Three men, including two with a history of violence, were shot and killed in Kingstown on Friday night, several hundred metres from the Central Police Station.
The dead men are Claude John, of Redemption Sharpes and Ottley Hall residents Karon Bowens aka Twin, 35, and Giovannie Grant, 24.
They were gunned down in Chinatown, Kingstown, the area across the street from the Central Police Station, where shops and other businesses are located between the Solidarity Carpark and the fish market in the capital.
People often socialise in the area, where the activities include drinking, smoking, eating and gambling.
Reports are that two masked gunmen approached from the seaside behind the public washroom and opened fire, killing the three men at the scene.
Police are yet to comment on the killings, which take the homicide count in St. Vincent and the Grenadines this year to 27, 13 fewer than the 40 recorded in 2025, even as five months remain in the year.
However, people with information about the workings of criminal elements in the country have theorised that John was not a target of the shooting.
Bowens and Grant are no strangers to news headlines.
On May 31, police charged Grant with wounding after he allegedly cut a 23-year-old Campden Park woman on the left hand with an unknown object in Kingstown on May 2.
He was granted EC$2,900 bail with one surety and his trial set for Feb. 8, 2027.
On March 18, police charged Grant with theft for allegedly stealing EC$100 in cash from a 53-year-old farmer of South Rivers.
He allegedly committed the offence at the Solidarity Car Park in Kingstown on Feb. 28.
Grant pleaded not guilty to the charge and was granted EC$500. The status of the charge before the court is not known to iWitness News at this time.
In June 2023, Grant was jailed for three years and nine months for assaulting his girlfriend.
The sentence was in connection with a May 15, 2023, assault that began at Little Tokyo, and ended with Grant punching his ex-girlfriend in the face under the Courts gallery on Upper Bay Street, shortly after police had warned him against interfering with the woman.
Earlier, Grant had failed to get into a car in which his ex-girlfriend found refuge from him.
Then, in September 2023, Grant was jailed for one year for stealing EC$200 from the pocket of a sanitation worker, who had fallen asleep around 2 a.m. at the Public Health Department in Kingstown, on Jan. 15, 2023.
Meanwhile, Bowens’ time behind bars was for firearm offences. In September 2009, he was jailed for three years for possession of one Ruger GP 100-357 Magnum revolver and six rounds of .38 special ammunition.
Bowens was walking in Ottley Hall around 10 p.m. on Sept. 1, 2009, when he came upon police officers from the Rapid Response Unit. He threw the weapon into some bushes when he was about 10 feet away from the officers.
Then, in May 2017, Bowens was jailed for possession of an unlicensed firearm and discharging it, endangering two people.
Bowens had discharged the firearm at Kemel Peters, of Green Hill, but the round struck Aaron Delpesche, of Chateaubelair.
The court imposed a five-year sentence for the firearm possession charge, nine months for discharging the weapon and two years for wounding and ordered that the sentences run concurrently.
In October 2022, Grant and Bowens, along with Nigel Roberson, 24, and Leroy Patrick, 49, of Vermont and Ottley Hall, were charged that on Sept. 2022, in Ottley Hall, they had in their possession 54 lbs of mutton reasonably suspected of being stolen or unlawfully obtained.
The shooting on Friday night is the second in Kingstown in which multiple people have died this year.
On April 10, Enrique John aka Shoubu, 29, of Layou, and Raheem Guy, 22, were gunned down in Stony Ground.
John was killed while on bail for two attempted murder charges. The killing came two days after the court allowed his bail to continue, even as he had breached his curfew.
John was also a defendant in the case in which five people were slapped with multiple charges over the robbery of the credit union in South Rivers in July 2024.