Slain security guard’s dad mourns ‘humble’ son

Andrew Small will never be able to give his son, 22-year-old Brandon Small, the pair of shoes that he had for him, as the security guard was gunned down while on the job on Sunday night.

Small had to make the gut-wrenching journey from his home in Clarendon to Kingston yesterday to identify Brandon's body.

"Mi talk to him the night before on Saturday because mi never did know say him go work the Sunday. So when mi get the call bright and early Monday it was a shock to me. Mi call him and tell him fi come check me because mi have a sneakers fi give him," said the senior Small. Described by those close to him as a "humble youth", Small said that his son didn't deserve to die like that. He recalled having a sunken feeling when he held the blood-soaked vest that his son was wearing which was riddled with holes from gunshots.

The bodies of Brandon and co-worker Lincoln Royal were found yesterday morning on the compound of China Harbour Engineering Company in Plantation Heights, St Andrew.

Investigators say about 10:30 p.m., heavily armed men travelling in a grey motor car entered the compound through the front gate and held up the guard at the security post. The men later opened gunfire at Brandon before escaping. Royal's body was found in a car trunk with his hands and feet bound and his service pistol missing. A third security guard who was unaccounted for when the police arrived was later located. Up to press time, the police said that he was not being treated as a suspect.

Small, 45, said he was at home sleeping when he received the disturbing phone call about Brandon.

"Bout 5 o'clock mi hear mi phone a ring non-stop, so me put it pon vibrate. But the person still a call. When mi do answer, mi only hear Brandon dead. Mi couldn't say another word," he said.

Small, who resides in Canada, was critical of how successive governments have been managing crime and violence, having experienced first-hand the pain it brings to victims.

"The crime situation come een like a big tree to me, yuh have the root but there are so many branches. If the minds of the people don't change, yuh can't even start, because every time yuh start, it's like you taking a branch from off the tree. The problem is the root and if unuh nuh do some intervention fi change people mind and understand what it is, this a go continue," he said.