Family puzzled after man killed at funeral - Says he had no history of mental illness

Days before Isaac Foster's death, a few of his loved ones had weird and unsettling dreams, but none could fathom their meanings - it never crossed their minds that the new year would catch them in tears.

Isaac, 23, was shot and killed by a licensed firearm holder at Dovecot No. 2 Cemetery in Kitson Town, St Catherine, on Monday during a bizarre incident. Sitting on a verandah and surrounded by close relatives, his mother Maria Foster was beside herself with grief. Leaning against a door for support, she said all she could do was cry out to the Almighty when she say Isaac's lifeless body at the Spanish Town Hospital.

"Mi couldn't believe it. Mi just lay down on mi son and kiss him up and cry. Mi couldn't do nutten more than just bawl to God and kiss him up," Foster said. It is reported that about 2:15 p.m., a funeral procession was in place for a female when a man said to be of unsound minded interrupted the proceedings and pulled the body from the casket. He was reportedly fatally shot by one of the mourners. Superintendent Hopton Nicholson of the St Catherine North Police Division said the matter is currently under investigation.

A widely circulated video of the incident shows Isaac standing over the coffin, with the body on the ground, as onlookers frantically shouted for him to stop. The onlookers were also heard shouting to the police to intervene. Moments later several explosions were heard and a man with a gun was seen walking towards Isaac. Another video later showed the injured Isaac being placed in a police service vehicle.

Foster said her son did not suffer from any known mental illness and this was his first meltdown.

"All now mi no watch the video and mi nuh wah see it. Isaac was just one person and there were police officers there, so how come a licensed firearm holder decide to kill him when the police never do it? Dem must see say someone in his right mind wouldn't a do something like that, but why didn't the person just shoot him in his foot den? He didn't even have a knife or a machete," she wailed.

"Mi hear say somebody fling a stone after mi son and him sight it and him fling back a stone and buss a man head. But mi want to know if the police couldn't pepperspray him or anything. All of who over deh never strong enough to hold one man especially since him never have a weapon?" she added.

Foster described her late son as being quiet and hard-working. She said he had a passion for the building construction field.

"Dem father died leaving four of them so from before him leave school, him use to work at a car wash. Him was very talented and even the house that he lived in Kitson Town, is him build it. We used to live on Hunts Bay Lane but because of violence, we got a piece of land in Kitson Town and move there. But he was the only one living there at the time," she said.

Foster said she was stunned when she received a call from her son's girlfriend that he was acting out of character.

"Him girlfriend say all of a sudden just in one day, him behaviour change, and that Issac a get off him brain. Mi tell her say mi and him bredda coming and we leave out. Then a police call and ask if mi a him madda and mi tell him yes and that we on our way. Mi beg him to restrain him for mi. Mi keep on a hear some noise but I didn't know it was in the cemetery dem deh," Foster said.

She said she was stunned when just minutes later, she got another call that her son was dead.

"All this time mi never know what a took place and say a shoot dem shoot him. Mi never get a chance to carry him to the doctor or get help for him," she said.

Foster recalled that she last saw Isaac on Christmas Day and he was in a jubilant mood. Another relative added that his mood remained the same up to Sunday night, just hours before his death.