were also killed on Labour Day after a truck ploughed through march participants.

About two dozen others were also injured.

At the time of the incident, police said the tragedy struck when control was lost of a black Ford F150 vehicle.

“The driver of that vehicle was accompanied by three persons on the back and another individual inside the vehicle,” Assistant Commissioner of Police Kendal Strachan said in June. “It is understood that when he got out of it, it went forward colliding first with a child along the side of the street, then descending the hill, continuing north running into several persons who were participating in the Labour Day parade along the eastern side of East Street, coming to rest against a Nissan Micra and the building just at that intersection.”