BLOODY SIGN-OFF

If residents in Greenvale, St Andrew, knew death awaited three men on Saturday night along the Cane River main road in Bull Bay, they would have prevented them from leaving a party in the district.

The triple murder saw the Kingston Eastern Police Division signing off the year in bloodshed as gunmen ambushed 68-year-old Isaac Ashton, a mason of Taylor Land in Nine Miles, Bull Bay; his son, 39-year-old Alrick Ashton, a construction worker of the said address; and a man who was yet to be formally identified up to Sunday but who was known by the alias ‘Nacoy’.

According to police reports, about 9:15 p.m., the men were travelling in a Toyota Starlet motorcar along the Cane River main road, when gunmen opened gunfire at the vehicle, hitting all three occupants multiple times, before escaping on foot in the area.

The motorcar subsequently crashed into a wall.

When the police were summoned, the scene was processed and the bodies were removed.

On Sunday, neighbours expressed shock at the triple killing.

“Mr Ashton was working on a house in the area and his son [was also working] on a house. Long time him a work up here and him treat we good,” one resident told The Gleaner.

“Him build many houses up here,” the resident said of the senior Ashton. “It is a party he was leaving from the house he was building because the people came from foreign and they were keeping a party.”

Another resident described the Ashtons as “good people”.

“Mr [Isaac] Ashton was a good man, a peaceful man. When the man get him pay, him come ya and buy ... . Nacoy, dem regular taxi [driver], did a carry dem down back. We hear di shot dem and we never know seh a nuh clappers,” another Greenvale resident said, adding that the fact that it was New Year’s Eve caused them to initially believe they were hearing firecrackers.

Both father and son lived in separate houses in the neighbouring district of Taylor Land.

There, neighbours were also stunned when The Gleaner visited on Sunday.

“Mr [Isaac] Ashton was a good neighbour. I live here from I was young, and I come see him here, and it is sad to know that he went like that and not being able to see the new year. He lived alone and his son lived nearby,” one neighbour told The Gleaner.

States of emergency

The murders capped a bloody 2022 in which the Government struggled to keep the country’s murder figures in check.

Up to December 27, some 1,481 people had been murdered across the island, an increase of 1.2 per cent year-on-year. More than a dozen additional homicides took place between then and the close of the year.

In the latter part of the year, sections of the island have been stuck in a loop of states of emergency (SOEs) declared by the Holness administration to give law enforcement agencies more powers to tackle rampant crime across several parishes.

The latest SOEs were declared in St Catherine, Clarendon, St Ann, St James, Hanover, Westmoreland, and parts of Kingston and St Andrew last week. Next Tuesday, if the Government fails to seek an extension and win opposition support to have them extended in the House of Representatives, they will lapse.

The measures remain contentious as while the Government and the security forces posit that they have proven to be the fastest and most efficient way to turn back escalating murder trends in a short time, critics, including human rights groups and the parliamentary Opposition, remain opposed to them. Concerns surrounding the potential violation of rights and questions about the long-term effectiveness of such measures have been among the sticking points. Critics have also argued that the displacement of criminals caused in areas in which SOEs have been declared has frequently led to increases in crimes in neighbouring jurisdictions, which begin to grapple with migrant criminals.

The Opposition has mooted the establishment of more zones of special operations with social-intervention strategies to reduce crime in hotspots.

Announcing the measures last Wednesday, Prime Minister Andrew Holness defended the latest declarations.

“We will use the SOEs when necessary. Criminals and criminal masterminds should take no comfort that the time for declaration is short. We are and we will continue to use all lawful powers within our means to control crime and to save lives,” he said.

However, the Opposition is gearing up to file a constitutional challenge to the Government’s increasing reliance on SOEs to stem runaway murders.

“We know that although constitutionally it says on the advice of the commissioner of police and the chief of defence staff, we do know that these decisions are straight political decisions and I think that the prime minister would have gotten legal advice against the approach he has taken,” Donna Scott-Mottley, the opposition spokesperson on justice, said late last week.

ainsworth.morris@gleanerjm.com