Gov. Charles W. Turnbull gave a strong indication Tuesday that he may not be willing to go with some of the recommendations of the task force he appointed at the start of the year to draft a plan to pull the territory out of its economic abyss.
The Economic Recovery Task Force, chaired by St. Thomas business leader John deJongh Jr., submitted its Five-Year Operating and Strategic Financial Plan to the governor on April 27. Senators got their first official look at it on May 8 at a Finance Committee meeting.
On Tuesday, Turnbull sent a letter to Senate president Vargrave Richards saying that the administration's proposed fiscal year 2001 budget for the territory, due by law to be delivered to the Senate on May 30, won't get there until June 30. In his letter the governor wrote:
"As you are aware, the administration's Five-Year Operating and Strategic Financial Plan contains several revenue and expenditure initiatives which are under review. The review process is to determine the measures to be incorporated into the FY 2001 executive budget to ensure it is fiscally viable. Therefore, it is necessary to delay the submission of the budget."
At a Senate Agriculture, Economic Development and Consumer Protection Committee meeting addressing the territory's tourism outlook Monday night, Berry, a member of that committee and chair of the Finance Committee, said Rudolph Krigger Sr., the governor's special assistant for fiscal policy and economic affairs, had stated publicly that the various department heads in the Turnbull administration were being told to adhere to the five-year plan in drafting their FY 2001 budgets.
The plan, an inch-thick document of double-sided printing, analyzes government operations department by department, summarizing findings and making recommendations for structural reform. It strongly emphasizes a need for new public-private partnerships and privatization of a number of functions that are now government responsibility.

Jason Carroll, the 18-year-old victim of a daylight shooting on Main Street in the heart of the Charlotte Amalie shopping district, was an innocent bystander, police sources confirmed late Tuesday night based on a preliminary investigation.
Carroll, the son of Assistant U.S. Attorney James Carroll and his wife, Cecelia, was shot in the chest and arm as he walked past the Main Street entrance to Drake's Passage, police said. He staggered across the street and collapsed on the sidewalk in front of Princess Jewelers, where he died a few minutes later as Joe Elmore, a local resident and longtime American Red Cross worker with experience in war-torn areas, was attempting cardiopulmonary resuscitation.
Elmore and his lunch companion, St. Thomas-St. John Chamber of Commerce executive director Joe Aubain, heard the shots as they were returning to the chamber offices after having lunch on Back Street. As Elmore began CPR, Aubain rushed into a nearby store to call police.
The gunfire broke out about 1:25 p.m. Tuesday after a fight erupted between two unidentified individuals, police said. Carroll was struck by two bullets, in the chest and the left arm. One police source said there was no evidence that he had been shot while attempting to foil a robbery at a Drake's Passage store, as some early, unconfirmed reports suggested. "He was merely walking past the Drake's entrance when he was struck by the bullets," the source said.
Carroll had just completed his freshman year as a full-time student at the University of the Virgin Islands. A close family friend said he had gone into town Tuesday to look for a summer job.
UVI president Orville Kean expressed his sympathies to the Carroll family Tuesday night, saying, "Any senseless loss of life should be abhorrent to the community. At UVI, when we lose one of our students, a young person like this, it hits us especially hard."
On Tuesday afternoon, police were seeking a black male with shoulder-length dreadlocks, about 5'8" in height, wearing a white T-shirt and blue jeans. Witnesses said shortly after the shooting that the assailant fled toward the Back Street area. There were other reports that the gunman made his getaway through Drake's Passage to the waterfront. Deputy Police Chief Theodore Carty asked that anyone with information contact the Major Crime Task Force by calling 774-2196, 774-4050 or 911.
Tuesday's shooting occurred as hundreds of tourists from the only cruise ship in port, the Century, wandered throughout the shopping district. When the gunshots rang out, most ran for cover in nearby stores, one shop owner said. The Virgin Islands Independent quoted a tourist from Michigan as saying that he and another Century passenger had been walking out of a Main Street gift shop about 50 feet from the place where Carroll fell "and I heard two loud pops. We turned around and saw this kid drop his bag and slump against that wall there by the jewelry store."
Sens. David Jones and Roosevelt David, who heard about the shooting while having lunch at Gladys's Restaurant in Royal Dane Mall, joined the crowd that gathered at the scene. Both decried the brazen daylight shooting in the heart of downtown St. Thomas as tourists nearby photographed and videotaped the crime scene.
Jones said he was "outraged that vagabonds would come into the heart of town to fight and open gunfire which today killed an innocent man." He termed the killing "another nail in the coffin of tourism in the Virgin Islands." Jones, who chairs the Senate committee which has tourism as one of its areas of focus, had presided over a four-hour hearing the night before on the topic of how to address the territory's foundering hospitality industry.
Two hours after Tuesday's shooting, the yellow crime scene tape put up earlier by police had been removed, and all that was left to remind shoppers and pedestrians physically of the violence were the chalk outline and blood stains on the ground where Carroll fell to his death and a blood-soaked blue towel lying within its perimeter.
The killing was the eighth in the territory this year and the fifth in the St. Thomas-St. John district. It was the third shooting in downtown Charlotte Amalie within a month. A man was shot in the chest in the Savan on Sunday. Another 18-year-old, also an innocent victim, was shot in the back on Snegle Gade behind Back Street on April 25 and was left paralyzed as a result. Police have announced no arrests in either case.

Editor's note: For further details on the shooting, see the earlier story headlined "Gunfire leaves UVI student dead on Main Street."

The V.I. Water and Power Authority has completed its $80,000 Little Mon Bijou potable waterline project.
The line installation project, designed by WAPA and funded by the Public Finance Authority, will supply potable water to 23 homes in Little Mon Bijou.
Residents in the area are encouraged to come to the St. Croix Customer Service Office at Sunny Isle and fill out an application for water service. To apply, residents need to bring proof of ownership or tenancy of the property and personal identification showing a picture, signature and Social Security number of the person applying for service. A minimum service connection fee of $75 is required.

Despite repeated references to the administration's five-year economic recovery plan and the need for all major players to be "reading from the same page," it was evident at this week's meeting of the Senate Agriculture, Economic Development and Consumer Protection Committee that disagreements abound.
In the four-hour hearing that attracted only a half-dozen community members as audience, differences were aired between the private and public sectors, between the administrative and legislative branches of government, among senators and even between the governor's nominee to head the Tourism Department and Government House itself.
Five individuals made presentations Monday night and addressed committee members' questions: Tourism Commissioner-designate Rafael Jackson, St. Thomas-St. John Hotel and Tourism Association president Richard Doumeng, St. Thomas-St. John Chamber of Commerce president John deJongh Jr. (who also chaired the governor's Economic Recovery Task Force that produced the five-year plan), and V.I. Carnival Committee chair Kenneth Blake and executive director Caswill Callender.
Doumeng and deJongh in their presentations repeatedly cited points made in the five-year plan. Examples:
– The V.I. government spent only half a million dollars for tourism advertising in fiscal year 1999, by far the least of any destination in the Caribbean. (According to the five-year plan, "most of the department's budget was allocated to the settlement of a contractual dispute between the department and a contracted advertising agency.")
– Tourism is paying $101,000 a year in rent for office space in New York and $78,816 a year in Washington, D.C.
– Visitors staying at time-share units — a growing segment of the local tourism market — do not pay the 8 percent hotel room tax that goes into the Tourism Revolving Fund, which is supposed to fund only tourism advertising.
– While the government's Bureau of Economic Research has assumed since 1981 that 88 percent of the airline passengers flying into St. Thomas and St. Croix are visitors heading for hotels, declining room occupancy rates show this is far from the case today.
Tourism money matters
During a discussion of the six mainland Tourism offices, Jackson said, "I need bodies in those offices. In order to get the bodies, I need a budget." For the coming fiscal year, he said, "I need at least a minimum of $15 million." Later, he said that his department, which got $3.5 million from the General Fund last year, has been "ordered to cut the budget 10 percent" for 2001.
Sen. Violet Anne Golden told Jackson that, given fiscal realities, "You're either going to pay for people or you're going to pay for promotion and advertising." But she also advised him to "Tell those people at Government House they have to let you do your job."
Sen. Lorraine Berry, who chairs the Finance Committee, advised, "Your request has to be made before you get here, because when you get here, you aren't going to get it."
When Sen. Donald "Ducks" Cole reminisced about his younger days working as a waiter and dive assistant and expressed the desire to "recapture our proud past and service," deJongh responded: "I don't think there is any way that we can recapture the past." Years ago, he said, the Virgin Islands had little competition for tourist dollars. Now, islands that formerly had bananas, nutmeg or sugar as their cash crop are aggressively courting tourists instead.
Doumeng said all of the off-shore offices but New York and maybe L.A. should have been closed by now, and the New York one could be moved to New Jersey "for a tenth the cost." In the Internet era, he said, "There is absolutely no business sense in doing what we are doing in the way we are doing it. This is an obsolete practice."
However, he added, closing the offices need not mean laying off the personnel. "Keep the people working," he said. "Put brochures in the trunks of their cars. . . and make them visit travel agents and go to trade shows."
Jackson said he hopes to have the Tourism website online by Oct. 1 and that then he will consider closing some of the mainland offices. Meantime, with regard to the New York rent, "I think I can cut it in half," he said.
Partisan perspectives remained firm with regard to the proposed $2.50 head tax for cruise passengers projected to bring $5 million a year into the government coffers. Sen. Roosevelt David said cruise lines have imposed surcharges in Alaska to cover pollution fines and those calling in the Virgin Islands recently added $3.25 per passenger to cover new federal fees and it hasn't hurt their passenger loads.
But deJongh questioned that lack of impact and said many local businesses depend on the cruise ship industry. "Are you going to manage $5 million going into the General Fund, or are you going to manage an economy that's sustainable?" he asked.
Problems with partnering
Jackson clashed with Doumeng and deJongh over the idea of a private-public partnership to manage the territory's tourism marketing expenditure of the hotel tax funds. "I am totally against it," he said of the private sector having a role in public policymaking. "If the government has to put up the majority of the funding, the government should be in control."
But deJongh said timely response is often critical to take advantage of opportunities, and "the government has to go through 14 steps to secure a document." Doumeng noted that "we do not spend one red cent of our own tax money" for advertising; Tourism Revolving Fund revenues come entirely from visitors.
Sen. George Goodwin, an advocate for decades of regional cooperation, noted that "the other Caribbean islands that are leaving us behind have tourism boards that are private-public partnerships." He also noted that in 1993 he introduced legislation mandating tourism education as a part of the public school core curriculum.
Doumeng said a dozen other islands utilize a gradeschool program, "Hello, Tourist," that was written by the late Betty Sperber, a St. Croix hotelier for many years. And yet, he said, the materials are not used in the territory. "We don't do any tourism education," he said.
Berry quoted Rudolph Krigger Sr., the governor's assistant for economic and fiscal affairs, as saying department heads are being told to adhere to the five-year plan in developing their 2001 budgets. She said it was her reading that Jackson "has not agreed to any of the things in the plan" except that the Tourism commissioner should not chair the Port Authority Board.
Despite the exchanges, Doumeng paid tribute to Jackson at one point, saying the two "may not agree on 100 percent of things, but we agree on 90 percent of them. He has done more to make my life easier in the last eight weeks than was done for me in the year and a half before."
And Jackson told the panel he has "a very good working relationship" with the hotel association.
In summarizing V.I. Carnival 2000, which suffered a $50,000 cut in government funding because of the fiscal crisis, Blake said, "We lost a great deal on this Carnival, but we feel the Carnival was a success." Callender told the senators, "I hope we can get the Legislature to reconsider to give us some funding so we can pay our bills."
Five-year plan proposals
The five-year plan recommends, with regard to the Tourism Department, that:
– the government consider imposing a fee on timeshare units that would go into the Tourism Revolving Fund;
– Tourism get its Internet site up, opting for a less-extensive web presence if the estimated $1.5 million cost cannot be met out of the General Fund;
– Tourism evaluate the cost-effectiveness of its agents in Puerto Rico, Canada, England, Ita
ly and Denmark, and of its offices in New York, Washington, Atlanta, Miami, Chicago and Los Angeles;
– Tourism assess the value of establishing a hospitality industry training school;
– Tourism consider adopting an official logo, to be licensed to businesses for reproduction on towels, posters, T-shirts and the like;
– the government remove the annual molasses subsidy from Tourism's General Fund budget (a carryover from the days when the department was Economic Development and Agriculture, and Tourism was a division within it);
– Tourism hire a professional convention planning service;
– Tourism develop a special events calendar with more private sector involvement;
– the government consider establishing a tourism authority with a public-private board of directors to develop and implement marketing financed by the Tourism Revolving Fund;
– the government consider moving the Film Promotion Office (a carryover from the ED&A days) to the new Economic Development Authority;
– the government consider talks with the Port Authority and The West Indian Co. about their assuming marketing and welcoming responsibilities at the airports and cruise ship docks, respectively;
– the law be changed so that the Tourism commissioner is not the chair of the Port Authority Board and the Industrial Development Commission (another ED&A carryover);
– a 501 (c)(3) not-for-profit entity be established to promote cultural heritage tourism.

Although territorial banking regulators approved the Virgin Islands Community Bank’s bid to acquire Chase Manhattan’s local assets Tuesday, VICB officials said they won’t proceed with the deal under the government’s conditions.
After 10 months of deliberations with federal agencies, the V.I. Banking Board, which is chaired by Lt. Gov. Gerard Luz James II, approved the proposed acquisition, James said in a statement Tuesday afternoon. No details were given regarding the approval, such as whether VICB’s Industrial Development Commission tax breaks would roll over to the Chase acquisitions.
However, Michael Dow, VICB president and chief executive officer, said in a statement issued by his bank that the terms in the Banking Board’s approval were intended to "defeat the feasibility" of the transaction by "placing novel and intrusive conditions never before imposed on any other bank application."
One such condition is a $300,000 annual banking fee that Dow said was "arbitrarily" placed on VICB but no other banks in the territory. He also said the board is requiring government approval of 30 percent of VICB’s directors, despite it being a Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. bank.
"VICB will not close this transaction under these onerous terms," Dow said.
James, meanwhile, lauded the board’s work on the acquisition proposal, saying that the U.S. Treasury and Justice Departments and the FDIC all contributed to the decisions made.
"With the assistance of these agencies," James said, the board was able to scrutinize the proposal effectively and "determine the impact it would have" on the Virgin Islands economy. He added, "We have lived up to our fiduciary responsibility, and I can unequivocally say that the best interest of the people of the Virgin Islands has been met."
Dow blasted the local government for being anti-business. He cited remarks made by his boss, VICB and Innovative Communication Corp. owner Jeffrey Prosser, last week at a business function. Speaking to the St. Thomas-St. John Chamber of Commerce in a rare public address, Prosser criticized the government for impeding the growth of the private sector.
The Banking Board’s conditional approval is "indicative" of the V.I. government’s effort to "overtax and over-regulate the private sector," Dow said. He added, "The conditions imposed by the Banking Board have created a situation whereby this transaction is no longer feasible."
It was not clear whether the tax benefits enjoyed by VICB would automatically extend to the Chase acquisitions — worth much more than VICB's own assets. VICB is the only bank in the territory that receives IDC benefits. It is exempt from all real property, gross receipts and excise taxes, and from 90 percent of income taxes.
VICB proposed to buy the four Chase branches on St. Thomas, the sole branch on St. John and the two on St. Croix. Also included is Chase Trade Inc., a management company for foreign sales corporations, which are subsidiaries of U.S. export companies.
According to VICB’s application to the FDIC, Chase’s deposits were at $357.9 million as of June 30, 1998, making Chase "second in the USVI behind Banco Popular." Of that amount, $72.4 million was in government deposits and $285.5 million consisted of individual, partnership and corporation deposits. Of the $285.5 million, $14.4 million was attributable to Chase Trade FSC accounts, meaning the money was not from V.I. sources.
Chase's Eastern Caribbean Regional Banking Group had a total of $314.8 million in loans outstanding as of June 30, 1999, according to the report. Of that sum, $254.7 million was booked to the USVI branches.
Chase’s local work force as of Feb. 23, 1999, is listed in the report as 210 on St. Thomas, 26 on St. Croix and 10 on St. John.
The VICB board members who signed a unanimous resolution last July approving the deal are Prosser and his wife, Dawn Prosser; his long-time St. Croix business associate Ann E. Abramson; another long-time associate, Nebraska attorney John P. Raynor; J'Ada Finch-Sheen, ICC vice president for legal and human resources; and Dow.
As part of the agreement, both individually and on behalf of his company Innovative Communications Subsidiary Company LLC, Prosser agreed to guarantee that VICB would fulfill its obligations under the agreement. Those included keeping all the branches open for at least 90 days and offering "comparable employment" to all existing employees for at least one year after the purchase.

Although territorial banking regulators approved the Virgin Islands Community Bank’s bid to acquire Chase Manhattan’s local assets Tuesday, VICB officials said they won’t proceed with the deal under the government’s conditions.
After 10 months of deliberations with federal agencies, the V.I. Banking Board, which is chaired by Lt. Gov. Gerard Luz James II, approved the proposed acquisition, James said in a statement Tuesday afternoon. No details were given regarding the approval, such as whether VICB’s Industrial Development Commission tax breaks would roll over to the Chase acquisitions.
However, Michael Dow, VICB president and chief executive officer, said in a statement issued by his bank that the terms in the Banking Board’s approval were intended to "defeat the feasibility" of the transaction by "placing novel and intrusive conditions never before imposed on any other bank application."
One such condition is a $300,000 annual banking fee that Dow said was "arbitrarily" placed on VICB but no other banks in the territory. He also said the board is requiring government approval of 30 percent of VICB’s directors, despite it being a Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. bank.
"VICB will not close this transaction under these onerous terms," Dow said.
James, meanwhile, lauded the board’s work on the acquisition proposal, saying that the U.S. Treasury and Justice Departments and the FDIC all contributed to the decisions made.
"With the assistance of these agencies," James said, the board was able to scrutinize the proposal effectively and "determine the impact it would have" on the Virgin Islands economy. He added, "We have lived up to our fiduciary responsibility, and I can unequivocally say that the best interest of the people of the Virgin Islands has been met."
Dow blasted the local government for being anti-business. He cited remarks made by his boss, VICB and Innovative Communication Corp. owner Jeffrey Prosser, last week at a business function. Speaking to the St. Thomas-St. John Chamber of Commerce in a rare public address, Prosser criticized the government for impeding the growth of the private sector.
The Banking Board’s conditional approval is "indicative" of the V.I. government’s effort to "overtax and over-regulate the private sector," Dow said. He added, "The conditions imposed by the Banking Board have created a situation whereby this transaction is no longer feasible."
It was not clear whether the tax benefits enjoyed by VICB would automatically extend to the Chase acquisitions — worth much more than VICB's own assets. VICB is the only bank in the territory that receives IDC benefits. It is exempt from all real property, gross receipts and excise taxes, and from 90 percent of income taxes.
VICB proposed to buy the four Chase branches on St. Thomas, the sole branch on St. John and the two on St. Croix. Also included is Chase Trade Inc., a management company for foreign sales corporations, which are subsidiaries of U.S. export companies.
According to VICB’s application to the FDIC, Chase’s deposits were at $357.9 million as of June 30, 1998, making Chase "second in the USVI behind Banco Popular." Of that amount, $72.4 million was in government deposits and $285.5 million consisted of individual, partnership and corporation deposits. Of the $285.5 million, $14.4 million was attributable to Chase Trade FSC accounts, meaning the money was not from V.I. sources.
Chase's Eastern Caribbean Regional Banking Group had a total of $314.8 million in loans outstanding as of June 30, 1999, according to the report. Of that sum, $254.7 million was booked to the USVI branches.
Chase’s local work force as of Feb. 23, 1999, is listed in the report as 210 on St. Thomas, 26 on St. Croix and 10 on St. John.
The VICB board members who signed a unanimous resolution last July approving the deal are Prosser and his wife, Dawn Prosser; his long-time St. Croix business associate Ann E. Abramson; another long-time associate, Nebraska attorney John P. Raynor; J'Ada Finch-Sheen, ICC vice president for legal and human resources; and Dow.
As part of the agreement, both individually and on behalf of his company Innovative Communications Subsidiary Company LLC, Prosser agreed to guarantee that VICB would fulfill its obligations under the agreement. Those included keeping all the branches open for at least 90 days and offering "comparable employment" to all existing employees for at least one year after the purchase.

The 10-month search for a new police substation for Christiansted will end on June 1 when officers move into a new building at the Bassin Triangle intersection.
Police officers have been covering Christiansted and the east end out of the Patrick Sweeney Headquarters in Golden Grove since last August when the department’s lease extension of the downtown Post Office building expired. Because the headquarters building is several miles from Christiansted, St. Croix Deputy Police Chief said the move will mean better service for residents in La Grande Princess all the way east to Point Udall.
"The most important thing is for us to cover the area and do it in a timely manner," Francis said. "We’re looking forward to returning to Christiansted."
The new leased building will house 45 to 50 officers on various shifts, Francis said. Work crews are currently removing an old underground storage tank from the area in front of the building while touch up work is being done inside.
Meanwhile, a space on Times Square donated to the department will continue to be used by downtown bicycle patrols, Francis said. The St. Croix Community Foundation donated the Times Square location several months ago and businesses and individuals kicked in $15,000 to equip and renovate it.
"We intend to maintain that for our bicycle unit," Francis said, "and for the time being as a sub-substation."

This is an updated version of an earlier story.
A young man shot fatally on Main Street near the Raadets Gade intersection in Charlotte Amalie Tuesday afternoon was identified as Jason Carroll, the son of Assistant U.S. Attorney James Carroll and his wife, Cecilia.
A police statement issued late Tuesday afternoon indicated that shots were fired in an altercation but that Carroll was apparently an innocent victim of the gunfire.
At least two shots were fired at about 1:20 p.m., and Carroll was dead by the time police and two ambulances arrived on the scene a few minutes later, according to St. Thomas-St. John Chamber of Commerce executive director Joe Aubain, who heard the gunfire and rushed to the scene.
Carroll, a University of the Virgin Islands student, was struck in the abdomen and died within three minutes, Aubain said. A statement issued by the Police Department late Tuesday afternoon said the victim was wounded in the chest and the left arm and described him as "an apparent innocent by-passer."
According to unconfirmed reports, Carroll was shot after intervening in an attempted robbery in a Main Street jewelry store. The police statement said the shots were fired after "two individuals apparently had an altercation." The victim was felled near the H.Stern Jewellers shop just east of Raadets Gade.
Aubain said he and a Chamber of Commerce colleague, Joe Elmore, were walking back to the chamber office from lunch on Back Street and had just turned the corner onto Main Street by the Captain's Corner gift shop when they heard two or three shots. "I thought at first it was a backfire, but Joe [Elmore] knew what it was," Aubain said. Elmore, a longtime staff worker with the American Red Cross, has had experience serving in war-torn areas.
Aubain said Elmore and another individual at the scene started cardiopulmonary resuscitation on the victim while Aubain rushed into a nearby shop to call the police. Carroll died before or just as an ambulance arrived, he said.
According to Aubain, while most tourists in the vicinity were "basically trying to stay in other stores or head towards the waterfront," a large crowd of about a hundred people gathered around the victim within moments of the shooting. Aubain said he "tried to help with crowd control" until police arrived. He said he was not aware of any bicycle officers on the scene and did not observe any weapon by Carroll's body.
Other witnesses said the assailant was a black man about 5'9" tall, wearing a white shirt and blue jeans, and that he ran toward Back Street after the shooting. The police statement said a suspect was being sought.
According to a friend of his family, Carroll had just finished his spring semester studies at UVI and was downtown to look for a summer job.

This is an updated version of an earlier story.
A young man shot fatally on Main Street near the Raadets Gade intersection in Charlotte Amalie Tuesday afternoon was identified as Jason Carroll, the son of Assistant U.S. Attorney James Carroll and his wife, Cecilia.
A police statement issued late Tuesday afternoon indicated that shots were fired in an altercation but that Carroll was apparently an innocent victim of the gunfire.
At least two shots were fired at about 1:20 p.m., and Carroll was dead by the time police and two ambulances arrived on the scene a few minutes later, according to St. Thomas-St. John Chamber of Commerce executive director Joe Aubain, who heard the gunfire and rushed to the scene.
Carroll, a University of the Virgin Islands student, was struck in the abdomen and died within three minutes, Aubain said. A statement issued by the Police Department late Tuesday afternoon said the victim was wounded in the chest and the left arm and described him as "an apparent innocent by-passer."
According to unconfirmed reports, Carroll was shot after intervening in an attempted robbery in a Main Street jewelry store. The police statement said the shots were fired after "two individuals apparently had an altercation." The victim was felled near the H.Stern Jewellers shop just east of Raadets Gade.
Aubain said he and a Chamber of Commerce colleague, Joe Elmore, were walking back to the chamber office from lunch on Back Street and had just turned the corner onto Main Street by the Captain's Corner gift shop when they heard two or three shots. "I thought at first it was a backfire, but Joe [Elmore] knew what it was," Aubain said. Elmore, a longtime staff worker with the American Red Cross, has had experience serving in war-torn areas.
Aubain said Elmore and another individual at the scene started cardiopulmonary resuscitation on the victim while Aubain rushed into a nearby shop to call the police. Carroll died before or just as an ambulance arrived, he said.
According to Aubain, while most tourists in the vicinity were "basically trying to stay in other stores or head towards the waterfront," a large crowd of about a hundred people gathered around the victim within moments of the shooting. Aubain said he "tried to help with crowd control" until police arrived. He said he was not aware of any bicycle officers on the scene and did not observe any weapon by Carroll's body.
Other witnesses said the assailant was a black man about 5'9" tall, wearing a white shirt and blue jeans, and that he ran toward Back Street after the shooting. The police statement said a suspect was being sought.
According to a friend of his family, Carroll had just finished his spring semester studies at UVI and was downtown to look for a summer job.

A man was shot fatally on Main Street near the intersection of Raadets Gade in downtown Charlotte Amalie around 1:15 p.m. Tuesday.
By the time police and an ambulance arrived on the scene, the man, who did not appear to be a tourist, was dead, according to St. Thomas-St. John Chamber of Commerce executive director Joe Aubain, who heard shots being fired and rushed to the scene.
The man was struck in the abdomen and died within three minutes, Aubain said.
Aubain said he and a chamber colleague, Joe Elmore, were walking back to the chamber office from lunch on Back Street and had just turned the corner onto Main Street by the Captain's Corner gift shop when they heard two or three shots. "I thought at first it was a backfire, but Joe [Elmore] knew what it was," Aubain said. Elmore, a longtime staff worker with the American Red Cross, has had experience serving in war-torn areas.
Aubain said Elmore started cardiopulmonary resuscitation on the victim while Aubain rushed into a nearby shop to call the police, but the man died before officers or an ambulance arrived.
According to Aubain, while most tourists in the vicinity were "basically trying to stay in other stores or head towards the waterfront," a large crowd of about a hundred people gathered around the victim within moments of the shooting. Aubain said he "tried to help with crowd control" until police arrived. He said he was not aware of any bicycle officers on the scene and did not observe any weapon by the body of the slain man.
He said he did not see the assailant fleeing and had not received any information as to a description of that person or how the shooting came about.

did CPR