TOO EARLY TO SAY HATE CRIME

It was extremely emotional for a mother who reportedly had not seen her son for “years now” as she positively identified him in a body bag at a gruesome scene on Maxfield Avenue on Monday.

Her son and another man were killed execution style in the room of a dilapidated building where they had been living together.

The men, Recco Gayle, 29, and Kevaughn Young, 20, both of a 63 ¼ Maxfield Avenue address, were pronounced dead at the Kingston Public Hospital.

Residents reported hearing explosions sometime after midnight Sunday, but it was not until daybreak that the bodies were discovered and the police summoned to the scene.

“She say a years now she nuh see him and him call her weh day and she tell him to come and live ... and him say him nah stay wid her ... ,” a resident, who requested anonymity, told The Gleaner.

Some residents, mostly women, expressed sadness at their deaths, claiming the men, who were believed to be gay, were decent citizens.

“Kevaughn, him dress up like woman, and if yuh see him anywhere, no girl nuh look good like him. Dem live here ... everybody talk to them. Kevaughn born here and the other one we know as Wiz come here and live with him,” another resident said of Young, who was also a transvestite.

Glenroy Murray, interim executive director of gay-rights lobby Equality for All Foundation Jamaica, said he was previously unaware of the killing, adding that neither individual had reported acts of violence to the organisation.

Murray has warned against hastily classifying the double killing as a hate crime. Equality for All still receives reports from queer people of attacks from homophobic Jamaicans.

Anti-gay attitudes are widely popular in sections of Jamaica, but there has been growing acceptance of homosexuals, and resistance to violent attacks against LGBT minorities, over the past two decades.

Homosexuality is not illegal in Jamaica and anal sex is prohibited.

“We know based on reports to our organisation that human-rights violations, specifically against the LBGTQ community, continue to happen in Jamaica. There are persons who face verbal and physical abuse because of their identity,” Murray said in a Gleaner interview on Monday.

Murray said, however, that members of the LGBT community are sometimes killed in tragic circumstances not connected to opposition to their sexual orientation. But he said the organisation is awaiting details of the police investigation to determine whether the double murder was a hate crime.

“In this particular instance, as it is with murders, it’s kind of hard. The victim is not alive to be able to say this is the motivating factor and so we can’t assume that because the person is queer, allegedly, that their death must be for queer-related reasons,” he said.

Gayle’s mother, who did not speak to journalists, was seen being consoled by the police as the body bags were being lowered by ladder from the building.

The Jamaica Fire Brigade was summoned to assist with removing the bodies from the top floor of the building as the staircase leading to the room was dismantled.

More than a dozen spent casing were retrieved from the scene.

Residents said it was not the first time the men were targeted, as they were beaten and robbed of money and high-end phones.

“Dem beat dem up already with baton, dem wicked, memba dat ... . The lady (Young’s mother) cry. Memba a done yuh belly pain so she a go cry, no matter what,” a tearful woman said, showing sympathy for Young.

“Him a nuh troublemaker. Kevaughn and everybody a friend. Him nah fire nuh gun, him nah run no programme pon no man.”

Young is an amputee with deformity to his left hand.

Gayle is originally from a Drews Avenue address in Waterhouse, The Gleaner understands.

“The people had an issue with the other one. Dem never like how him bring him here come live. A di mother rent over here and put him and not even she did like dat. No matter how Kevaughn tell him fi go on, him still deh round,” a resident, who claimed she was a friend of Young, said.

Deputy Superintendent of PoliceColeridge Minto, operations officer for the St Andrew South Police Division, said that the Major Investigation Division is investigating the double murder.

“Two male bodies were seen in the upper floor of what appeared to be an abandoned building. There is a joint operational effort between Kingston West and St Andrew South, even as they coordinate and patrol the border at the location,” Minto said.