THE soul of Barnes Avenue perished the night its residents were forced to confront evil. Forced at gunpoint to watch while 10-year-old Sasha-Kaye Brown was burned alive, and shot at by masked gang members as they tried to help, the community’s spirit also died that night in October, and the households that could, packed up and left the gang-torn community.

Now, two months later, there are mixed emotions among the few remaining families, who question whether Barnes Avenue is worth saving.

The gangs are still there, so too is the shell of the house in which Sasha-Kaye was burned alive, and her grandparents and aunt killed.

The emotional pain still sears the child’s mother, Kimone Guthrie, who, speaking with the Sunday Observer via telephone, says she mourns daily for her daughter.

“Life kinda hard on me right now,” Guthrie said between sobs.

“Every day, me daughter deh pon me mind.” Guthrie explained that sometimes, when she is brave enough, she visits some of Maxfield Avenue’s surrounding communities, but never Barnes Avenue. Her fear of the avenue will not allow her to venture there anymore.

“Me can’t go there, me fraid of down there. I don’t want anybody to laywait me and shoot me like them do other people,” she said.

Guthrie is equally angry that help promised to her after her daughter’s death has not been forthcoming.

“I’ve gotten no help at all. My son don’t go to school since me daughter dead,” she said. “I have to be kotching right now. Some people promised me a house, but nobody don’t contact me since then.”

These days, there is an eerie quiet on the street where the firebombed house still stands. People stay indoors.

Some wish to leave the area at the next available opportunity, knowing that burglar bars and locks cannot make them safe and that Sasha-Kaye’s killers still roam free. “Me no really have any great confidence right now, because the man dem that do the killing still deh yah,” said an elderly resident, who gave his name only as ‘Paul’.

“A long time me a live here – over 40 years. But, right now, the first chance me get, me gone,” he told the Sunday Observer.

Other residents want to stay and play a role in the development and beautification of not just Barnes Avenue, but all the communities that branch from Maxfield Avenue that are torn by crime and violence.

They pray the advent of Christmas will bring new hope.

But, for now, there is no joy in the ill-fated community. The sadness is patently obvious whenever its remaining residents reminisce about the heinous murders of Sasha-Kaye Brown and her family – grandparents Gerald Brown, 60, and Dorcas Brown, 50; and aunt Janice Brown, 25 – in the fire-bombing of their home by armed gang members.

The family had no known connection to the gangs. It was simply that they had been selected to die.

And, unmerciful in their quest for blood, the gangsters opened fire upon persons who tried to rescue the family from the flames.

Neighbours were forced to endure the gut-wrenching, nightmarish screams of Sasha-Kaye pleading for rescue, as the fire devoured her. They rushed to the police post for help, but no police personnel were there.

There was a soldier, but he said he could not respond because the law required him to act only if police were present.

Residents now tell the Sunday Observer that their grief is compounded by the fact that the men who did the deed are still at large in the community and continue to arouse fear.

Although police officers and soldiers make regular stops along the avenue, bringing well-needed respite from the violence, the residents report seeing gangsters just as often as they see police officers.

“Nutten can go on until we get dem man deh off the street,” says Michael Ennis, a resident.

Other residents also say they often see the gangsters watching them from the bottom of the avenue. As they speak, a shadowy figure watches from behind nearby bushes. As soon as he is pointed out by residents, he quickly slips away.

“That is what we have to deal with every day. And now that the bush dem grow up back, dem turn a hiding place for the man dem,” Ennis commented under his breath.

While Paul is among those who want to move out of the community, Ennis desperately wants Barnes Avenue to be developed, and he believes it is possible if the gangs are neutralised.

“The place can come good if we just get dem man deh off the street,” says Ennis.

Ennis, who described himself as a community activist within the Maxfield Avenue area, says he is seeking out work, and training opportunities under HEART Trust/NTA, for persons in the area.

But people like Karen Williams and Paul are more interested in financing their way out of the area.

“I want to leave,” says Williams.

“I want to take my son out of this environment, but I can’t really do any better right now.”

According to Williams, several persons who lived on Barnes Avenue had moved to adjoining avenues, many of them resorting to ‘kotching’ – staying with friends or relatives – because, like Williams, they cannot afford to move away.

At night, she says, Barnes Avenue becomes a ghost town as nobody dares to stay on the street after the sun goes down.

For Williams, nightfall brings paranoia. She becomes jittery at every sound outside her door.

“Nuff people did live pon di road, everywhere did full up. But now everything mash up,” she said. Her sombre tone contrasts with the one visible glimmer of hope brought on by the ripening Yuletide season.

Resident Errol Panton is intent on having a good Christmas, and has decided to help beautify the avenue for the festive season.

His first task, he tells the Sunday Observer, is cleaning up the spot where the burnt-out death house remains.

davisv@jamaicaobserver.com