RHON­DOR DOWLAT-ROS­TANT

Two women were among eight peo­ple mur­dered yes­ter­day in Ari­ma and St Au­gus­tine as po­lice fear gang war­fare has now bro­ken out over the mur­der of Ka­reem “Pin­to Boss” Wal­ters of Pin­to Road in Ari­ma on Mon­day.

Po­lice say that at 8.40 am, Dawn Mc Ken­na, 40, of St John’s Road, St Au­gus­tine, was dri­ving her Tuc­son mo­tor ve­hi­cle east along the Ari­ma Old Road in the com­pa­ny of her son, Jor­dan Mc Ken­na, 19, and an­oth­er man iden­ti­fied as Je­re­my De Fre­itas, 18, when they were blocked by a sil­ver Ti­i­da.

An­oth­er ve­hi­cle pulled up on the road­way be­hind them from which two men alight­ed opened fire on the three of them.

As one of the vic­tims tried to run away, one of the killers pur­sued him over a gate and con­tin­ued shoot­ing.

They all died on the spot.

Ten min­utes lat­er, five more res­i­dents of St John’s Road were killed and one wound­ed.

In that in­ci­dent, po­lice said that at 8:50 am Jasper Jones, 32, was at his shop with Cal­lis­tus Math­ew Per­reira aka Ming, 30, and Khalil Jack­son aka Tal­lo, 23, when five men came out of a white AD wag­on and be­gan fir­ing sev­er­al shots in their di­rec­tion.

Jones fell on the spot where he died. Per­reira was tak­en to the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex by mem­bers of the St Joseph CID in com­pa­ny with Jack­son. Per­reira was pro­nounced dead on ar­rival and Jack­son was treat­ed and said to be in a sta­ble con­di­tion.

At the same time of­fi­cers of the St Joseph CID, while on the scene of the shoot­ing, re­ceived in­for­ma­tion of a body found in a forest­ed area ap­prox­i­mate­ly two miles away at Up­per St John’s Road.

Po­lice Con­sta­ble Vi­tal­is and oth­er of­fi­cers dis­cov­ered the bod­ies of three peo­ple—one fe­male and two males—with chop wounds to their necks ly­ing on the ground among some bush­es.

They were iden­ti­fied as Mustapha Mo­hammed, 44, his wife Aman­da Mo­hammed, 39, both of LP 58 Up­per St John’s Road St Au­gus­tine and Kendall Rivers of Up­per St John’s Road St Au­gus­tine.

Po­lice said they were all bound and gagged.

Po­lice said the gun­men in all the at­tacks were be­lieved to have been armed with high-pow­ered weapons.

Po­lice told Guardian Me­dia that the killings in­di­cate an up­surge in gang ac­tiv­i­ties and they be­lieved that it was part of an on­go­ing gang war over drugs and turf. A po­lice source added that the up­surge sprung up af­ter Wal­ters was killed in Matu­ra on Mon­day.

Police officers patrol along St John’s Road, St Augustine following the murder of five persons where two were shot and three throats slit, yesterday.

ABRAHAM DIAZ

Res­i­dents shocked and sad­dened

A res­i­dent in the area, who did not want to be iden­ti­fied said that he’s sad­dened by the killings.

“I heard the gun­shots but I didn’t know where it came from but when I saw the po­lice I said, ‘right is here’. But it is sad be­cause all of us are hu­man be­ings and it is the first time I’m see­ing some­thing like this hap­pen­ing in the area. The peo­ple will now live in fear be­cause of what hap­pened.”

A sis­ter of one of the vic­tims at Up­per St John’s Road said up to Tues­day night she spoke to her broth­er.

“My broth­er was good. This morn­ing (Wednes­day) I got a call from my niece say­ing she mum­my and dad­dy die and then she got cut off. Then an­oth­er per­son called me and I came up here. My broth­er was go­ing to his gar­den and his wife de­cid­ed that she would go too and they killed them. No­body de­serve this. I would not wish this on my worst en­e­my.”

The woman said her broth­er leaves be­hind two chil­dren—a 21-year-old son and a daugh­ter who will be cel­e­brat­ing her 14th birth­day next week. “These chil­dren will suf­fer.”

An­oth­er res­i­dent told the Guardian Me­dia that she was hor­ri­fied to hear the screams and cries of the fam­i­ly mem­bers in mourn­ing.

“I live in the val­ley and you can hear the cries of fam­i­lies in mourn­ing all around you. This has shak­en up our peace­ful com­mu­ni­ty and left all of us trau­ma­tised. I per­son­al­ly be­lieve that this is not the end that it will have more and who will come knock­ing at our doors when it surges? We are all scared.”

The res­i­dent said over the years there had been se­ri­ous crimes and be­lieves that it has al­ready im­pact­ed on vis­i­tors and wor­ship­pers to the Abbey at Mount St Bene­dict.

“So many things hap­pen and it go un­re­port­ed in the me­dia and so many peo­ple come here to vis­it the church or to jog or walk be­cause of the peace­ful en­vi­ron­ment but now peo­ple are com­ing not so fre­quent be­cause of the crimes and now this spate of killings will have a big­ger im­pact on who’s com­ing and who’s not. Here when you wake up on morn­ings you can hear the birds chirp­ing and when it rains you can see the mist, it’s so serene but this love­ly com­mu­ni­ty is shak­en up very bad­ly.”

The res­i­dent added that there should be some­thing tan­gi­ble im­ple­ment­ed to ef­fect change.

“Many of the young peo­ple’s fa­thers have been killed and it’s left for the moth­ers to raise them but there should be a men­tor­ship pro­gramme put in place joint­ly by the po­lice and of­fi­cials from Mount St Bene­dict. Let them come to­geth­er and start a men­tor pro­gramme to bring back the youths who have gone astray and who are sway­ing to­wards the bad el­e­ments. This is what we need and I be­lieve that change can come be­cause we re­al­ly don’t know what caused all these killings but we know that the youths sway to il­le­gal ac­tiv­i­ties in the area.”

Mustapha Mohammed and Amanda Mohammed

Po­lice gear­ing up for re­tal­i­a­tions

Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice in charge of Op­er­a­tions Mc Don­ald Ja­cob said both sets of mur­ders were con­nect­ed.

“We have mul­ti­ple killings, five in this lo­ca­tion and three in an­oth­er lo­ca­tion in Ari­ma. We be­lieve the two in­ci­dents are con­nect­ed,” Ja­cob said.

He al­so dis­closed that they are prepar­ing for reprisals.

“The po­lice are car­ry­ing out in­ves­ti­ga­tions in the ar­eas and we have troops on the ground as we are prepar­ing for any kind of reprisal.”

“As you know this di­vi­sion is volatile. We have the nec­es­sary of­fi­cers to deal with the sit­u­a­tion. But this which hap­pened this morn­ing (Wednes­day) is some­thing which we will re­spond to firm­ly and will re­spond to im­me­di­ate­ly,” Ja­cob said.

He added that he hopes that very soon the homi­cide in­ves­ti­ga­tors will solve the mur­ders.

“At this stage on the sur­face of it, it ap­pears to be drug-re­lat­ed, but we have not con­firmed this as yet. But we will be do­ing our in­quiries. At this state with the eight mur­ders, we have six males and two fe­males,” he added.

Ja­cob not­ed that once gang ac­tiv­i­ty is tak­ing place in any coun­try, dur­ing a State of Emer­gency or not, these gang ac­tiv­i­ties would con­tin­ue and these things can re­sult.

“You can look at Ja­maica and even in the US where you can have an SoE and killings still oc­cur. The SoE does not re­move or­gan­ised crime and gang ac­tiv­i­ties. If it was so we would just call an SoE and gang ac­tiv­i­ties would just van­ish. But this does not hap­pen. We don’t ex­pect ‘cause we have an SoE that crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ties will cease,” Ja­cob said.