BROOKLYN, New York, CMC – A St Lucian woman who was shot in the chest during a melee in which a St. Lucian football star was killed early Monday, says she was horrified by the incident.
“I heard the noise and then I felt the pain,” Shawnette Justin, 24, told reporters here in a bedside interview at Brookdale University Hospital.
“When I turned to see what was wrong, I saw the blood coming from his head,” she added, referring to Phillip Tisson, 27, the leading goal scorer for the St. Lucia football team in the New York Caribbean Cup.
Police said Tisson, a centre forward, had just finished celebrating his team’s 1-0 victory over St. Kitts and Nevis on Sunday when he was killed by an unidentified gunman a short distance from a St. Lucian night club in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn, in the wee hours of Monday morning.
Tisson had scored the lone goal in the semi-final duel with St. Kitts and Nevis in ensuring that his team qualified for the New York Caribbean Cup final against defending champions Jamaica this Sunday.
The striker, who had come to New York in May for the Brooklyn-based tournament, had scored five goals in the 2010 campaign.
Police said the gunman opened fire after Tisson entered a car, with four other passengers, a short distance from the Tropiks night club on Carroll Street and Utica Avenue.
Reports said the bullet went through Tisson’s head and struck Justin in her chest.
Police said three other women in the car were unhurt.
Tisson was rushed to hospital but pronounced dead on arrival.
“He didn’t say anything on the way,” Justin said. “His eyes were moving a little, but then nothing. I was holding his head, but then I couldn’t any longer.”
The motive for the murder remained unclear yesterday but police said they were investigating reports Tisson got into a fight at Tropiks nightspot, where he and his teammates partied.
“He went back and forth to the deejay getting shout-outs to himself,” Justin said. “How he scored the winning goal, things like that.”
In a telephone interview from St Lucia, Tisson’s mother, Rosleyn Tisson lamented her son’s death.
