The Tribune

By LYNAIRE MUNNINGS

Tribune Staff Reporter

lmunnings@tribunemedia.net

SONIA Kemp waited ten years to hear a jury forewoman utter a single word: “Guilty.”

When one failed to do so on Tuesday – announcing instead that three men were not guilty of killing four people in Fox Hill in 2013 - her wounds reopened, mirroring the night she learned of her son’s death.

“From my core, I am devastated,” Ms Kemp told The Tribune yesterday. “I have waited ten years just to get some justice, and I have been following the case, and to go to court and not get a guilty verdict, it’s devastating for me, my family, and the whole of Fox Hill.

“Everybody’s devastated because we all waited and wanted justice. That was a big shooting that they did on (Freedom Park) where so many lives were impacted.”

“Emotionally, I am a wreck. (Tuesday) I left court and I cried until I think it was after 12am. I just literally cried because my heart was broken all over again. I felt like my son had just died on that park and all of my emotions came back to me.”

Ms Kemp’s son, Shaquille Demeritte, was one of four people killed when bullets sprayed a park in Fox Hill on December 27, 2013. Claudezino Davis, Eric Morrison and Shenique Sands were the other victims. In addition to the four people killed, six others were wounded as they gathered to await Junkanoo results that night.

After a seven-week trial, Peter Rolle, Jermaine Curry and Justin Williams were acquitted of murder charges on Tuesday – the third and likely final time the men were tried over the incident.

Ms Kemp, 51, said she has frequently seen the now-acquitted men since the shooting incident.

She said she has forgiven whoever is responsible for her son’s death.

She conceded that her efforts to get justice have now ended.

“I said if (I) you don’t get justice down here on earth, when we all get to heaven, God in his own right, he will serve justice, and I’m holding on to that,” she said. “The persons that killed my son, I don’t have no bad feelings towards them.

“I have forgiven them, and I actually want them to get their life right with God.”

Kimberly Ferguson, the aunt of Shenique Sands, a mother of three, said the judicial system failed relatives of the victims.

“Personally, it hurts, it really hurts,” she said.

“My older sister, who was the mother of the deceased, I personally think that Shenique’s death was one of the reasons why she passed away. She worried herself out of this world, just pinning on the loss of her daughter.”

Ms Ferguson said her faith in God convinces her that justice will prevail someday.

“Personally, I say we just give it to God and let Him finish fight the battle,” she said. “I think it has been long for us with that situation, because they were four innocent people. They were four innocent persons, and at the end of the day, there was no justice for any of them.”