Seven killed in bloody weekend in west
Published:Tuesday | December 14, 2021 | 12:12 AMHopeton Bucknor/Gleaner Writer
WESTERN BUREAU:
The ushering in of the Christmas season has done little to quell the bloodletting in the Area One Police Division – which covers St James, Westmoreland, Hanover, and Trelawny – with recorded seven homicides over the last weekend into Monday morning.
Those murdered have been identified as 37-year-old Ricardo ‘Ricky’ Warner, an unemployed man of Repasture in Salt Spring, St James; 56-year-old Allan Ferguson, a chef of Flamstead Gardens, also in St James; 40-year-old Glenton ‘Fresh’ Buchanan, of Riverside district in Hanover; 31-year-old Evon Wallace, of Grange district, also in Hanover; 41-year-old Leon ‘Rasta’ Reid, of Dam Road, in St James; 37-year-old Kevon ‘Priceless’ Pryce, a construction worker of All-Side district in Warsop, Trelawny; and an unidentified male, whose body was found in the Torado Heights, St James.
In the latest of the string of murders, shortly after 12 a.m. on Monday, Warner, who was walking along the roadway in the Repasture area in Salt Spring, when he was pounced upon by armed men who shot him multiple times.
Upon the arrival of the police, Warner was discovered lying in a pool of blood with wounds to his upper body. He was taken to Cornwall Regional Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
In a prior incident on Sunday, the charred remains of an unidentified male were discovered about 7:30 a.m. inside a burnt-out Nissan AD Wagon, which was found along a dirt track in Torado Heights.
While the police were processing that scene, reports surfaced that gunmen had struck in Flamstead Gardens, killing Ferguson at his home.
The police reported that, about noon, Ferguson was standing inside his yard when he was ambushed by two armed men who shot him multiple times.
The parish of Hanover, which has been seeing an increase in murders over recent months, was rocked on Saturday when gunmen entered Grange district in Green Island at approximately 4 p.m. and shot Wallace dead.
Buchanan and Reid were also shot and killed by unknown assailants in Westmoreland between Friday and Saturday. Reid was shot about 6:30 p.m, while business was in full swing along Great Georges Street in Savanna-la-Mar, while Buchanan was killed by two armed men along the Glasgow main road in Grange Hill shortly after 5:30 p.m. on Saturday.
Trelawny, the least violent of the four western parishes, recorded its 16th murder of the year when gunmen struck in All-Side district on Friday, killing Pryce. According to investigators, about 8:55 p.m., Pryce was effecting repairs to his motor car when he was ambushed by armed men, who shot him dead.
Over recent years, western Jamaica, which has been plagued by lottery scamming and its attendant battle by gangsters for the spoil of crime, has emerged as the epicentre of the nation’s crime problem. The region has collectively account for more than 350 of the island’s 1,384 murders recorded up to last Saturday, a 10.1 per cent increase on the 1,257 recorded for the corresponding period up to December 11, 2020.