‘This wasn’t a robbery’

WESTERN BUREAU:

Fourteen-year-old Randino ‘Dino’ James, who lost his life when gunmen sprayed a St James bar with bullets last Friday evening, may have been a victim of a hit.

The soft-spoken Anchovy High School student was the only fatality in the Montpelier attack, which left one other person injured.

It was not immediately clear who the hit was ordered for and who placed the bounty, but former police detective-turned-legislator Homer Davis has theorised that the deadly attack was executed as a result of an order made.

“From my investigation, this wasn’t a robbery. This was what you would commonly term as a ‘hit’,” said Davis, who is the state minister in the Office of the Prime Minister – West and member of parliament for St James Southern.

“And this is the consequence of it: a community is in mourning, a school is in mourning, and Jamaica is in mourning,” he told The Gleaner at Anchovy High’s Dr Fidel Castro campus in Montpelier on Monday as he joined the school community in mourning.

Grief counsellors from neighbouring schools such as Anchovy Primary School and Cambridge High School joined in helping to console the grieving students and teachers.

“It’s a sad day for not only the school community, but the wider Jamaica, that our young people are being murdered mercilessly on a daily basis,” Davis lamented.

He said that the ‘eye for an eye’ concept is not an appropriate solution in settling disputes, and that those responsible for this and several other shootings are known to the communities.

“I am sure that the persons who are responsible for all these shootings are from the areas where these shootings occurred,” Davis claimed.

“Sometimes they don’t even know why they have been murdered. We as a people have to understand that if it’s an eye for an eye, the whole nation will go blind, and it’s full time we find a better way to resolve our differences,” he warned.

According to police reports, at about 6:28 p.m. on Friday, James, who lived in Montpelier, was playing football and was seeking shelter at a bar from a sudden downpour, when a vehicle drove up and two men alighted.

The men entered the bar and opened gunfire at the occupants, hitting James in the upper body. He was pronounced dead at the hospital.

A 17-year-old female was also shot and injured.

Anchovy High Principal Lavern Stewart said that James was a quiet student and a good footballer.

“He was actively engaged in our football programme, and although he was not on the team for this year, he was part of the general team and a very good player,” Stewart said of the eighth-grader.

“Based on what I am seeing now and the outpouring of love, he was quite popular among the students. His homeroom teacher informed me that he was quiet, mannerly, and respectable,” she told The Gleaner.

The end-of-term examinations for grade eight students were suspended on Monday to allow for mourning.

“We most definitely could not have them sitting an exam at this time based on the emotions that they are facing and dealing with,” Stewart said. “We will work out the logistics in terms of having those papers done another day.”

The principal said James is about the fourth student over the last five years to lose his life in tragic circumstances.

“We’ve had students who went to shop and who were in different places, and they were taken down in like manner,” she said.

Violet Brown, James’ grandmother, said the family is at a loss as to who would want to kill him because he was not a troublemaker.

She said that her grandson’s death was unbearable, she would rely on God for strength, leaving vengeance to Him.

“Right now, if you talk to him, you have to listen very carefully to understand what he is saying. He doesn’t speak much, so I’m not sure how and why this [took place],” Brown said.

For his part, Bruce Wedderburn, president of the school’s Parent-Teacher Association, encouraged the students to honour the memory of their schoolmates by conducting themselves well and being as respectful as James was.

“Randino never chose to die on Friday. You and I will never choose the day we die, but one thing we must do is accept that we will die,” Wedderburn said.

“Life will go on, but let us understand something: there are certain things we can’t choose, and death is one of them,” he added.

albert.ferguson@gleanerjm.com