PM Deplores Clarendon Murder

WHILE TOP sleuths attached to the Clarendon Police Division continued yesterday, searching for clues to apprehend the perpetrators of the heart-wrenching killings of three teenage boys and an adult male, at the Monymusk Housing Scheme Wednesday night, preliminary investigation is suggesting that it could be related to a previous incident.

"We are theorising that it could be a reprisal. These were innocent teenagers who didn't do anybody anything. They were just at the wrong place at the wrong time. The police have a significant role to play, but residents know who the killers are and we don't know who next the killers are going to turn the gun on. I am imploring the residents to come forward and talk to us," head of the Criminal Investigation Branch (CIB), Assistant Commissioner Ealan Powell, told The Gleaner yesterday.

He further stressed that, as a community, the residents must unite against the gangsters, who had no regard for life, and sought to create havoc and mayhem in the society.

Speaking with The Gleaner yesterday, a member of the Clarendon Police Division said, while the two persons taken into custody remained behind bars, two statements have subsequently been collected from two separate persons.

In the meantime, in a press release issued yesterday, Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller joined the police in urging the residents to cooperate with the investigators.

"I extend my sympathies to the parents and relatives of those children and the adult who lost their lives so tragically to criminals," the prime minister was quoted in the release.

violence against children

She said all Jamaicans must deplore the heart-rending violence that continues to be unleashed against children, who are the future of the nation.

"What have we become as a society, when we hurt and kill the children, who are the future of our nation?" the prime minister asked.

"This senseless murder of three young boys and an adult on Wednesday night in the Monymusk Housing Scheme at Hayes in Clarendon is the most recent example of how depraved the criminal elements in our society have become," Simpson Miller said.

"My heart is full of sadness that such wickedness has become part of the Jamaican reality," she added.

Meanwhile, the prime minister is calling on leaders at every level and all decent, law-abiding Jamaicans to raise their voices and speak out against such evil and to continue social interventions by the Government, private sector and civil society to foster peace and security in communities across Jamaica.

Youth and Culture Minister Lisa Hanna said there is a clear disregard for the lives of the nation's children. "There is a clear lack of compassion and love towards each other. I am calling on everyone who has any information regarding (Wednesday) night's shootings to contact the police. We must recapture our communities from criminals," she declared.

The three teenage boys have been identified as 14-year-old Raymond Givans, a grade nine student of the Vere Technical High; Ricardo Briscoe, also 14 years old, of Garvey Maceo; and 16-year-old Alex Turner of Central High.

The fourth victim has been identified as Marquis Hamilton, a 35-year-old accounts clerk.