A five year old girl, Christina Salmon, was brutally shot and killed by gunmen in Glendevon, St. James yesterday, after her father dared to drive their family car through a blockade, and it was sprayed with bullets.
According to police reports, at approximately 8:30 a.m. yesterday, the father was transporting his two daughters to school. While traveling along Felicity Road in the dreaded crime-plagued community of Glendevon, he slowed to navigate debris which had been used to create a blockade, but as he did this, several gunmen mercilessly sprayed their vehicle with bullets, injuring all three.
The father, who had been shot in the mouth and neck, managed to drive the car with his blood-drenched daughters to the Cornwall Regional Hospital, where Christiana was pronounced dead, and he and the other child were treated. Their conditions were said to be serious.
The police are reportedly seeking a female ‘shotta’, a woman who they suspect staged a daring early morning gun attack in Havendale, St. Andrew yesterday. The attack left 37 year old Horace Parkes (of a Lawrence Tavern address) dead.
According to police reports, at approximately 8 a.m. yesterday, Parkes was on Vermont Avenue in Havendale. A motorbike with a male rider and a female pillon rider reportedly pulled up, and it is allegedly that the pillon rider alighted, pulled a gun, and shot Parkes three times in the neck. He died on the spot. Four 9mm shell casings were found at the scene.
Thomas Pearson, a 63 year old pastor of a Stony Hill, St. Andrew address, will appear in the Corporate Area Resident Magistrate’s Court on April 30 to answer to drug charges. He was reportedly held at the Norman Manley International Airport, with 10 pounds of ganja strapped to his thighs.
According to reports, Pearson faces charges of possession of ganja, dealing in ganja, taking steps to export ganja and conspiracy to export ganja. he was charged jointly with 42 year old Sanguanitti Bryan, who allegedly took Pearson to the airport. The court heard that on April 21, 2010, at approximately 1:45 p.m., Pearson was about to board a flight to Trinidad, when the police noticed an unusual bulge on his thighs. He was searched, and four rectangular-shaped packages were reportedly found strapped to his thighs. Bryan was arrested later that day, after the police had Pearson call him to tell him that he had missed his flight.
A male student of the Bog Walk High School in St. Catherine, was reportedly asked to leave the compound yesterday, after he allegedly assaulted a male teacher.
According to reports, at approximately 11:30 a.m. yesterday, the boy had a disagreement with a female teacher and a male teacher intervened. The boy and the male teacher reportedly had a physical altercation, during which the teacher was allegedly physically assaulted.
The boy was asked to leave, and classes were suspended for a while, as angry teachers demonstrated to show their disgust at the boy’s actions, and to lobby for action to be taken against him.
Detectives from the Montego Bay CIB are probing the circumstances surrounding the gangland-style execution of five men in the in the tough Bird Hill area of Salt Spring early yesterday morning.
One of the dead men is still unidentified, while the others have been identified as 20 year old Cornel Brown, 23 year old Elton Hines, 20 year old Byron Powell and Damion Brooks.
According to police reports, at about 5:30 a.m. yesterday, gunmen invaded the community, and forced Brown and Hines to lie face down on the narrow roadway. They were then shot in the back of their heads.
The gunmen then went to a nearby house which was being occupied by Brooks, Powell and the unidentified man, where they sprayed them with bullets before setting the house ablaze, while their bodies lay inside the building in pools of blood. One of the occupants of the house was reportedly beheaded after he was shot.
Dwight Williams, a 23 year old pan chicken vendor who tried to smuggle 15 pounds of ganja (hidden inside 20 bammies) to the Bahamas, was fined a total of J$135,000 and sentenced to nine months in prison when he appeared in the Corporate Area Resident Magistrate’s Court on Friday (April 23).
The court heard that on April 19 of this year, Williams was held at the Norman Manley International Airport, after the drug was discovered hidden in the bammies in his luggage. Despite a lengthy plea for lenience by his lawyer in court, he was fined $15,000 or six months in prison for possession of ganja, $48,000 or six months in prison for dealing in ganja and $72,000 or six months in prison for taking steps to export ganja. If the fines are not paid, the sentences will run concurrent but consecutive to the nine month sentence.
Leteisha Dawkins, of a Corporate Area address, appeared in the Corporate Area Resident Magistrate’s Court yesterday, where she answered to charges of unlawful wounding.
The court heard that Dawkins and the complainant, had a dispute on the popular social networking website, Facebook. Dawkins later saw the complainant at a night club and approached her, and alleges that she was then verbally attacked by the complainant. Dawkins said that they were arguing, when she touched the complainant, and was pushed. She said they then had an altercation.
Dawkins was ordered to pay a fine of $15,000 or spend six months in prison for the offence.
According to Minister of Finance and the Public Service, Audley Shaw, Jamaica’s Government does not plan to introduce any new taxes over the next two years.
Quoted recently, while speaking at a post-2010 budget forum, Shaw reportedly said “It is not my intention over the medium term, and certainly during the term of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) agreement, over the next 27 months, to introduce any new tax at all. We are going to focus on tax compliance, and we are going to focus on widening the tax net.”
It will be interesting to see if Minister Shaw manages to keep this promise.
In an apparent case of vengeful jungle justice, Norris Wilson, the 51 year old father of Garsha Wilson – who is accused of abducting, raping and burying a 12 year old girl alive – was shot dead by gunmen in the Red Hills community of St. Andrew yesterday.
Police reports are that Wilson was attacked and killed near his home. It is not know if his murder was due to the allegations that his son faces, and the police have not yet confirmed this, but are still to determine a reason for the attack.
26 year old Lance Mathias of Spanish Town in St. Catherine, who has been in custody for almost six years awaiting trial on a murder charge, refused to be silenced when he appeared in the Home Circuit Court in Spanish Town yesterday.
Mathias, who is charged jointly with Joel Brown for the murder of Andrew Gordon, who was shot dead on July 9, 2004, demanded to know the status of his case when it was brought up for mention. He was however remanded in custody, to return to court on May 2 when the case will be mentioned once again.
Significantly, the sole eyewitness in the case has never appeared in court. The police reported that the witness could not be located, and thus, the Crown intends to proceed under the Evidence Act to have the statement of the eyewitness tendered into evidence at the trial.
The presiding judge, Supreme Court judge Marva McDonald-Bishop, ordered the prosecution to take steps to ensure that the defence gets all the relevant documents and statements so that an early trial date could be set.
