Tourist killed after being caught in gang crossfire

[GraysonDave]

This happened yesterday. Scary stuff.

CHARLOTTE AMALIE, U.S Virgin Islands — A 14-year-old Puerto Rican tourist was killed in front of her horrified family when she was caught in the crossfire of a gunfight attributed to warring gangs on the U.S. Virgin Islands.
Gov. John deJongh identified the slain tourist as Lizmarie Perez Chapparro from Puerto Rico, who was struck by a bullet as she rode with her relatives on a packed "safari bus" that ferries tourists across the three-island territory.
The girl and her family arrived in St. Thomas aboard the Carnival Victory, a Carnival Cruise Line ship that departed Puerto Rico's capital of San Juan on Sunday. Another cruise ship passenger sustained a minor injury during the shootout.
Carnival spokeswoman Jennifer De La Cruz described it as an "unfathomable act of senseless violence" and said the Miami-based line suspended all excursions that include the St. Thomas neighborhood where the violence took place until further notice.
A St. Thomas teenager also was killed by the gunfire as he attended the funeral of another man fatally shot on June 29. Police said 18-year-old Shadid Joseph's body was found Monday with a loaded gun.
A police statement said that Monday's victims were killed by bullets sprayed from a red Honda Civic and by a person attending a burial at a cemetery in Coki Point.
The tourist bus was hit by gunfire on its way to Coki Point Beach, one of the island's most popular beaches, as it passed the cemetery.
It was not immediately clear who was being targeted, but authorities said the shootout was a battle between drug criminals.
Virgin Islands has been struggling to curb gun violence. Drug gangs have staged shootouts in public before, but seldom in broad daylight amid heavy traffic.
"All Virgin Islanders share in the sorrow of such a senseless loss of life," deJongh said.
Three people were taken into custody as "persons of interest" after the deadly shooting, according to Rames.
The Virgin Islands' nonvoting delegate to Congress, Donna Christensen, issued a statement calling on all islanders "to unite against the plague of violence that has gripped our community."

[Connie]

One place that should be cleaned up on STT is Coki Beach. We've gone their often, but there are a certain element of people who just hang around all day doing nothing, except bad I guess.

This will seriously make me think about going back to Coki again.

[tipsy]

My heartfelt prayers go out to that poor family. What a horrible loss of life. May God give them comfort & strength in this time.

Rachel had told us that STT was getting bad, that she won't pick up passengers w/o prior reservations, or if they are just all males from the island. Nor will she drive during Carnival cause of many van drivers being robbed during the festivities. What a sad thing that people can't even work their usual jobs at certain times in an "island paradise" setting.

It's in the whole world but when innocent people keep getting killed, then there has to be big,serious changes made some way.

[iowaguy]

Terrible situation. A lot of people will say, "its safe--you just need to use common sense." But in this case, the victim was going to a heavily touristed area in broad daylight.

[dtenel]

Very upsetting what happened to that poor young girl yesterday. I can not even imagine what her family is going through. Here is a link to another blog on this, but it is very interesting because of the comments many locals wrote at the end. It also includes a copy of the letter the captain of the cruise ship sent out to all the other cruise ship passangers yesterday.

http://www.stthomasblog.com/?p=5351&cpa ... mment-7852

[PA Girl]

Terrible situation. A lot of people will say, "its safe--you just need to use common sense." But in this case, the victim was going to a heavily touristed area in broad daylight.

So true.

I like to think I can keep the domestic violence/drug crimes in perspective because those happen even in my small town.

But the thought of a completely unrelated-innocent child being shot while riding in a taxi, during the day is too awful to comprehend.

When we were on STT, I asked the innkeeper whether is was "ok" to walk home (up the 99 steps, just a few blocks) at 8-ish at night and she said sternly "no, take a taxi and ask the restaurant to call you that taxi."

[dehman]

Just terrible. We have been talking about this possibility for while- even in ST John. When seemingly smaller crimes (robberies, drugs) go relatively unchecked (I think most would agree that the policing leaves much to be desired), they escalate and when guns are involved these things happen unfortunately. Hopefully the authorites will get a wake up call as this will hurt the tourism. Its unfortunate that a tragedy and the loss of money have to happen for them to take crime seriously.

[RidgeRunner]

You can see change coming in St. John as well.
The youth are looking less and less island
and more and more gangsta.

[mit43]

Are there any youth programs on STJ to try and steer the kids in the right direction?

[John LMBZ06]

I don't know if there are any youth programs on St. John, but I do know that the public school system is on the bottom of the US in ranking. I too fear that the problem will become more wide spread. That is why I am against the low income housing they put up in Coral Bay. If you build it, they will come. Where are the parents going to work? If there was somewhere to work, I would move there. Where are they going to send the kids to school? It is just not the correct place to do it unless you have more money than I do.

[Lulu76]

I always thought the low-income housing was for people who are already there. Maybe if someone can find a more affordable place to live they won't have to deal drugs or pursue other questionable activities to get by?

I know that sounds idealistic, but I thought the new housing was part of the solution, not part of the problem.

After everything I have read on this today, I am not sure there are any answers. I'm not sure what can be done to fix it.

[Jorge]

This trip at Halloween will be my last money spent in the USVI.

[Lulu76]

Is it other things, Jorge, or just this incident? Is this something you've been mulling over for a while.

We are planning to go in October, but we haven't booked a villa yet. Something isn't sitting right with me, and I'm wondering if I should sit one out and hope it gets better or go one more time real quick before it gets worse. Sad to say, but I've read a lot of scary comments all over the net today about this situation and the state of the USVI.

I have heard of people getting robbed in their villas, people getting their car bumped so they could be robbed, murders, not to mention all the drug dealing and general malaise. Of course, most vacation spots have all this stuff.

I'm not sure. I'm not generally the type to be alarmist, but this was truly the first time that I thought maybe tourists aren't safe. This wasn't someone who was in the wrong place at the wrong time. It was a little girl on a group excursion from a cruise ship...

[Sara-J]

Are these car and villa robberies taking place on St Thomas or St John?
Why aren't the police cracking down?

[Jorge]

[quote="Lulu76"]Is it other things, Jorge, or just this incident? Is this something you've been mulling over for a while.

You are right, this just the final crack in the armor. Time to move on.