‘SENSELESS’

The shooting death of an eight-year-old Clarendon boy has shocked his community, with peers and teachers at the Race Course Primary and Infant School jolted by news of a third tragic death in two weeks.

Thomas James Jr was shot in the head on Wednesday night at a family-operated business at his home in Hayesfield district in Race Course.

His 46-year-old father, who was also injured in the attack, remains hospitalised in serious condition.

According to police reports, about 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday, a lone gunman walked into a shop beside Thomas’ house and purchased an item before firing several shots.

When the melee ended, Thomas and his father were discovered hit. They were rushed to hospital, where the child was pronounced dead and the father admitted.

Chairman of Race Course Primary and Infant School, Keith Bryan, told The Gleaner that the institution has been dealt a hard blow as it is still reeling from the tragic deaths of the Tomlinson sisters – four-year-old Kayla and three-year-old Abigail – who were burned to death at their home in Hayesfield on March 24.

“It is very unfortunate. It is extremely difficult for the school at this point because another student’s [house also] got burned down, but fortunately, there was no harm. We were trying to recover from that then came the death of the two children (the Tomlinson sisters) then this incident took place,” Bryan lamented.

He described the child’s murder as senseless.

“He’s only eight years old and to lose his life just like that, it’s senseless. The school is in disarray. We’re grieving; the students are grieving [as well as] the staff and the entire school population,” Bryan told The Gleaner.

Children’s Advocate Diahann Gordon Harrison has condemned the killing.

She labelled the attack as carelessness “and perhaps an absence of due care as to what we’re doing and how it will impact children”.

She told The Gleaner that instances of pain and trauma being meted out to children represent a grave and worrying trend, with several students killed or injured in violent attacks in recent weeks.

On August 8 last year, another eight-year-old was also shot dead on a football field in York Town in the parish.

“The numbers continue to be troubling. This continues to be a very worrying situation. We have noticed, for example, that Clarendon has come up quite a bit in terms of inadvertence, and also children being at the end of really, very serious harm and trauma, and, in instances, death,” said Gordon Harrison.

She further noted that attacks on children also trigger adverse emotional distress for other young ones within the affected communities.

“We really want to make an appeal to persons who do things that are damaging the fabric of our society, and the hope and lives of our children, to desist,” Gordon Harrison implored.

Inspector Dorothy Thomas of the Clarendon Police Division said Thomas’ murder was heart-rending and called on citizens to be more vigilant and to extend greater care towards the nation’s young.

“It is really sad to see the lifeless body of a child with gunshot wounds to the head. When a life is lost, it is one too [many], and this is a little baby – an eight-year-old child – and so the entire Clarendon policing division is in mourning,” she told The Gleaner.

Up to April 5, a total of 14 people had been killed in Clarendon since January – a 50 per cent year-on-year decline when compared to 28 homicides for the corresponding period last year.

Investigations into the incident are ongoing.

olivia.brown@gleanerjm.com