Ten people could have seen murder
Area where Victor Yates was murdered on 3 January 2015
(CNS): Although police believe that at least ten people could have seen who shot and killed outside a West Bay bar and restaurant in the early hours of 3 January, no witnesses have come forward. Yates was shot in the head by an unidentified gunman outside Super C’s but despite the number of people there at the time, the police have still not made any arrests.
The RCIPS believes that Yates’ murder was gang-related but his mother told Cayman27 that her son had no gang affiliations.
In the wake of the killing another shooting took place two days later near Pop-a-Top, a local liquor store in the same district. A twenty-year-old man has been arrested in connection with that incident, in which another West Bay man was shot in the wrist. Police say they believe the shootings are connected and Monday’s incident may have been a tit for tat retaliation.
The young man who was wounded in the second shooting posted a picture of himself on Facebook recently with what appeared to be a firearm in his waistband and a caption indicating that he never left home without his gun.
Despite what appears to be a flare-up of the long-standing but often denied local gang rivalries in the district, speaking to the local news channel on Monday, Yates’ mother, Patricia Rivers, said that her son, known as JR, was not involved in gangs at all. She said he was a kind-hearted, respectful young man who worked hard at a full-time job. He enjoyed motorcycles, she said, and was skilled at tricks on them.
With no arrests in the case, she urged people to come forward and help find her son’s killer.
Anyone with information in relation to the murder is asked to contact police on 926 3975 or any police station. To remain anonymous people can call CrimeStoppers on 800 8477 (TIPS).
So sad. Make I wa deh! Woulda sing like canary.. This island disgusting I sware! So much people hurting now for this guy and gonna have to hurt forever and NONE of these people will even help. Smh
-Disgusted Caymanian
PS. The Lord will soon show you all WHO takes and gives life if you think and wrong deed goes unpunished. Bless you all
In the terrible days of IRA murders in crowded pubs in Ireland some years back, the police would find that there were no witnesses as all the potential witnesses all swore that they happened to have gone to the gents lavatory at that moment and so did not see anything. In one famous example, police reckoned from the evidence they were given that there must have been over 40 people in the lavatory at the precise moment of the killing, a lavatory with two urinals and two cubicles.
In Cayman it’s more like, “I Dont know nuttin’ about nuttin’ Bobo”