SHANE didn’t want to go to school on Tuesday.

“But we sent him because both my wife and I work out and we couldn’t leave him alone,” said his father, Leonard Williams.

But Shane didn’t return to his Spanish Town Road home that evening.

He was shot by a policeman’s bullet and died later that evening at the Kingston Public Hospital.

Shane, whose real name was Orane, is dead. Shane’s parents, Leonard and his mother, Karen, and their community, are distraught.

But also spare a thought for Julio Clarke, another little boy and one of Shane’s friends at the John Mills All-Age School on Retirement Crescent.

Julio was very upset yesterday. He was being blamed by other little children, he explained yesterday, “for carrying Shane Downtown” and to his death.

“They’re blaming me,” he lamented to the Observer. “But is not me, because Orane normally go Downtown everyday to take the bus.”

Julio, at least, should know that he is not likely to be blamed for Shane’s death by the boy’s father. In fact, according to Leonard Williams, it was not unusual for his son to go from Cross Roads to downtown to find his way home.

“It is not like he went out of his way (to his death),” said Williams. “It was the regular thing for him to do… go(ing) downtown and board a Spanish Town Road bus.”

It was not clear whether Julio was among the John Mills students who received individual counselling from the school’s guidance counsellor, Daphne Johnson.

Yesterday Johnson spoke to students about giving vent to their emotions in the wake of Shane’s death.

“Allow yourself to go through the process,” she told children of Grade 7L4, Shane’s class. “Cry if you want. Express yourself.”

Shane’s shooting touched off Tuesday evening’s mini riot in Kingston’s downtown business district, as well as yesterday’s demonstrations and roadblocks, near to his home, along Spanish Town Road. Huge bonfires lit by the Williams’ neighbours stalled traffic on Spanish Town Road.

Police suggest that Shane Williams’ death was a terrible accident. It happened when a policeman’s gun went off as he struggled with a man who was suspected of having snatched a woman’s handbag in the St William Grant Park. The man escaped.

But for the people who threw stones and burned debris in the South Parade area of downtown Kingston on Tuesday, it was just another example of the excesses of the police who, they believe, often operate without due care and respect for people’s rights.

One demonstrator on Spanish Town Road yesterday complained that the police could risk injuring and even killing people — in this case a 12-year-old, first former — in an effort to apprehend an alleged suspect.

“Where is the justice he asked?”

According to the police, the cop involved in the incident has been removed from front-line duties and the matter is being investigated by the Bureau of Special Investigations. The file will, afterwards, be sent to the director of public prosecutions for a ruling.

Shane was the older of the Williamses two children. The other, Shauna, is seven.

Mrs Williams has taken the death of her son particularly hard. It was an act too senseless to contemplate. She yesterday wanted to confront the policeman who caused his death.

“I want to know if the police who killed my son has children, too?” she asked. “I want him to tell me why he took away my son from me.”

Ironically, Shane was killed on Peace Day, part of the activities of the school-based dispute resolution programme, Peace and Love in Schools (PALS). He had participated in the activities and afterwards helped in straightening up the compound.

“After the concert, I asked him to put away some chairs,” said his form teacher, Claudette Hylton. “He was an average student, but a model child. He’s always trying to improve his work. Words can’t express how I feel.”

His parents felt the same way about Shane.

“He had good mannerisms and was well-loved by both the young and the old,” said his father, between sobs. “He loved to make kites, so the other little boys in the neighbourhood normally flock him.”

Added his mother: “Everybody loved him, from the youngest baby to the elders.”

The Williamses were not prepared for the severity of the tragedy when they first got news that Shane had had an accident.

The school had first contacted Shane’s grandmother with the information and the news reached the boy’s father at his work place at the Four Seasons Hotel. Leonard Williams rushed to the KPH where he saw his son on a life-support machine.

“I knew he was not going to live,” he said. “What a way for an innocent child to die.”

Precisely the sentiment of John Mills’ vice-principal, Evene Bell.

“I am sad, extremely sad at the way he died,” she said. “I am also sad that society does not allow our children to live their lives.”

Law enforcers, she said, should “be protectors for the children and (must) give them a chance to live their lives”.

Shane’s schoolmate, Ricardo Teape, yesterday, in his own way, pondered this big idea and death and loss.

“It is hard when you lose one of your good friends, Miss,” he said in an interview. “He (Shane) is gone and we are not going to see him again. I feel bad about the killing.”

Traumatised and frightened by Shane’s shooting as both boys stood together, Julio had run all the way.

Yesterday at school he had a message for other police officers who may encounter situations similar to Tuesday evening’s.

Said he: “Please do not fire in crowds, because other innocent people just like Orane may be killed.”