Five murders in four months, alarming but...
Published:Wednesday | May 2, 2018 | 12:00 AMSyranno Baines/Gleaner Writer
Mayor of Port Antonio Paul Thompson has accepted that five murders in four months in the usually peaceful parish of Portland is alarming, but he doesn't expect that number to escalate much for the rest of the year.
"Because of what has unfolded over the past four months, it is fair to say we have a crime situation, but I don't see it getting worse because we're not used to it here in Portland," declared Thompson, councillor for the Manchioneal division in the parish.
Thompson noted that 70-year-old businessman Lloyd Chambers was the most recent murder victim in the parish. He was fatally shot at his home in Windsor Castle district on April 9. His licensed firearm was taken by his attackers.
Before that, 65-year-old retired policeman Homer Davis was stabbed to death along the Seaview Farm Road in Port Antonio on April 5.
On March 26, Kemalo Denton, otherwise called 'Buss Head', was fatally shot by an unknown assailant in the vicinity of an exotic nightclub in Port Antonio.
Twenty-year-old Kerone Dixon was set upon, beaten, and stabbed in the chest by a group of students from a prominent high school in the parish while in the Port Antonio Bus Park on March 1.
The parish recorded its first murder in January, when Vinton McKenzie was killed in the Hope Bay area. Having pointed to the five killings so far this year, the mayor charged that greed, revenge, and jealousy were some of the reasons for the violent crimes in the parish.
DEVELOP CRIME PROFILE
"What we need to do is develop a crime profile along with the police and other stakeholders, including schools and churches, so that we can know exactly the type of crime that is affecting us and how we are going to approach these crimes when we are planning our strategy," said Thompson.
"I'm alarmed, yes, but there's no sign of any rampant killing or people just going about killing [others]. These you can understand and you are not going to have much of. So, I expect things to calm down and Portland to return to it a state of peaceful living," added Thompson.