HATFIELD, Manchester — A two-year-old boy and a seven-year-old girl and their 11 siblings have been left without a father after gunmen shot dead 55-year-old shopkeeper Everton Ranglin, otherwise called Ginger, in this community yesterday morning.

According to residents, about 8:00 am Ranglin was attacked by two gunmen who opened fire, hitting him multiple times. Ranglin, said residents, ran and was chased by the gunmen who shot him again, killing him on the spot.

Stacy-Ann Gayle, his spouse and mother of two of his children, was distraught as she spoke to the Jamaica Observer near the crime scene yesterday.

“Him is not a person to pick trouble with people…Mi only hear seh him deh out here [on the roadside] and him get the two first shots there and him run off, and dem run him down and shoot him again,” she said.

“I don’t know how I’m going to manage. Mi work as a farmer and run a little shop, but that alone can’t provide for the children,” she added.

She said her children had a close bond with their father.

“Right now, mi inna pain and grief because mi mother just died two weeks ago and now this come happen. Mi daughter love her father very much; mi nuh know weh mi ago tell her. Mi son love him too and fi dem ago go home and nuh see dem father, it ago hard,” she said.

She described her spouse as an independent man.

“Him was a very self-reliant person. Him nuh depend pon people — him try fi mek two ends meet. Him do everything just fi mek him kids survive,” Gayle said.

A resident and close friend of the deceased, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, was puzzled at Ranglin’s gruesome death.

“Mi nuh have a problem with him, and him is not a troublemaker. I don’t know of anybody looking for him. A yah suh him park every day…Him did just earlier drop off him babymother and him two pickney and did a chill right [here] when dem attack him,” she said.

Councillor for the Spur Tree Division, Ervin Facey condemned the brutal killing.

“It is a sad day, based on what is happening in our society with shootings and murders. What has happened is really cause for alarm. I knew him [Ranglin] to be a small business owner,” said Facey.

The incident caused a gridlock as scores of motorists were left stranded for hours while police processed the scene along the main thoroughfare which links Mandeville and its environs to St Elizabeth.