4 dead, 6 injured in bloody weekend in St James
Published:Tuesday | November 5, 2019 | 12:34 AMHopeton Bucknor/Gleaner Writer
The bloodletting in St James took yet another ugly twist over the weekend as gun-toting gangsters murdered four persons and left another six nursing gunshot wounds as their blatant defiance of all security measures, including the ongoing state of emergency, triggered a round of fresh panic.
Police investigators have identified three of the deceased as 35-year-old Damion Conroy Bogle, a taxi operator of Content district in Adelphi, St James; 28-year-old Shawn Lawrence, a merchandiser of Naseberry Place in Providence Heights, St James; and Okeith Vincent of Lambs River, Westmoreland. The fourth victim – a male – had not been identified up to late yesterday.
CASUALTIES
The injured persons, who are said to be in serious condition in hospital, include two women.
The mayhem reached Porto Bello in St James shortly about 7:20 p.m. on Sunday when residents heard gunshots coming from a section of the community and alerted the police. When the lawmen went to the location, they found the body of an unidentified male with the hands and feet bound and a gunshot wound to the head.
About an hour later, Vincent and another man were sitting in a motor car along Canary Way in Farm Heights when they were ambushed by two armed men.
Vincent, who was shot in the head, died on the spot, while the other man is nursing gunshot wounds.
Bogle, who operated a taxi from Upper Barnett Street in Montego Bay to Adelphi, was in the vicinity of the Texaco service station along Barnett Street on Saturday night when he was pounced upon by a lone gunman who shot him dead.
Lawrence, who was among partygoers at a location on Hart Street, was shot twice at approximately 8 p.m. when two armed men ambushed them. He died in hospital.
The two women were shot and injured early Sunday morning when gunmen went to their Bickersteth home in St James and peppered them with bullets through a bedroom window as they slept.
Despite being under a state of emergency, St James has recorded 127 murders since the start of the year, which is 22 more than the total for all of last year.