A young man was killed on Saturday night. At around 11:15 Arthur Crawford
was hanging out with his friends on Iguana Street when one of his friends killed
him. We today visited with those who were with Arthur at the time of the killing
and they say it was unprovoked but it is also largely unexplained.
Alfonso Noble Reporting,
On Saturday night, 21 year old up and coming basketball star Arthur Crawford
was hanging out with his friend here on Iguana Street in an area known as "ABS."
It was a casual evening, but at around 11:15 horseplay turned into deadly gunplay.
Friend,
"So all of us were talking fool and he come he immediately asked 'what
is going on with you all ABS and I am just watching you all ABS crew playing
crazy. I would you all to crowd me right now.' That is what he said right and
so we said he is running joke because he always comes and run joke with us.
We thought he was playing. But the man left and said he will kill out all of
us. He went by one of his little boys and he went by Dogg Pound and he went
to look for a little young boy named Luc. The little young named Luc came, all
of us were in the front, and he hollered I went to instigate, meaning he went
to talk fool around there. He came and the first thing he did was juck the gun
on me. When he touched me with it, it snapped and that is when my little boys
hollered and started to get jumpy."
Witness,
"Those boys usually hang out on this block and they were right in front
of my house. They were drinking and thing, even the guy who they claim shot
the guy was drinking with them that night. They started to jinx up one another
and thing. And after they started to jinx one another I don't know what occurred
later on but they were jinxing one another and it happens that the boy couldn't
take it and they said he went for a gun. When he came back, with another guy,
he flipped the gun and afterwards the one went to talk to the one who did the
shooting and he shot him out on the Boulevard."
Friend,
"My little boy started to trip, Arthur, and he said he doesn't want anyone
to put a gun in his face. So he jumped on his bike and said he was going on
the Boulevard to go and talk to the man and ask what he is really doing that
for. So now I was going behind the man but my brother told me not to go. He
told me not to go because the man would think we were going to do him something.
So Arthur went by his self and when Arthur went by himself we saw Spoon coming
around the lane with the thing in his hand and he is pointing towards us. When
he did that, we didn't do anything because we didn't hear any gunshot but then
he told us one of us already got it and the rest of us will get it now. When
the man said that, he fired off a shot and a little boy from around the lane
came and told us our little boy laid out on the ground right now."
Arthur was shot once in his chest and he fell to his death at an area between
Pelican and Raccoon Streets. His friends say they were unaware of what had happened.
It was not until the shooter came around again that they found out what had
happened. Today when they gathered again at the same area, they puzzled over
the reason for the killing.
Friend,
"We don't know any reason why he killed our little boy, no reason why.
All of us were hanging out. He went over there and told them we were crowding
him. Why would we crowd Spoon? We wouldn't crowd him. We are not gangbangers,
all we do is hang and fool with the girls them sometimes you know. The man said
he wanted to see if they would do him anything because he didn't expect Spoon
would shoot him cause we didn't do the man anything."
But while his friends say the killing was totally unprovoked, Arthur's uncle
says the family is not taking the death easily especially because the young
man was not known to them or anyone as being a troublesome youth.
Uncle,
"The main thing I am worrying about is his brother, his other
bother Nuri, he also lives here with me and I don't know how he is taking it
because we are all the family he has here and that is his only brother in Belize;
as a matter of fact the only brother he knows. He has other brothers and sisters
in America but only by pictures he saw them. Right now I think he is taking
it the hardest, he is probably upstairs still crying right now. Arthur is a
cool guy, all he does mainly is play basketball. The only thing I see Arthur
does is come home from work in the evening, come and play ball, go and hail
his girlfriend, and then come home back. I don't know what kind of relationship
he had with those guys he was hanging out with and what they have to play in
all of this but I know Arthur was a cool guy and I didn't see him fight once
in his life. I feel that he was very cool and easygoing so I just want these
guys to know that are responsible for his murder, that I got to get to the bottom
of it. Once Arthur ran a joke with me that once he reached to the NBA, I would
be his agent. He once ran that joke with me and I'll always remember that because
that's all he thought and dreamt about; basketball was what he did."
Police today charged one man: he is 18-year-old Luciano Torres, and he has
been charged for conspiracy to commit murder. Police are tonight seeking for
questioning one other man, Charles Heinz who can help investigators answer some
critical questions about the killing.
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