By Claude Mills, Staff Reporter
Andrew Blackstock and son Kadrew. - Contributed
THE TERRIFIED dash of a sick, wailing toddler - his T-shirt all blood-splattered as he raced across a dark street in search of his mother is the defining image that sticks in the minds of the friends and families of murdered security guard Andrew Blackstock.
"Daddy friend dem kill daddy," three-year-old Kadrew told his father's relatives.
On Monday night, Andrew Blackstock, a security guard employed to Hawkeye Electronics, was shot multiple times in the upper body in 2 East Greater Portmore while on his way home with his son following a visit to the doctor.
When The Gleaner news team arrived in the community, the leaves and limbs of a mango tree that had once stood in front of Blackstock's home lay on the ground like strange tributes to a fallen hero.
FOND MEMORIES
Grieving friends and relatives had chopped down the large tree in the throes of grief on Monday night because they felt that its presence had contributed to the darkness that helped to mask the attackers who killed the man they had loved all their lives. His friends and family have fond memories they will always cherish of the big-boned, muscular, jovial 27-year-old who was fond of playing pranks.
"He was a family man, always jovial, he had the ability to make you laugh. He had no enemies, he got along with everybody. He was a great big brother to me, I will miss him, he never deserved to die that way," a teary-eyed Kerry-Ann, Blackstock's youngest sister told The Gleaner.
However, it is the pain of Karen Cross, the love of Blackstock's life, which cuts the deepest. She had had an eight-year-old relationship with the deceased and only learned of his death after returning from classes on Monday.
As she sat in the sofa of her home, yesterday, Ms. Cross' face and eyes were puffy from fits of prolonged crying and her son's basketball - a present from his father - rested on the arm of the chair next to her.
GUN LICENCE
"I was always concerned about his job, and when he came home about two years ago and told me he got his gun licence, I was upset because we have a young son and anything can happen. I was always afraid that somebody would want to come for his gun... we were planning to get married next year, he was such a sweet man, I loved him a lot," said the 24-year-old legal clerk.
In the meantime, the condition of her sick son has worsened. He now has an ear infection, and one could hear a rattling noise in his breathing as he slept on his mother's chest.
"I am going to try to get him counselling. He is not talking, he just sits down and stares in space, and he doesn't eat, or sleep for long," she said.
