Pleasant Heights residents worry about future; PM insists State won’t yield to criminals
As residents tried to process Monday night’s brutal slaying of five men at Pleasant Heights, Rockfort, in Kingston, Prime Minister Andrew Holness visited the community and made a broad appeal to law-abiding Jamaicans to isolate gangsters, while reiterating that the State will not sit back and allow organised criminals to threaten the country’s security.
“The challenge we have always had in communities like this is that there are persons who claim that they lead the community and they have some leadership role. They ascribe to themselves the title don and there is a battle for control of turf, for whatever reason; whether it is to control drugs or scamming or whatever criminal activity, or just an ego issue, and these persons enlist young men and try to get them to carry out their illegal activities,” said Holness, who was accompanied by National Security Minister Dr Horace Chang, Member of Parliament for Kingston East and Port Royal Phillip Paulwell, and senior police officers.
“More and more, Jamaicans are realising that these men who claim to want to protect the communities, who call themselves elders, don, or dads, or whatever term they use to describe themselves, are nothing but criminals, people whose only intent is to undermine your security. And if they are allowed to do so, they will ultimately claim your life,” the prime minister said.
“They are of no value to the communities, and it’s about time that all communities realise that these persons serve no good purpose. They organise violence as we have seen here. It was not an impromptu action. It was not an act of passion. It was not something that just happened at the spur of the moment. Someone sat and thought about it. Someone procured the firearms and the bullets. They may even have paid persons to do this. Someone stood as a lookout to say now is the time. It was an organised activity. There must be no succour, no favour, no sympathy for these persons who organise this, they are criminals and they must be seen in that way,” Holness said.
He pointed out that the security forces have started to restructure their operations to deal with the threat of organised, armed criminal violence.
“We’ve used the anti-gang legislation and we are eroding the gangs as much as we can,” he said, adding the number of gangs have been reduced from almost 600 to 150.
“The strategy is to be pre-emptive, in addition to the kind of kinetic operations that we have,” he said, then reiterated his warning to criminals, issued after the Cherry Tree Lane massacre in August that the security forces will pursue killers and the decision is theirs, “either they meet a judge or meet their maker. I encourage them to meet a judge”.
Hours after Monday’s attack, the security forces shot dead a man who was believed to be one of the gunmen who committed the murders. Police said that a firearm was seized after the encounter with the suspect.
The gun attack on National Heroes’ Day was carried out while scores of people from the community and many from other nearby communities were having a good time. After a football tournament involving adults and children ended on Monday night, residents turned their attention to a children’s spelling competition.
The Jamaica Observer was told that just as the spelling competition was being brought to an end, guns started barking and all the people who were competing, plus those who were spectators ran for their lives.
Four of the murdered men were identified as 51-year-old Ortavia Austin and his 29-year-old son Okero; 32-year-old Odane Josephs otherwise called Bones; and 38-year-old Rosrick Thomas, otherwise called Teniel. The other slain man was unidentified up to press time on Tuesday.
“Thank God I am living right now. Me, my son and granddaughter were up there in the night,” one woman told the Observer on Tuesday.
“That little girl you see right there, she won the spelling contest. As she done spell and we a get ready for the bun-eating contest, shot start fire. All my son knee chip up. We had to hide under a car while shots were sailing overhead. Do you know the feeling when you just talk to somebody and them dead? That was what happened,” the woman said.
“When shot done, I came out and saw five men on the ground. It was like a confusing movie. Nobody knows what led to this or where it is going. One of them is like my son. He and my daughter are in the same age bracket. A father and a son were also killed. The father liked peace, not violence. He told people to make money and the only thing we do up here is try to make money,” she said.
The police imposed a 48-hour curfew in sections of Rockfort Monday night, which was good news for the woman. However, she wanted to know what level of protection would exist for the community after the curfew is lifted at 8:00 pm today.
“The police are here and we are glad. But after 48 hours, are we on our own? We want the police to continue circling the place so people can think before they try anything else,” she said.
One man, who was heading to work when the Observer arrived in the community, said he was “heartbroken”.
“The community came back together as one on Monday. It was just nice. Football was keeping and everybody was laughing and enjoying themselves. All of a sudden, it was commotion,” he said.
Another man, who tried to explain the chaos triggered by the attack, pointed to slippers and other footwear left behind after people ran for their lives.
“I saw people running and I started to run too. When you look, my yard was filled with people who were seeking refuge and I couldn’t turn them back. Everybody ran all ’bout. You can tell because as you can see, there are a lot of slippers and one-one foot of football shoes about the place, and all kinds of mismatch things. We are definitely more than scared,” he said.
One elderly man expressed concern about the future of the community.
“There were a lot of women out there with children when it happened. The place is not going to come back because even if a man decides to keep an event, people are not going to support us again. Who is going to come? This was the first in a long time we have a get-together where everybody drink and have fun. There was even a pool in the road where children could swim,” he said.
Kingston East, where Rockfort is located, had no incidents of shootings or murders for seven weeks before the massacre on Monday.
Up to Sunday the Kingston East Police Division recorded 40 murders compared to 57 in the same period last year. Monday’s incident brought the number up to 45 murders in the division since the start of the year.