Email

Print

Here's more on the background to the Killing, and mor eon the story of the sometimes gentle man called Killa:….

Jules Vasquez Reporting
Yesterday when Raymond Killa Gentle was shot multiple times at this house - it was more than just a murder - it was the public slaying of a community leader. At the time Gentle was the boss for a 22 man work crew:

Anthony Boots Martinez, former employer
"He was doing some construction work for us under Hurricane Richard rehabilitation; he employed about 22 people from the neighborhood. He was doing extremely well, it's a sad situation but for me it's more terrible because of where it happen - it happen on the job site and a part from that where the shooting happen there were about 20 children in the yard, it's so pathetic and I don't know what kind of heart those killers have."

Yes, Kraal Road is considered a gang, but one most known for selling marijuana - which Gentle alluded to in 2007:

Sep 27, 2007
Jules Vasquez
"But according to them you sell drugs. That is what they are saying."

Raymond Gentle
"I have a grocery shop and I have my past with drugs. I am parolee of drug trafficking. I been to prison for drug trafficking, for marijuana only."

But increasingly Gentle was leading a personal and community transformation through work programmes building houses like these:

Anthony Boots Martinez, former employer
"He was an efficient worker, if you know taken what was supposed to be his past. When you talk about a person completely transform you talk about Raymond Gentle."

That meant leading his neighborhood football team, the City Boys to a national championship in the 2010 Super League Semi-Pro league:

September 20, 2010
Andrea Polanco
"This team comes from Kraal Road area. you know that a lot of people have a negative image of that area. What does this win mean for that community?"

Raymond Gentle, Manager City Boys United
"Well it means a lot because this football thing for the Kraal Road community is for the past 4-5 years. All those years it has never been recognize at all so right now we feel like we will be on the scene that Kraal Road is doing something positive in the community."

December, 2010
"We willing to be a part of sports in our country because that is the way how we see it to bring youths together. That is our motive that we work on when it comes to unite. Everybody does their thing in their own way, our thing is sports."

But sports was not enough to get Raymond Gentle off someone's hit-list - and a killer came with deadly precision yesterday as Gentle worked on this house:

Anthony Boots Martinez, former employer
"My contention with it is where it happens. It wasn't on a street corner, I think the man died with his hammer in his hand and in my view to interrupt a social program like that for example say the two house that he was building that comes to a complete halt, even the employees who are his friend I think don't want to see that yard no more. We clearly understand that."

But what no one can quite understand is why now - after the 34 year old Gentle had moved on from his past. In 2009, he made a public call for peace after gang truce talks:…

Raymond Gentle
"I represent Kraal Road and I could give account for the youths of Kraal Road. As far as I know, Kraal Road is a neighbourhood which has a past, way up in the 90s, early 90s, 1992 to 1993, way up to like 1999. Since 2000 and beyond we've tried to make a difference in Kraal Road. For the past four or five years we've had a football team which is representing the same individuals who they are trying to say are mingling in crime and violence."

He was speaking then after a grenade was thrown in his yard and killed a 14 year old:

Raymond Gentle
"Because where the grenade land is where a group of guys were hanging out, a lot of people live in the yard, and we have one fatal so we just have to accept the things we can't change."

"But for further notice, we will try our best to see how that grenade business could be held down because it is like a grenade war and we don't want to follow that up. Kraal Road for instance doesn't want to follow that up because everybody knows Raymond Gentle gone on interview, give up grenade, and people expect for a grenade revenge but from my perspective, that won't happen because I am not into crime on that level. I am looking for a different lifestyle for the four kids I have."

But now his four kids are fatherless and the streets are more volatile than ever after this boss and community leader was killed in broad daylight. Retaliation is likelihood, and all out gang warfare could follow - a possibility that Gentle foresaw when he spoke to us in 2007:

Sept 2007
Raymond Gentle
"Well the way I am seeing it, in this country there is no peace. To find peace in Belize it is hard so there is just war because in the streets might not have knowledge of, or have knowledge of, is old school, 'lone old school man get shot." "So for me who is old school, from the late 80s, I have to watch myself."

But Killa Gentle wasn't watching when an assassin went looking for him on his block yesterday. Now the entire programme is in a tailspin:

Anthony Boots Martinez, former employer
"Tailspin one; because effective yesterday after the news came out of what happen, where it happen. We lost an amount of employees. My fair has always been to the greater community. myself, yourself, your children because when you have the amount of people out there that had or have no skills and trying to pick up a skill and talking about reverting to their old survival way which we know is not the way."

Voice Of: Friend Of Killa Gentle
"They went for me all the way from San Antonio in Corozal, went for me and just gave me everything every day, he gave me food every day and money and right now we are not happy. Police are tripping and flipping on us every day and we are not happy because I am from Corozal San Antonio but I don't play either."

And that's the risk we must now all face as this neighborhood provider is gone:

"I just want everybody to know that Raymond was a good help to everybody, he always look out for everybody and everybody will miss him. They could kill him and he still will be living because he helps a lot of youths and they can say it. He helps a lot of youths get jobs when even the Prime Minister or anybody help. He tries to look out for everybody, all his family will miss him, my cousin will miss him most of all. We just want them to know the destruction that they put in somebody life. It's really sad to know that they take away somebody so good from us because we are the ones that are around him every day. You could have nothing and just say Raymond or Killa or Milla I need something and he will give it to you. So we just want them to know what they have taken away from us is something good and it doesn't matter how hard they try to take that away they will cant, from the smallest ones here, the kids, all of them, from the youngest one and up they can't take that out of their mind because he was there for all of us."

Gentle would have been 35 years old, tomorrow January 14th.

Apart from those interviews you just saw, Gentle had been on the news quite a few times.

Most prominent is June first, 2006 when he was shot in his stomach reportedly defending himself from Aniver Palacio who was supposedly there to kill him so he wouldn't testify in a murder trial. Gentle was shot to the stomach but Palacio was shot fatally and died on Kraal Road.

And then Gentle made the news again in August of 2008 when he handed over to police a Hand Fragmentation grenade. Police note that the grenade was labeled as found property and Gentle was never charged for it.

And then, in June of 2010, Ernesto Perez - was driving Gentle's car when he was killed at the corner of Rivero and Fairweather Streets. Perez was known as Gentle's run-man and police say it is believed that Gentle was the intended target.