KINGSHILL — A second victim from the shooting incident at the Corner Pocket Grillhouse, Bar and Nightclub in Estate La Reine has succumbed from his injuries, authorities said.
The victim, identified as 25-year-old Kadeem Baptiste, was one of six persons shot on February 27 at the establishment when a verbal dispute escalated to an apparent gun battle, VIPD spokesman Toby Derima said.
Baptiste was airlifted to a hospital on the mainland for treatment last month, Derima said. Baptiste died there yesterday.
Dujuan Tyson, 23, was immediately killed in the shooting that occurred shortly before midnight on the last Saturday of February, according to the VIPD.
Four other victims of the Corner Pocket shooting — three men and one woman — received injuries that were not considered life-threatening, the police spokesman said previously.
“While we were processing that scene, we got calls of shots being discharged at the Corner Pocket in Estate La Reine,” Police Detective Naomi Joseph said one week ago. “Apparently, there’s been an ongoing dispute between two factions. One of the young men was isolated, he somehow got away from where they put him and came back in front with a firearm and started firing. As a result of that, fire was returned on him and multiple people got shot in the scramble. We ended up with six people being shot at Corner Pocket, one dying.”
Prominent St. Croix businessman and philanthropist Samuel “Marco” Baptiste, the father of the second victim Kadeem Baptiste, denied on Wednesday that he had put a “$500,000 to $600,000” bounty on the head of the person who shot his son, contrary to social media speculation, according to a report in the V.I Consortium which has since been deleted from the website.
Detectives are urging anyone with information in this and other recent shooting incidents on St. Croix to contact police by calling 911, the Crime Tip Line at (340) 778-4950, or anonymously to Crime Stoppers USVI at (800) 222-TIPS.