Taj Weekes recounts harrowing experience with gunmen

Saint Lucian reggae singer and philanthropist Taj Weekes came face-to-face last weekend with four masked men who invaded his property. Weekes, who has lived in the United States, Cuba and parts of Africa, recently moved back to a quiet, remote spot in Mon Repos on Saint Lucia’s southeastern coast. But his peaceful life was suddenly disrupted on Sunday.

On Wednesday, Taj Weekes shared what happened.

“The experience was surreal. I was at home about 10, 10:30 p.m., doors open because I live out in the woods. No need to close, there was no need for bars and I saw four lights coming down the driveway. My immediate thought was that it was a car and a few people have keys. I thought it was one of them, so I didn’t skip into high gear. You know, I just kind of walked out casually. I was talking to my wife on the phone,” he recalled.

As he got closer, he saw four men wearing what appeared to be military gear. Two pointed their lights up, while the other two pointed theirs down.

“I asked them what they wanted and they just started staring me down, you know, kept their lights on. One of the brothers took the light off of me to show me that he had a gun. I said to them I wasn’t afraid, and they should do what they had to do. It was just me talking. They didn’t speak at all. They just stayed on with their masks and after they walked down by the back beach. And I heard what I think was a gunshot go off,” Weekes said.

While his wife, still on the phone, called a family member, Weekes contacted the Micoud police. He said they responded quickly.

When asked if it might have been a case of mistaken identity, Weekes dismissed the idea.

“You don’t find where I live, you have to go looking for it. You know. So, to come down there, you have to come down there for a reason. There’s no just finding the place. That was planned, I think that was done to scare me. It was done to benefit some people. You know, but we’re not intimidated, and we’re not running away,” he said.

Weekes is not sure why this happened. He says he has not hurt anyone and now lives far from other people. “All I do is dig, plant trees, and talk to dogs all day. I’ve done nothing to anybody,” he said.

Speaking about the increase in crime across the country, Taj Weekes said the situation is sad.

“I’ve lived in so many places, and I’ve never been confronted by anything like this, you know. So, to come back home and try to plant food to feed people and have to deal with this. It’s really sad, but I’ve been watching the news, you know, and I am thankful that we’re here today to talk about it because some people before me didn’t get a chance to make it,” he explained.

Weekes, who has helped social programmes and marginalised communities through his TUCO foundation, says solving crime will take long-term solutions.

“Because of a lack of long-term planning, that’s why we’re here. So, we have to look at it in a more holistic way and see who we can bring in – church, state, community, everybody; let’s try to see how we can solve it,” he said.

“I’ve chosen to come back home because, you know, home is where the heart is. I couldn’t have thought of any other place else to live. I’ve done everything I’ve done for Saint Lucia, so why not come back to live there? So now what’s beautiful about it is that I can actually speak on things, you know. I always said that when I lived in a foreign place, I couldn’t speak on things because I wasn’t there. I wasn’t essentially in the midst of all of it.”

Weekes, whose music has been considered for Grammy nominations several times, said the country needs to do better.

According to him, people who commit crimes are part of our community. “They are us,” he said, “they didn’t come from an alien land.

“We as a society have to look at it as a whole. If we keep pointing fingers and saying is them fellas down the road and them fellas, no, it’s all of us. All these people have encountered some of us along the way, so we have to take some more responsibility for it as a whole and not put it, you know, like it is in that community or that community. It’s in Saint Lucia, and that’s where we all live.”

Taj Weekes stressed that everyone in society needs to help find solutions, since crime can affect anyone, just as it did him. He pointed out that while his experience happened in a remote area, similar incidents have happened to others in the city.

He said he does not feel as safe as when he first came back to Saint Lucia, but he is not scared enough to leave.

“I will have to be more vigilant,” he admitted.

He admits he does not have all the answers to stopping crime, but believes society must finally come together to solve these problems.

“I don’t think it’s naive of me to think that we can live in a place with no crime and violence. It can end. We just have to correctly put our minds together and do it,” he said.

“We have to remember that when we talk about “what are we doing for the children?”, let’s set it up in such a way that these children don’t become those quote-unquote monsters. It takes a village to raise a child. I was raised by a village, but it doesn’t seem like the village is functioning [anymore].

“We have to find a way to sort this out. We’re in 2026; it has gotten a lot worse than it was in 1971. It will get a lot worse in 2030 unless we figure out the long-term plan; we will be doing this over and over,” he ended by saying.

The article Taj Weekes recounts harrowing experience with gunmen is from St. Lucia Times.