A group of men who helped to rehabilitate their neighbourhood offer an example for the community to reverse the blight of gang and antisocial activity, a reformed gang member said in response to public gun murders on the island.

Jamaka Kamal also said that his experience of a structured life abroad in Britain — where he now mentors young men after living there for more than six years — could offer a path for others from the island to follow in getting their lives back on track.

During a recent visit home to Bermuda, Mr Kamal said: “Until the community stands up, takes hold and understands the power they hold, and lets the Government and police help them, these killings are not going to stop.”

His comments came after the double murder of Natrae Eversley and Nakai Robinson in a roadside shooting on Court Street in August, and the fatal shooting of Janae Minors at her store close by last month.

Mr Kamal said he hails from the Deepdale area, where he was once part of a group of gang members who dealt drugs, named themselves the “Deepdale Cartel” after their Pembroke neighbourhood, and brought bad associations to their home turf.

However, he said that as older men and “ex-gang members who cleaned up their lives”, they had been able to effect change on their own doorstep — reducing antisocial activity and converting a piece of open space into a community garden at Deepdale.

Mr Kamal insisted that the community, with input from people who had experienced gangs and crime, was best equipped to reckon with the island’s murders and violence.

“Until we do that, it’s hard for me to believe that people want this to stop,” the 48-year-old said.

He added: “Now we have mothers getting shot. Ten years ago, I said this would happen.

“This problem can’t be fixed by the Government and police.”

Mr Kamal’s personal links to the island’s struggle include Kimwande Walker, a father of two who was fatally shot in front of his son and daughter at a Good Friday fun day outside Victor Scott Primary School on April 2, 2010.

The attack took place during a time of heightened gun violence, but was seen as particularly heinous for its brazenly public nature — in sight of more than 100 witnesses, including a large number of children.

Mr Kamal said: “Kimwande was a close friend of mine.”

In April 2011, in a year already marked by four fatal shootings, Mr Kamal created the group Stand Up Bermuda on social media and quickly amassed several hundred members, growing into thousands.

Stand Up Bermuda organised a peace walk and cleaned up litter in troubled neighbourhoods, but fell into disarray over internal squabbles.

Mr Kamal, who had been open about his past as a gang member involved in drugs, quickly fell into troubles of his own. By the end of the year, he was homeless, jobless and living out of a tent.

He told The Royal Gazette: “I fell to the wayside. My life went off in a different direction and I got involved in drugs. But I left here and I changed my life.”

He credited his move to Britain in May 2019, when he settled in Birmingham, with getting his life back on track.

“I want the community to know that I’m not trying to talk about the problem. I’m trying to come up with solutions.”

He said he wanted to revive Stand Up Bermuda on the basis of “the community standing up together as one”.

“My solutions come from the fact that I grew up on the streets and I changed my life by changing my environment — and now, if I ever wanted to return to Bermuda, I can return as a strong member of the community,” he added.

“I can talk to the drug dealers and the drug addicts because I have been both, and today I stand as a changed man.

“I still have my challenges like any other man, but I’m a man who faces those challenges in the right way today.”

Mr Kamal said that the community needed to take ownership of its problems.

“These are our kids carrying on, our sons,” he said. “If we can’t take hold of our own sons, then the elders are not elders any more, and we are in serious trouble.”

Mr Kamal said he had found a new life in Birmingham as a motivational speaker, author and the host of poetry nights through his group, Nubiankingsz.

He replicated Keep Bermuda Beautiful with another KBB, for Keep Birmingham Beautiful, organising clean-ups.

Mr Kamal said he hoped ultimately to acquire an HMO, or house in multiple occupation, to provide shelter and structure to young Bermudian men who “need to get out of here and get into a different, stable environment”.

He said he could be e-mailed at jamakakamal@gmail.com to assist Bermudians in Britain with practical issues such as getting their National Insurance numbers.

“I want to create a safe space in the UK so that people can come over, to help give them a path and help them live there if they choose,” Mr Kamal said.

“Once they’re back on track, they can come back to Bermuda if that’s their choice — or they can stay in the UK.”

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