VERY pregnant as she is, Alana Villafana remains a bitter young woman.

And she knows that her unborn son will grow up with some of that bitterness.

Her man and baby’s father, 21-year-old Akaiho “Rubin” Atiba, was gunned down by police during one of their customary raids in the depressed community of Phase Five, Beetham Gardens on Thursday January 12, 2006.

The drama that played out during that early morning raid by the police on the Beetham caused a massive traffic pile-up.

AKAIHO
“Rubin”
ATIBA

Villafana, a 22-year-old mother of a four-year-old daughter, is due to deliver her second child in about three weeks. She told TnT Mirror that she ran out of her house screaming and bawling that morning, begging the police not to kill her loved one. She said the officers never listened. Villafana swore that on that fateful morning when the cops came for him, Rubin had no defence. According to her, Rubin didn’t have a gun as the cops alleged. “It was he alone and unarmed, against the fire power of a heavy contingent of soldiers and masked police officers,” she revealed. As far as Villafana, other relatives and members of the community are concerned, the military had come to execute Atiba that morning and nothing was going to stop them.

ALANA VILLAFANA: “I begged the police not to kill my lover.”

“If he was a wanted man, they could have arrested him and taken him in for questioning,” she insisted.

“He would have gone willingly with them.”

Growing angrier by the minute, Villafana, dressed in all black, as she continues to mourn the loss of her boyfriend, remained seated in a steel chair during the interview with Mirror.

The rain poured steadily and water rose all around her feet as the area where she lives showed signs of flooding.

She was born and bred on the Beetham, and in the ghetto flooding is normal.

There is not too much fuss about it as the water runs off quickly.

Villafana’s hair was neatly done and she wore a thick gold chain around her neck and also gold bracelets on her hand.

“They wanted Rubin; they say he kill people,” the Unemployment Relief Programme (URP) checker told Mirror, as she stared in space.

Since the incident, she said she has not been sleeping well at nights.

“It’s worse for me when the two o’clock hour comes around, the time the madness started before they killed him that morning,” she stated.

“When that time reach I can’t sleep again; somehow I feel the army and police coming again.”

Villafana said the incident plays out every day in her mind.

“I could never forget how I saw them drag-ging him; I would never forget how they hold me by my head and pushed me forward as they fired shots in the air,” she stated sadly, the tears forming in her eyes.

“I will never forget how I hear Rubin calling for help …”

Alana and Rubin, although they grew up in the same community, never really checked for each other until about October 2004.

“I met him through my brother Roger and we hooked up,” she said, as she managed to blush through the sadness.

Both had a child each from previous relationships.

She continued aloud as she remembered him: “He was a very humble fella, very caring and I loved him a lot.”

Villafana said he was really looking forward to the birth of his second son.

But with the violent death of Rubin, described as a suspect in several murders, the military has not heard the last of the name Akaiho “Rubin” Atiba.

It is the name his unborn son will be given upon birth.