A man was shot and killed in the former Cinerama building on White Chapel Road, Kingstown, near His Majesty’s Prison around 1 a.m. on Tuesday.
The man has been identified as Mark Shallow, 54, of Georgetown and Kingstown and one of the people, many of whom are believed to be drug abusers, who occupy the abandoned building.
Shallow, who had over 30 criminal convictions, had made news headlines repeatedly, mostly for cocaine-related offences and violence.
iWitness News was reliably informed that an unknown assailant entered the abandoned building and opened fire.
Shallow, who was sleeping on a bed some distance from the door, was struck in the head and died.
The assailant is said to have escaped by fleeing in the direction of McKies Hill.
In January 2025, Shallow, who had 31 previous convictions at the time, was jailed after he was nabbed with 127 wrappings of cocaine, amounting to 22 grams, near the Central Police Station.
On Oct. 20, 2024, Shallow was sentenced to two years’ imprisonment, suspended for one year, for wounding.
In August 2023, Shallow was charged with two counts of wounding.
Prosecutors alleged that he had unlawfully and maliciously wounded a 41-year-old vendor of Campden Park with a knife over her right eye, and by cutting her on her forehead at White Chapel Road, Kingstown, on Aug. 4, 2023.
Shallow’s death comes on the heels of three shooting incidents in the city that left two people injured on the weekend.
It bring to 32 the number of homicides in St. Vincent and the Grenadines this year, and is the fourth gun-related death in the capital in exactly one month.
On July 17, Claude John, of Redemption Sharpes and Ottley Hall residents Karon Bowens aka Twin, 35, and Giovannie Grant, 24, were shot and killed in Chinatown, 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.
The killing on Tuesday morning is the first since Trevor “Buju” Bailey and Junior Simmons took over the reins of the Royal St. Vincent and the Grenadines Police Force as acting commissioner of police and acting deputy commissioner of police.