The Tribune

By LEANDRA ROLLE

Tribune Staff Reporter

lrolle@tribunemedia.net

THE brother of a man fatally shot in Nassau Village on Sunday said he will never forget the moment his sibling took his last breath in his arms after being shot in front of their home.

Godfrey “Rob” Sawyer, 40, became the country’s 32nd murder victim of the year, according to this newspapers records, after he was shot late Sunday night in the Nassau Village community.

Police said Sawyer was standing on the porch of his home on Jackson Street shortly after 11pm when he was approached by two men. “An argument ensued, one of the males produced a handgun and shot the male. The suspects left the scene in a white bus in an unknown direction,” the Royal Bahamas Police Force said in a statement yesterday.

Police said paramedics were then called to the scene, but pronounced him dead. “He coughed the last breath out of him in my arms,” his brother told The Tribune yesterday. “He couldn’t tell me who shoot him or who kill him.”

Shawn “Junior” Sawyer said he was sleeping when he heard gunshots Sunday night, believing it to be somewhere in the area. Having spoken to his brother just hours before the incident, Mr Sawyer said he was shocked when his mother told him it was his relative who had been shot.

“When I hear the first shot, I thought it was the area. I never know it did hit my backdoor,” he said. “So, I hear the rambling on the porch and my mother say ‘smokey, my son’.

“I say ‘your son’? She say ‘Rob out there getting killed’ and I say ‘what’ so when I opened the door, the n•••• shoot the shot. When he shoot the shot, I push the door and I push my mummy on the side.”

He added: “So, I say ‘mummy’ and my mummy say she rather die and save her son. I say ‘mom, I can’t lose two.’ I push my mummy in and when I opened the door, all I could see is a white shirt and a black pants. And so, when everything happened, I come and hold my brother and that’s the last time I hold my brother.”

Recalling the ordeal as one that he will never forget, Mr Sawyer told The Tribune yesterday the family is completely distraught over his brother’s murder.

Describing his brother as a “family man” who loved to make people laugh, Mr Sawyer said while he was not perfect, he was trying to change his life for the better.

“He ain’t had no kids. Our kids were he kids so he was like a family person. He just got a job and he was working and he was trying to stop drinking and things like that,” he said.

“He wasn’t a perfect child but he was a person who liked to crack jokes but some people does take it personally but he just like to make you laugh or entertain you.”

Mr Sawyer added the family wants justice for his brother, but nothing that would lead to more bloodshed.

“We just want the police to do their job and to do it the right way and do their job. Don’t say this is that and that is this. Do right where right is and wrong where wrong is.”

Police said officers, acting upon information, were able to locate the vehicle fitting the description from Sunday’s incident and arrested two 35-year-old males, who are currently assisting officers with the investigation.

“Acting on information officers from an operations unit while in the Pinewood Gardens area observed a bus fitting the description. A short chase ensued which ended in two 35-year old males being arrested; they are assisting the police with the investigation,” police said.