Thugs kill 80-y-o after fire-bombing home
Published:Thursday | February 18, 2021 | 12:21 AMOlivia Brown/Gleaner Writer
Armed men threw a Molotov cocktail through a window to flush 80-year-old retired mason Clifton Berry from his Rhymesbury home in Clarendon then shot him dead as he tried to escape on Wednesday night.
It is the latest in a string of such attacks that have seen at least five other homes fire-bombed in Lionel Town and Rocky Point since the start of the month.
The police report that the incident took place about 1:15 a.m., and when they were alerted, they found Berry lying in a section of the house with gunshot wounds. He was taken to the May Pen Hospital, where he died while undergoing treatment.
Britni, the youngest of Berry’s five children, said the family has been traumatised by the deadly attack.
“Me nah look for my father to pass off like this. My father nuh trouble people. Me sure of that. My father was a very jovial person ... always reasoning with people and very respectable,” she told The Gleaner, adding that he had a knack for farming, which earned him multiple awards.
“Me shocked! Me know my father nuh trouble people. Me can’t believe same way,” she added.
PRINCIPLED MAN
One Rhymesbury resident, who knew Berry well, lauded him as a principled man.
“He was a humble and principled man, and due to his old-fashioned upbringing, he liked having things done according to that upbringing. He was very business-minded and never wavered from his business principles,” he said, adding that the elderly man actively supplied his community with meat and other agricultural produce from his farm.
“His lifestyle was church and his farm. That’s all,” said the resident.
York Town Division Councillor Uphell Purcell denounced the homicide as investigators continue their probe.
“I’m very disturbed about the killing of Mr Berry. I’m really perturbed to know they can go into an elderly gentleman’s home and kill him like that. It is really heart-rending,” he said.
“I’m very disturbed about what is happening in York Town communities because over a time, we have not had any crime, so I’m really disturbed,” Purcell told The Gleaner.
He chided the Government for not doing enough to tackle crime.
“I am calling on the Government to make haste to deal with the crime problem in the country. No one is safe in their homes, no one in safe in Jamaica. I believe the Government has to come out and do something because the Government has a responsibility to take care of its citizens,” he charged.