Green Pond clamours for more police patrols after double murder
Published:Wednesday | March 16, 2022 | 12:13 AMHopeton Bucknor/Gleaner Writer
A double murder in Green Pond, St James, on Monday has triggered outrage, sparking calls for increased police patrols in the western Jamaica community.
Those killed have been identified as 19-year-old O’Neil Thelwell, otherwise called ‘CJ’, unemployed of Bridgetown in Green Pond, and another man identified as Junior Thorpe of a Salt Spring address.
Reports by the Mount Salem police are that about 10 p.m., both men were in a section of Green Pond called Sharen Hill when they were ambushed by gunmen and shot multiple times.
They were pronounced dead at hospital.
A concerned resident who gave his name only as Ricketts said that he believes that Thelwell may have got caught up with the wrong company. He has called for a beef-up of security to calm community fears.
“Since the start of the year, a nuff shooting and murder go on inna we community, and mi think a full time we start see di police dem in yah a night-time,” he said in a Gleaner interview.
“The area hot, an’ a nuff youth a dead. We want to see the police a drive through more often, and even do a little foot patrol.”
Meanwhile, a senior police officer who requested anonymity because he is not authorised to speak about investigations told The Gleaner that detectives theorise that the killings are gang related.
“These men that are involved, and even some of the victims, are in one way or another connected to gang violence. Sometimes it’s not directly them themselves; sometimes it’s a close family member, or a close friend, but it always leads back to gang violence,” the cop said.
Thorpe’s and Thelwell’s deaths bring to three the number of persons murdered in St James over the past four days. There have been 51 murders in 2022.
Their slaying follows Saturday’s discovery of the bullet-riddled body of an unidentified male in Mount Salem.
Reports are that about 3:55 p.m., citizens alerted the police after hearing gunshots on Phoenix Drive in the Westgate Hills area.
The 5’7” body of the unidentified man, who appeared to be in his 50s, was clad in a green and grey striped shirt and blue jeans pants. There was a gunshot wound to the head.