WESTERN BUREAU:

As residents struggle to come to grips with Sunday’s gun-slaying of two-year-old Adrian Campbell in Clarke’s Town, Trelawny, the parish police commander, Superintendent Winston Milton, is urging residents to aim to settle disputes without resorting to violence.

“We are concerned about the inability of residents to deal with domestic issues,” noted Milton, who said the police will be embarking on a sensitising programme where community members will be educated on how to deal with domestic disputes.

“We, in the division, have decided to embark on a massive (sensitisation) programme as it relates to conflict resolution, with other external stakeholders. This is with a view to changing the culture in the parish, where we can prevent incidents such as these,” explained Milton.

According to Milton, the situation, which led to the death of the child who was allegedly shot and killed by a man who had a dispute with his stepfather, highlights the very serious problem of residents resorting to violence instead of seeking to settle their differences in an amicable way.

“The situation (the killing of Campbell) involved two cousins, and could have been resolved otherwise if they had chosen to handle it in a peaceful way,” said Milton.

“The problem often starts at the home, where family members are involved in confrontations that lead to violence,” said Milton. “We are again appealing to neighbours to call the police. Make it your business, don’t wait until someone gets injured or get killed.”

The Trelawny police also confirmed that 20-year-old Anthony ‘Blue Boy’ Findlay, otherwise called ‘Boy Blue’, was officially charged with the murder of the child on Wednesday. He is also charged with illegal possession of a firearm and using a prohibited weapon to commit murder.

In the incident in which the child was killed, reports are that, at about 7:30 p.m., the child, his mother, and his stepfather were sitting in the stepfather’s car outside an ice cream shop when the accused man approached the car, pulled a firearm from his waist and fired in the direction of the stepfather. The bullet pierced his headrest and struck the child who was behind him.

The child was rushed to the Falmouth hospital where he was pronounced dead. Findlay, who allegedly fled the scene after the shooting, was arrested some two hours later during a police operation in Duncans, also in Trelawny.