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Devastating Weekend Leaves Four Dead Including Grandmother and 7 Year Old
posted (November 14, 2016)
It's been three days of devastating violence: In the 8 hours between Friday afternoon at 4:30 and Saturday morning at 12:15 AM, three people were killed in the Belize district, including a 7 year old boy, while three others were shot including two female minors. And in Dangriga, nephews allegedly chopped off a grandmother's head so that they could steal a few thousand dollars.

Indeed, a dizzying panorama of violence, and we begin in the city with the murder of 7 year old Tyler Savery - which is where we left off on Friday. Tyler died on Daly Street from a single gunshot to the chest, while his cousin, Porshan Pipersburgh, died the next day from two gunshots to his chest.

Today, Tyler's mom, Shakera Young, gathered up tremendous courage and composure to speak to the media to make a plea on her son's behalf to stop the violence. Daniel Ortiz has that story:

Daniel Ortiz reporting
3 days after 7-year-old Tyler Savery was killed in a double murder, we found his mother, Shakera Young, in the grips of bereavement. Today, her son's absence is surreal because she dropped him off that Friday morning before heading to work.

She revisited that moment when the doctor delivered the bad news on Friday evening.

Shakera Young - Mother of Tyler Savery
"Me going into this hospital knowing my son got shot, I said maybe it's just something in the leg or arm, something that maybe he could recover from. When she looked at me and said 'ma'am I am sorry but we did all we could and your son didn't make it'. The feeling that shook my body made me fall to the ground because my son is my life, he was and he still is my life. I still tried to figure out what happen and how could that happen to my son. I went to see my son afterwards in the night to kiss him and tell him goodnight because I knew that I was leaving my child alone in that cold place. Never in a million years I would have thought that I would be the one sitting here today planning the funeral for my child."

For young, possibly the most painful aspect of the ordeal is that her son was that the killer saw him on the handle of the bike with his older cousin, 22-year-old Porshan Pipersburg. That did not give the shooter any reason to think twice. That person still opened fire on an innocent young boy, most-likely to get at his older cousin:

Shakera Young - Mother of Tyler Savery
"The doctor inside, he asked me if I wanted him to tell me what happened to my child. He said 'Ms. Young, your child was shot. One bullet entered the chest and exit. Your son came into the hospital without a pulse so possibly he died on the spot'. That in a whole kind of consoled me that I knew that he didn't suffer. I don't think he even knew what happened to him."

And for the family of the murderer, Young had a stinging putdown:

Shakera Young - Mother of Tyler Savery
"But I sat on that floor at the hospital and I kept thinking what can be going through these animal's minds, what? You would see a child on a bike and you would still pull that trigger. That doctor said that the bullet entered from the front. If it was from the back maybe I would have been a bit more comforted to say that it was an accident, maybe they didn't see the baby on the bike, but my baby got hit in the chest directly. I want to appeal to the mothers out there, you guys know the animals that you are raising? You know them, you live with them, they live in your house. Even if they don't live with you they come around, people tell you what your children are doing. My son is 7 years old and I could tell you that he was more of a man than that person who pulled the trigger because I take him to church and teach him that loving each other is key."

So how this toddler gets caught up in a street war which concerns adults? Well, he was heading to Moon clusters to get a milkshake, a beverage his mother says he enjoyed immensely. He and his cousin were very close to their destination when they were waylaid:

Shakera Young - Mother of Tyler Savery
"He was going to get a milkshake as he does every Friday. He was given that money for the milkshake and Tyler said 'well I will go and get my milkshake'. I could remember Gran telling me 'Shakira I told Tyler to wait for me but he was so excited about this milkshake that he ran downstairs and said 'Gran I'll wait for you down here, hurry up'. He called her 'slow poke' and Gran said she told him 'I'll put my slippers on and I'll come down and take you'. Tyler was already downstairs when Porshan came down on the bike and Tyler gladly went with him when Porshan said 'I will take him Gran'. Tyler and Porshan are always together, they are cousins and partners in crime as I call them. To everybody out there, my son did not get that milkshake that he went to moon clusters to get. They saw that boy with my baby on that bike and they opened fire. My son is not at war; he didn't even know what happened to him because of the trauma that got him. Whosoever did it, I hope that you are seeing this and I hope that you are listening to me, I am not the seek revenge type and I pray that sometime very soon that you may find God, because he's the only person that can forgive you for what you have done. I did, I forgive you."

For this family, old wounds are opened up all over again. They have now lost 4 males to gun violence. Back in September 2014, John Avilez and his nephew, Leon Savery, were gunned down. Avilez died hours later, and Savery passed away a month later due to medical complications. Fast forward to last Friday, and Savory's son, Tyler, and Savory's nephew, Porshan Pipersburg, were also killed in another double murder:

Shakera Young - Mother of Tyler Savery
"All I could think about was how I was going to tell his grandfather that his only grandchild with his son that has already passed two years ago due to gun violence, was killed by gun again. My son's father was taken away two years ago and I'm still trying to get over that grief and now I have to start all over again with my son. For a woman that has lost her grandson and her son in 2014, and a woman now that has lost another grandson and her great grand, my heart goes out to gran."

Shakera Young says that she will grieve, try to move on, and she will advocate for her son's life which was cut short:

Shakera Young - Mother of Tyler Savery
"I haven't been able to grasp going home, having my son's dirty clothes there, his little socks, brief, all of the little stuff he made for me, his arts that's hanging in the room, I still have not been able to gather the strength to go home and know that I won't see him come running through that door again. Daily, I am processing this but I will celebrate my son's life and you better believe this is the first time you are seeing my face but it won't be the last. I will advocate for my son, there is a God and what I am fighting for now is humanity because our society has lost it, all of us have."

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