A thick fog of sorrow and stunned disbelief has settled over the tight-knit Lower Carlton community in Barbados, as locals grapple to process a devastating mass shooting that unfolded Sunday evening at Thunder Bay. The violence has left three men dead, countless families fractured, and a once-peaceful neighborhood grappling with unthinkable loss.
The three victims have been identified as 34-year-old Jamar Leon Edwards, a resident of 4th Avenue, Lower Carlton, St James; 33-year-old Lyle Anderson Robinson, of 1st Avenue, Lower Carlton, St James; and 33-year-old Jamar Kareem Ramsey, who lived in Brownes Gap, Sargeants Village Christ Church. Emergency and law enforcement responders were alerted to the shooting at approximately 8:42 p.m., where they found the three men fatally wounded.
Close family members of the deceased remain too overwhelmed by grief to speak publicly about the tragedy, but neighbors and long-term residents have shared harrowing accounts of the night that has left a permanent mark on their community. One Lower Carlton resident, who asked to remain unnamed, recalled the sudden, violent end to an otherwise quiet Sunday evening, when a rapid barrage of gunfire ripped through the neighborhood’s calm.
“I was in my bed with a headache and I heard about what could be 30-something shots,” she told local outlet Barbados TODAY. “My son come and said to me, ‘Mommy, you hear them?’ I said, ‘Get down. All you’re going to do is get down.’”
The resident described an unsettling, eerie hush that descended over the area immediately after the shooting, broken only by the desperate, distressing sounds of screams echoing from the direction of the beach. “It was terrifying, to be honest. When I look outside, outside was still… you didn’t know what was going on until probably 15 minutes after,” she added.
Neighbors who knew Robinson and Edwards for their entire lives remembered the pair as beloved, familiar fixtures of the Lower Carlton area. One local woman shared that she had watched all three victims grow up from young children in the neighborhood, saying she had never had any conflict with any of the men.
“These are children that I see raise as small children. He (Lyle) and Jamar… they were fun people. I come out, I talk with them, we laugh, we make jokes, we party together. I can’t say anything bad about them,” she said.
In the wake of the deadly attack, long-simmering concerns about the growing flow of high-powered weapons into Barbados and insufficient deterrence for gun-related violence have boiled over into widespread frustration among community members. One Lower Carlton resident pointed out that the threat of gun violence touches every member of the community, particularly families with children.
“They said years ago, if you get caught with [a gun], you will get 25 years. That ain’t happening. That needs to be put in place,” the resident said, echoing a widespread demand for stricter enforcement of existing gun control legislation.
Across Lower Carlton, residents expressed growing alarm at how the nature of crime on the island has shifted in recent decades. “Years ago, you used to hear about a .22… now they gone for bigger things and bigger things,” one local man noted, adding that even with regular law enforcement arrests for firearms possession, high-powered weapons have become alarmingly accessible. “Every boy like them got a gun. It’s real serious.”
As the community begins the slow, painful process of healing from the tragedy, elder residents have issued an urgent plea for an end to violent conflict across the island. “They could solve their problems in a different way,” one long-time resident urged. “We need to come together and find a solution and try to talk them out. Parents are the ones grieving each and every day. Tell the boys, the girls, remember who they’re leaving behind… the people they leave behind are the ones who feel it the most.”
When Barbados TODAY visited Ramsey’s home community in Browne’s Gap, a small group of young men gathered at the property declined to speak on the record about the shooting. Other local residents also declined to comment on the incident.
Law enforcement officials confirmed that investigations into the mass shooting are still ongoing, and have not yet released further details about suspects or motives for the attack as they work through evidence.