Loved ones of Selvon Jack, a 50-year-old Morvant resident gunned down in a mass shooting at a Laventille gas station over the weekend, gathered on Monday to celebrate and remember the life of a man they uniformly describe as gentle, hardworking, and entirely innocent of any connection to local violence.
Jack was one of three men killed when unidentified gunmen stormed the Unipet gas station, located at the intersection of Eastern Main Road and Morvant Old Road, shortly after 9 a.m. on Saturday, opening fire on the site. He was caught in the line of fire and struck by a stray bullet, cutting short a life that relatives say had never touched criminal activity. The other two victims have been formally identified as 29-year-old Makal Campbell of Poui Street, Morvant, and 23-year-old Malique Akhil Williams of Erica Street, Laventille.
According to details shared with the Express, Jack had left his Critchlow Hill home earlier that morning to drive a neighbor to a local church service. He was making his return trip when he stopped at the gas station, walking directly into the violent attack that would claim his life. What makes the tragedy even more devastating for Jack’s family is that he had just turned 50 two days before the shooting, and had been planning a full weekend of birthday celebrations when he was killed.
Sean Jack, Selvon’s younger brother, spoke to reporters on Monday after formally identifying his brother’s body at the Forensic Science Centre in Federation Park. He said that the pair, though siblings, had been close friends their entire lives. “I could not even properly view him in the Centre as it was a painful thing to see because I know my brother and he died for things that was not his fault,” Sean said.
He added that if his brother had been involved in dangerous or criminal activity, the loss would have been painful but easier to contextualize. “If he knew his brother had ‘cocoa in the sun’ then I would have understood. I may have been sad but I would have said, ‘well, the life caught up to him’,” Sean explained. “But that was my brother and my partner. He did air-conditioning work and he loved music. The only run-in with the law was a traffic ticket for loud music and improper horn use. That was the most criminal thing he did. Beyond that, he just used to go to work and come back.”
“Everybody hurting right now and he was an innocent man killed for being in the wrong place at the wrong time,” he added. “While we know there are criminal operating in and around our community, we never associated with them. He was a quiet person outside of his music. He never used to even talk harshly to anyone, and it is a hurtful thing to see when it hits home because if he was into that kind of thing (crime), you could have said, ‘karma catch up to him’ but, that was never his thing.”
On Monday, Jack’s friends and neighbors gathered not for a somber formal wake, but for a casual “lime” — a traditional local gathering — at a nearby community recreation center to share memories of Jack. One close friend, who goes by the nickname “Fire”, emphasized that the gathering was not a typical funeral vigil, but the kind of gathering Jack would have joined any day of the week.
“It was sad and no one looked for him being killed like that at all, and he did good up to his last,” Fire said. “The man could not even talk hard. The man was one of the best you could have found in the world. All the man knew was about his work, his family and his old school music.”
Another friend echoed that sentiment, describing Jack as one of the most driven, dedicated people he had ever met. “He was a hard-working man. He was a contractor and that was just it. He used to keep to himself. It was work, then home and then work again. He would not even hang out on the block,” the friend said.