Mugshot of Jahnigh Gonsalves. Photo Credit: THE VIRGIN ISLANDS POLICE DEPARTMENT.
ST. CROIX — Jahnigh Gonsalves has been arrested and charged with attempted murder and several firearm-related offenses after police say he shot two people at the Lorraine Village Housing Community on June 29.
Police were alerted to the shooting shortly before 10 a.m. Monday. Responding officers found an injured man outside who appeared to have been shot several times. Officers then followed a trail of blood and spent bullet casings up a set of stairs, where they found an injured woman who had also been shot more than once.
The woman identified Gonsalves as the shooter, according to police. Officers said she appeared to be in visible pain as she told them she had come out of the bedroom when Gonsalves shot both her and the man.
The injured couple was transported to the hospital while police canvassed the area. A neighbor reportedly told officers that she was awakened by gunshots, but had not heard any argument or loud disturbance before the shooting.
At the hospital, officers spoke with the injured man, who said there had been tension between him and his brother for some time. He told police he had been trying to get Gonsalves out of the apartment for the past two months.
According to the injured man, his girlfriend had returned to the apartment that morning after dropping her child to school. Gonsalves reportedly insulted her using profanity as she left the unit, prompting his brother to go into the bedroom and call 911 to seek help getting Gonsalves removed.
As the man exited the bedroom with his girlfriend, he encountered Gonsalves, who had been waiting on the stairs, according to police. Gonsalves then allegedly opened fire on his brother and the woman.
The injured man also told police that his brother had brandished a firearm at them the previous day during an argument about discarded tea. Gonsalves threatened to shoot him then, the man said, but he did not call police because he did not believe his brother meant the threat.
Police noted gunshot wounds to the man’s wrist, bicep and thigh.
The injured woman’s account corroborated her boyfriend’s, but she added that the mother of Gonsalves’s children was also inside the apartment at the time of the shooting. As she and her boyfriend lay bleeding on the ground, the woman reportedly exited a bedroom and left the apartment with her children, stepping over the injured couple on her way out.
Police noted that the injured woman had gunshot wounds to her arm, leg and upper back.
Surveillance footage reviewed by police reportedly captured people near the building running, followed by a man exiting the apartment where the shooting occurred. The man walked along a pathway and later appeared on video behind the complex’s maintenance building. A few minutes later, cameras showed a woman leaving the same apartment with three children and running to an apartment in another building.
Police later spoke with the mother of Gonsalves’s children. She reportedly said she had just awakened when she heard the gunshots and was initially unsure whether they came from inside the apartment or outside. When she heard someone crying out in pain, she left the bedroom and saw the injured couple. She told police she picked up her children and left because she was afraid.
Gonsalves surrendered to police early Tuesday morning. He was arrested and charged with two counts each of first-degree attempted murder, first-degree assault and third-degree assault.
He was also charged with carrying a firearm during a crime of violence, carrying a firearm within 1,000 feet of a housing community, possession of a deadly weapon during a crime of violence, discharging or aiming firearms, brandishing, exhibiting or using deadly weapons, possession of ammunition, and first-degree reckless endangerment.
As of press time, the outcome of an advice of rights hearing before Magistrate Yolan Brow Ross had not been made available to the public. Gonsalves’s next court appearance is scheduled for July 15.
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