St. Luke’s Methodist Primary School Reeling from the Shooting of One of its Own

An eleven-year-old student of Saint Luke’s Methodist Primary School in Belize City is clinging to life at the Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital after he was innocently shot while carrying out an errand for his mother. Kyron Green went to buy at a nearby grocery store on Central American Boulevard when a gunman approached and opened fire at his target. A bullet caught the standard-four student in the face and he is at this time nonresponsive and paralyzed. It’s a difficult time for family and friends, as well as the school. Tonight, a candle light vigil is being held in his honour at the school compound on Mahogany Street. News Five’s Duane Moody reports.

Carolyn Welch, Vice Principal, St. Luke’s Methodist Primary School

“Kyron is not just a student. Every single student on this compound know who is Kyron and not one day goes by without you hear his name; he’s just that type of person. He does his mischief and he just keeps on smiling.”

Kyron Green

Duane Moody, Reporting

Today, the students, teachers and faculty at Saint Luke’s Methodist School continue to cope with the terrible news that one of its brightest students is fighting for his life at the K.H.M.H.  Eleven-year-old Kyron Green, a standard-four student at the primary school, was collateral damage when he was shot in the face after a gunman took aim at his target inside a shop on Central American Boulevard last Friday night. In the wake of the shooting, the school is carrying out several activities.

Carolyn Welch

Carolyn Welch

“We know that the bill is extremely high and in an effort for us to assist, we are planning a barbecue sale tomorrow; however, this evening, we are having a candle light prayer vigil. We are inviting everyone to come out and join us because we are sick and tired of our innocent children getting hurt. We are tired of it. And for some reason or the other, the perpetrators or the criminals are not the ones feeling the pinch. The families are feeling the pinch; they are the ones being hurt repeatedly—financially, emotionally, spiritually, physically.”

Kyron is well known at the school for his bubbly personality; his siblings are past students and others are still enrolled at Saint Luke’s. According to Vice Principal Carolyn Welch, when unfortunate incidents like this happen, it is the entire population at the school that’s hurting.

Carolyn Welch

“We do have a counsellor here, Miss Roxanne Jones. She works with the students ongoing; from day one she starts to work with the student or students. And for this school year, she has been extremely busy because it is a lot of students she has been working with whose sibling, whose parents, have either been gunned down, stabbed, their homes have been burnt and they are left homeless. And we have been trying in all kinds of ways to assist and help them to get over it.”

The school has organized a march that will see students parading from the school grounds on Mahogany Street, on to Central American Boulevard and back to the school on Thursday.

Carolyn Welch

“The children they are in a very, very…I wouldn’t want to use the word depressed because it might be too heavy for the children, but they are very sad. Some of them are angry. They have made their little placards because on Thursday, we’ll be having a march and they will be expressing themselves via their little placards. It is very hard for them.”

Duane Moody for News Five.