SEVEN month-old Daniel Antonio Shirley was yesterday shot dead along Hannah Street in the troubled community of Hannah Town in Kingston. The infant was killed while in the arms of his great grandmother, and a few steps from the police station in that community.

The baby was apparently killled as warring gangs traded bullets in the volatile inner-city community.

According to the Constabulary Communications Network (CCN), at approximately 5:10 yesterday afternoon, the child’s great grandmother was taking him home when explosions were heard and it was discovered that the child had been shot in the forehead.

Daniel was pronounced dead at the Kingston Public Hospital, the CCN said.

The child’s great grandmother, 60 year-old Elaine Lewis, was crestfallen last night. The woman sobbed uncontrollably as she recounted the fatal incident. With blood soaking her clothes and splattered on her arm, Lewis said that she was “coming down to Hannah Street, we cross Oxford Street, them mi hear bye (the sound of a gunshot), and when me realise the baby, the baby, the baby,” the bereaved woman said before breaking down in tears.

The child’s mother, Michelle Jones, 22, was too shaken to speak with the Observer. The woman only held her stomach and cried.

Detective Sergeant Daniel Albert of the Hannah Town police told the Observer that the police had no conclusive evidence to arrest anyone for the baby’s death. “It is too early. We have no leads,” Sergeant Albert said.

Residents of the community were irate and openly mourned the death of the infant. They claimed that the gunmen came from the neighbouring community of Denham Town and that shots were being fired all evening.

“From evening them a fire pure shot pan we. The pickney mother can’t talk a who because if she say a dem boy deh, them haffi run away or a pure dead body you will see tomorrow,” one skimpily-clad young woman said. She said the dead child’s relatives live along the border line and as such were in constant danger of being harmed in crossfire.

However, the woman conceded that shots were being fired by both sides.

“If them a fire shot pan we then the man nuh must a fire back pan them?” she said.

Since October 6, this year, six children have lost their lives by violent means. They are six-year-old Omario Foster, whose throat was slashed in Salt Springs, St James; three-year-old twins Sharon and Shavel Malcolm, shot dead in Rema; 12-year-old Romeo Lawrence, shot while getting a haircut in Fletcher’s Land; Shauna Palmer, shot while at a birthday party in Greenwich Town and seven-month-old Daniel Antonio Shirley, yesterday’s victim.