Four die violently on the weekend

– toddler, 20-year-old nursing gunshot wounds

(Jamaica Observer) – A two-year-old boy in York Town, Farm Pen in Clarendon is this morning waking up with the sting of a gunshot injury, and perhaps the memory of a door being kicked in and the explosions and blood that followed.

A 20-year-old man, who was inside the house with the toddler, was also shot and injured. But 19-year-old Jaleel Clarke was not as luck as the bullets found their mark. According to the Constabulary Communication Network, (CCN), the three were at home “when men armed with guns kicked open a door to the house and entered”.

“The armed hoodlums,” the CCN said, “immediately opened fire, hitting them, before escaping.”

The police said Clarke died on the spot, while the injured toddler and the 20-year-old man were “assisted to hospital by neighbours”.

The two were said to be in stable condition. The Clarendon police were also said to be probing the murder of 26-year-old Jason “Shoppie” Thomas, of Raymond district, Hayes. The police say Thomas was found lying on a roadway with gunshot wounds after explosions were heard in the district early Saturday night.

Meanwhile, a young man in the neighbouring parish of St Catherine was also shot and killed by gunmen on Saturday and a 31-year-old man injured as the two stood at the intersection of Central Road and Ridgemount Crescent in Central Village.

The dead man has been identified as 22-year-old Damion White, also called “Ninja Turtle” of Spaldings Gardens Housing Scheme, Big Lane in Central Village.

The police also announced on the weekend that they had “captured” a “wanted man”. The 25-year-old man – who is now in hospital under police guard – was shot and injured by a police after he allegedly attacked an officer with a knife.

The lawmen were responding to reports that the wanted man had allegedly chopped and killed Herbert Palmer, a resident from the district.

The police alleged that the wanted man – who had previously escaped police custody – later told them where to find Palmer’s body in bushes in the district.

In addition, the police said they seized two high-powered weapons, an Intratech sub-machine gun with rounds and M14 firearm with nine live rounds on Saturday morning on the coast of Rio Bueno, a community which borders the parishes of Trelawny and St Ann.

The weapons were reportedly found on a go-fast boat – which originated from the Bahamas – with two Bahamians aboard following a major operation by members of the Transnational Crime and Narcotics Division, the Major Investigative Task Force, Mobile Reserve and the Jamaica Defence Force coast guards. The police said they also seized two Global Positioning System trackers and three paper charts.

The two Bahamians are in police custody and a search is under way for a third person who earlier entered the island.