One of the victims of the Courts Megastore shooting last year is pleading for help after he was left paralyzed and unable to afford a wheelchair. He cannot access his hillside Trou Macaque home without assistance from neighbors who carry him on a stretcher.
On December 17, 2023, 32-year-old Nathan Pierre was ecstatic having recently started his own plumbing company and securing his first contract. He was finally living his dream. Life was looking up for him as his father had also recently gifted him a small starter home.
The four-room structure was small and needed work as the roof was leaking and the walls still needed to be plastered and painted. Pierre didn’t mind though as he was capable of doing many of the repairs and upgrades himself. Furnishing it also wouldn’t be a problem since the contract meant he could now afford it.
Pierre decided one of the first pieces of furniture he wanted was a bed for his stepdaughter and went to Courts Megastore in El Socorro. On that fateful Sunday morning, Pierre was walking through the carpark when he passed a group of people arguing, but paid them no mind. Moments later, he heard several loud explosions and felt as though “all the current went” in his lower body as he collapsed on the pavement.
Pierre realized he had been shot and although he couldn’t see any blood, he began praying for his life. He was taken to the hospital where doctors rushed him into emergency surgery. A bullet had shattered three of his ribs, severed his spine, damaged his kidney, and remained lodged in his chest.
But the bullet did more than that; it also shattered his dreams. The following morning after he awoke, doctors broke the news to him that he would never walk again. Pierre was one of four people shot that day. Siblings Sinaya and Simeon Lessey died while Simeon’s girlfriend Kerry-Ann Moore was also shot.
PC Sidney Roberts, 34, of the Homicide Bureau of Investigations, has been charged with murder and shooting with intent to do grievous bodily harm. Newsday visited Pierre at his home on April 5 where he described how his life has changed since the shooting.
His girlfriend Sherice Lawrence met Newsday at the top of a narrow dirt track which led to a steep dirt yard filled with mini-troughs caused by run-off water after it rained. Lawrence said whenever Pierre has to leave the house, she has to borrow a wheelchair and rely on neighbors to place him on a stretcher to get him from his house to an ambulance or a taxi.
Inside the small unfinished structure, Pierre lay shirtless on his bed with an adult diaper peeking out just above the blanket covering his legs. He has a long scar along the length of his abdomen. Tears rolled down his cheek as he spoke about how difficult it has been for him trying to deal with losing his independence.
“I have to be begging people to carry me out to vehicles because of the track. Things hard right about now.” Pierre said before the incident, he was up early every morning and spent the majority of the day working before returning home on evenings.
