A resident of Foul Bay, St. Philip, has been placed in pre-sentencing custody at Dodds Prison after entering a guilty plea to weapons charges connected to a public shooting that rattled the Silver Sands community nearly three years ago.
Forty-year-old Rico Jamal Brathwaite requested a re-arraignment hearing in Barbados’ No. 4 Supreme Court, where he formally admitted to two criminal counts: unlawful possession of a 9mm caliber firearm and use of that same weapon without a valid license, offenses he committed on November 9, 2021.
Details of the incident laid out in court paint a clear picture of the brazen public shooting. On the afternoon of the offense, around 3:45 p.m., multiple officers were stationed at the Silver Sands community police outpost in Christ Church when they heard two loud explosions ring out near a local caravan park. One responding officer looked outside the outpost and spotted Brathwaite and a second male suspect fleeing in the direction of the nearby public park. The accomplice escaped the scene immediately, getting into a black Toyota Axio parked steps from the shooting site and driving off before officers could intervene.
Investigating detectives later obtained closed-circuit security footage that retraced the pair’s movements before and during the shooting. The video confirmed the two men drove to the area together, exited the vehicle, and walked to a small convenience store located directly across from the police outpost. Footage shows the second suspect pulling a dark-colored handgun from his waistband and passing it to Brathwaite. Brathwaite then walked toward the street, pointed the weapon eastward up the road, and fired multiple shots into the area before running toward the park, still clutching the firearm. His accomplice fled in the car toward the St. Christopher neighborhood immediately after the shots were fired.
Brathwaite was taken into police custody just one day after the incident. Court records confirm he voluntarily identified himself in the security footage and provided investigators with the name of his accomplice. As of the arraignment hearing, the weapon used in the shooting has not been recovered by police.
Acting Senior State Counsel Paul Prescod, who is prosecuting the case on behalf of the Barbados government, accepted Brathwaite’s guilty plea and formally requested Justice Laurie-Ann Smith-Bovell to remand the defendant into custody ahead of his sentencing hearing. Prescod noted that while some minor weapons offenses may result in a fine recommendation from the prosecution, the nature of Brathwaite’s charges — which include both unlawful possession and improper use of a firearm in a public place — exceed the threshold for lenient pretrial treatment. “Because this is one which involves use of a firearm and possession of a firearm, which falls beyond the threshold of simple possession, it is at this time I am asking that, based on the type of offences that we are dealing with, I am asking that the now-convicted man be remanded into custody pending sentencing,” Prescod told the court.
Defense attorney Shadia Simpson, representing Brathwaite, filed a formal request for a full accounting of the time her client has already spent in custody related to the case, a standard step ahead of sentencing. The case is scheduled to resume on December 18 for the sentencing hearing, court records confirm.