Cabbie on the run after deadly cowboy-like gunfight

Residents of Grants Pen in St Andrew were sent scampering for cover on Tuesday morning as two cabbies reportedly challenged each other in a shootout reminiscent of a scene from the Wild West, leaving one dead and the other on the run.

Dead is 28-year-old Travardo ‘Short Man’ Patterson of a Derrick Lane address.

Information reaching The Gleaner is that about 11 a.m., Patterson and the other taxi driver were at a car wash along Dulwich Drive when they began having a dispute, which further escalated when Patterson reportedly pulled a firearm.

Alleged eyewitnesses said the other taxi driver also drew his weapon and shot Patterson repeatedly, before taking away Patterson’s weapon and making good his escape.

Patterson died at the scene.

When The Gleaner visited the scene, a large crowd had converged as residents expressed disbelief at the event.

“A movie this. All now mi can’t believe. You ever watch the Western movie dem and see man draw dem gun and fire and people a run up and down? A that just gwan,” one said.

Donique Smith, the mother of Patterson’s child, was also at the scene.

Weeping, she told The Gleaner that they had separated about six months ago.

Smith said that she heard the allegations upon arrival, adding that Patterson was shot four times.

“Mi niece call mi and tell mi seh him dead and then one of his taxi friend drive come a mi yard for mi … . Mi hear people a say him and a taxi man kick off and gun draw,” she said, adding that she did no doubt the incident as recounted to her because of Patterson’s character.

“Fi show you mi and him nuh deh, but mi try [curb] him in a every way, but him just no hear. Him nuh tek talk,” she told The Gleaner.

Smith added that all Patterson’s relatives reside in rural Jamaica and that she last spoke to him on Monday night.

“He called mi and said he wanted to come back home because where he was, he wasn’t comfortable,” she recalled.

Although hurt, she was not surprised at how he met his demise.

“No, I don’t surprise because from him move out a my house, him mix up in a too much things. Him and people a kick off often,” she said, adding that he was a good father to their two-year-old son.

“It would a come in like he (Patterson) did a go up (progress) and him go back down the hill. Certain life him a live now, him coulda never live it ‘round mi because mi older than him, so mi always affi to steer him at all times,” she said.

As investigators combed the crime scene, her phone rang continuously as persons called for information regarding Patterson’s death.

Grants Pen Division Councillor and Kingston Deputy Mayor Winston Ennis visited the crime scene and assisted in consoling Smith.

The Constant Spring Criminal Investigation Branch is probing the murder.

A senior cop close to the investigation told The Gleaner that the police are examining all the information, including reports that the alleged gunman fled the scene with a firearm belonging to the now deceased.

The St Andrew North Police Division has recorded a 10 per cent increase in murders since the start of the year, with 45 people killed between January 1 and October 1. This is four more than the 41 killed in the corresponding period for 2021.

Shootings have also increased by 26 per cent year-on-year.

andre.williams@gleanerjm.com