Eric Friths, 22, the man wanted for armed robbery and killed by police on Monday, was no saint, his grandmother Alicia Williams said yesterday. Williams told The Nassau Guardian that she has no illusions about who her grandson was and what he did. 

“My grandson Eric was involved in a lot of armed robberies, so I’ve heard,” she said.

“After a video of an armed robbery went viral, of him involved in a robbery, I found out that that is what he was involved in.

“I’m not painting a picture that my grandson was an innocent person. I understand that he was involved in these armed robberies and I saw [it] with my own two eyes.”

Williams was referring to the security footage of an armed robbery of a liquor store on eastern New Providence that went viral a few weeks ago.

On Monday, police shot and killed Friths at a residence in Gamble Heights off Baillou Hill Road after they said he shot at them.

Williams said she does not know what occurred but is asking that if police were wearing body cameras, that it be made public.

“The only thing I want from the commissioner of police, Mr. Clayton Fernander and the minister of national security is to make what happen to make sense,” she said.

“If it was a justified shooting, then I can sleep at night. I can rest in my bed knowing that he got what he went out there looking for because of the life that he was living.”

She said she does not know her grandson to be someone who would shoot at anyone.

Williams also apologized for her grandson’s actions as an armed robber.

“Based on my understanding of my 22-year-old grandson, he was not a monster,” she said.

“I want to take this opportunity right now to apologize to all of those people who he had in fear when he went and did all those robberies.

“I want to apologize because I can understand how they were feeling at that particular time.

She added, “I am sorry that my grandson had your life in fear.”

Williams, who said she kicked Friths out of her home several weeks ago, said she loved him because she understood the challenges he went through.

“I tried my endeavor best to support him,” she said.

“I never support him for wrong. He went to Fox Hill twice. I told him to accept responsibility.

“When he came out in February of this year, he was working. All of a sudden, it stopped.

“He wanted to do crime and he did it.”

In January 2021, Friths was sentenced to 15 months in prison after he robbed a child of an iPhone, Apple Airpods and $4.

Click here to read more at The Nassau Guardian