Two men are dead and a woman severely injured after a shooting late Thursday on St. Thomas, police said.
At least one gunman opened fire in the Brookman Road area after 10:40 p.m. Thursday, killing a taxi van driver and 19-year-old C’Nijah Anthony. A woman reportedly celebrating her birthday was also shot several times in the lower body and is in critical condition at Roy Lester Schneider Hospital, police said.
Exactly what happened and why near Concrete Bars on Brookman Road was still under investigation Friday.
Anthony, who police said died from multiple gunshot wounds, had graduated from Ivanna Eudora Kean High School in May 2023.
Police were waiting to reveal the identity of the other man killed until his next of kin was notified.
Anthony’s death marks the sixth homicide on St. Thomas and the unknown taxi driver the seventh, bringing the territory’s total to nine homicides according to the Source Homicide List.*
Elsewhere on St. Thomas Thursday, police were summoned to Schneider Hospital, where a man was being treated for a gunshot. Police said the victim was walking to his car parked outside his Anna’s Retreat home when he heard gunfire. To his surprise, he found he had been shot.
The attacks continue a violent week of gunplay in the territory. On Saturday, three women were shot, one fatally, in two separate attacks. One of the surviving women was five months pregnant.
On Monday, a man walking down Kronprindsens Gade near Simons Alley was shot by an unseen assailant at around 10:25 p.m. He told police he heard several gunshots and ran for cover. When he stopped, he realized that he was struck in his upper body. He was treated at Schneider Hospital.
Also on Monday, police announced the successful arrest and extradition of a man wanted for alleged gun smuggling. Officials at Cyril E. King had discovered two illegal guns aboard an inbound flight from Florida in March 2023. Jakel Jamal Bell, 30, was arrested while allegedly picking up the guns from baggage claim and his alleged co-conspirator, Feliciano Comandante Olivieri, 30, was arrested in Orlando and shipped down to St. Thomas.
On Thursday, police officials told the Senate’s Committee on Homeland Security, Justice, and Public Safety that they would deploy extra surveillance cameras during St. Thomas Carnival. Although they said their greatest concern was crowd control, stopping violent altercations — especially gunfire — was a top priority.
The Source Homicide List is a chronological log of the homicides recorded in 2024 in the U.S. Virgin Islands, as reported by the VIPD. Cases are broken down by island. While it is based on VIPD reports, the Source does not include suicides or vehicular homicides in its listing that the police and some other media do. This can lead to a discrepancy in the number of incidents reported.
