As some of you know, the legacy of the so-called “Shower Posse” reached my family in the mid 90s when my uncle, a high ranking police officer/detective was gunned down in a hail of gunfire on the island of St. Kitts. The man behind the hit, Charles “Little Nut” Miller (a St. Kitts native groomed in the Kingston, Jamaica ghettos) made world news (including 60 Minutes , America’s Most Wanted and GQ Magazine) when he boldly told the U.S. Government that if they tried to take him out of St. Kitts to stand trial, he would kill American students at Ross University, a New York based school in St. Kitts. His cold blooded track record even kept the DEA away for 4 years.

Well Duane Blake the son of the alleged mastermind (Vivian Blake) of the notorious gang wrote a book on their story and while Duane wrote the book at 23 (in 2003), and there is some obvious bias toward his dad who is in Federal prison on a 28-yr sentence, the story is one of the most sobering you will ever read. You will see why the Shower Posse has been dubbed by U.S. law enforcement as the most violent gang American society has ever seen. Columbians could not touch them, nor the Italian mafia or Asian gangs when it came to sheer viciousness. Their name derived from “showering” public places with bullets even if they were only trying to kill one person.

They brought notoriety to Miami back in the 80s (when I moved to the area) which brought about shows like Miami Vice and Steven Segal’s controversial movie, Hard to kill . It is still the stuff of legend in these parts about the stunning incident when it was claimed (by Duane’s book) but denied by Miller (elsewhere BEFORE he was sentenced recently in the U.S. - don’t know what his story is now), that Miller shot 5 people dead in a Miami crack house, one of the victims was a young pregnant girl who plead for her life. All were shot point blank, including the pregnant girl whose skull was blown away and the modern “execution style” murders were born. Miller escaped Jamaican prison serving time for killing a store clerk and allegedly 2 police officers. Some Posse members were said to have killed over 100 people each and law enforment officials claim that over 1,400 murders from Miami to New York to Los Angeles (not counting overseas) were committed by the gang. In some shootouts they had amongst themselves, with other Posses like the Spangler Posse and Payne Land Posse, police retrieved over 3,000 spent shells. They were known to empty guns on already dead victims and victims were rarely shot once. Sometimes guns were reloaded to fire more shots on already dead victims and shooting people in the face at point blank was standard. In short, their story is cold and chilling.

In the book Vivian is never really implicated as being the actual voluntary leader of the gang and I don’t recall any actual murders being attributed to him. This is explainable because he is NOT in prison for murders and after all, it is his son who wrote the book so claiming he committed murder would be ridiculous being that he was not sentenced for any. What you are led to believe is that Vivian helped a lot of Jamaicans from Tivoli Gardens to make it to the United States, many with violent pasts in Jamaica (including his brother who apparently really started the shooting wars) who established themselves and did their own thing including killings, but it all centered around Vivian because he was one of the first to make it big so naturally those he brought to the U.S built off of him. There was natural association and natural progression with him even if he did not want it.

There are a few things you can observe from the book if you are Jamaican or familiar with their culture that maybe even Jamaicans might not be aware of. The idea of [some]Jamaicans using other people’s passports to “sneak” into the U.S seems to have started back in the 70s with the arrival of these Tivoli Gardens natives. The idea of “business marriages” appeared to have gained steam during that time. Vivian Blake, having tons of money from Marijuana distribution, set the standard with cars that are still popular amongst Jamaicans, such as BMW’s which set a high standard for cars many Jamaicans (as well as other West Indians) go after (Lexus, Mercedes, Infinitis).

Whether intentional or not, the book brings home the point (to me at least) that there is really no honor amongst thieves and violent men. Maybe Duane did this intentionally with his father’s blessing to deter young boys growing up to steer clear of such things, as Duane himself is rather clean cut and is a graduate of Howard University with 3 businesses under his belt. In the book all you read about is constant killing, betrayal, infighting and internal robberies. Seems like no one was ever safe and worse of all, actual Jamaican politics was involved.
In the book, Duane presents Vivian as nothing more than a business man and hustler who only wanted a good life and fly under the radar. It was his associates, namely his brother who eventually cleared the way for his thuggish friends to come to the U.S., who started shooting up the place, starting gang wars and exposing the operation to the police and then the Feds with all their petty nonsense. That sounds plausible, but only Vivian would be able to confirm that.

Yes, Cecil Connor, the St. Kitts native ended up in Jamaica around the time of the rise of the JLP under Seaga. From what I understand, because he could dress so well, he was nicknamed “Modeler.” Through Jim Brown (who was burned to death in his cell the day before he was to extradited to the U.S. to face charges), the Tivoli Gardens leader, “Modeler” was introduced to Vivian and was brought to the U.S. via St. Kitts and the rest was history. When he was arrested by the Feds in the late 80s or early 90s, he decided to turn witness against other gang members and in the witness protection program, he was given the name, “Charles Miller” who is also known as “Little Nut.”

It is no secret that he was the most ruthless. As you mentioned, he shot a girl for not giving him sex and then went to another room where his friend was having sex with the dead girl’s friend and shot her too without question. In St. Kitts it is said he shot and killed the deputy Prime Minister’s son (apparently he admits this) and his girlfriend and then placed their bodies in a cane field in a SUV and lit the SUV on fire. This was when my uncle eventually arrested him and when he made the threat to my uncle in the presence of others at the police station that he won’t live to see Christmas. The threat followed through.

It is also said he shot and killed the St. Kitts U.N. ambassador and his foreign guests who were on a yacht one night off the coast of St. Kitts and saw Miller making a drug pickup from the Colombians. Seeing the ambassador and realizing he was seen and recognized, Miller wanted to no witnesses, boarded the yacht and shot everyone dead and asked the Colombians to dispose of the boat and bodies. My uncle called in the U.S. Navy to assist in the search (he let me watch the video) and to this day, bodies nor boat has been found. He was simply a madman all by himself, who learned the art of killing in the violent ghettos of Jamaica. He was just cold.

Finally, I get no checks in the mail for this plug. I just wanted to share this bit of Caribbean related history, dark as it might be, with you guys. I grew up a little Caribbean kid in Bronx, New York City in the mid 70s right near Vivian’s Blake’s early stomping grounds, in fact, about 2 blocks. I remember back in those days when Caribbean people and their kids like me were relentlessly teased (for our accents and the way we dressed) and life was hard for our parents as they tried to find their niche in New York City like the Italians, Jews, Irish, and Polish had done years before. In some ways, their story of these rags to riches Jamaicans has affected us in some adverse ways, giving a [sometimes] bad and fearful name, in some respects, to Jamaicans on a whole. They may even given birth to a particular culture whose shadow we live in today.