THE Kingston Western Police have theorised that yesterday’s shooting of three people, including a six-month-old boy and his grandmother on Ramsay Road in Kingston, was the result of a gang feud in the area.
Police reported that approximately 8:15 am the three were on Ramsay Road, located off Maxfield Avenue, when a white Nissan Tiida motor car drove up. Men alighted from the vehicle and opened gunfire. The injured were taken to Kingston Public Hospital. The baby was later transferred to Bustamante Hospital for Children where he was admitted.
Angry residents later blocked a section of Maxfield Avenue to protest against the shooting.
Javar Wilson, father of the injured child, wept as he stood on Hope Street, metres away from where his only child and his mother were shot by the gunmen.
Wilson, 26, who had been born and raised in the troubled Kingston community, told the Observer that 20 minutes after he dropped off his baby he received a call informing him that his child and mother had been shot.
Wilson said he has tried not to get caught up in the type of violence for which the area has been known.
“Since I was 14 years old, I have been trying my best. I went to Kingston College and I tried my best to have homework programmes to definitely add value to my community, but this is the way my community decided to pay me back: by shooting both my mommy and my six-month-old baby. It is so unfortunate that even if you are not in it (a gang) it seems as if you are caught in it, but that is how life is,” Wilson said.
Wilson, a devoted Christian, said he was not thinking about revenge.
“Vengeance is the Lord’s. Whoever shot my mommy and my son, I am sure I’ve taught them at some point, whether it be Sunday School, whether it be in whatever influence I have had over them — there must have been some influence — so vengeance is not something that is on my list,” Wilson said.
He said his mother was holding his son when she was shot.
Wilson also expressed similar concerns raised by residents about the effects of gang violence on the community.
“Changing this community cannot be done by the JLP (Jamaica Labour Party) or the PNP (People’s National Party); changing this community has to be done by Jesus Christ, and until we get divine intervention this community will not be changed, because when you look at how many persons are hurting, so many persons want vengeance. The heart is desperately wicked, and for this reason I don’t think this community will be changed unless there is divine intervention,” Wilson argued.
He also pointed out that he, along with members of his church, were working with the community; however, there was a need for more partnerships.
The feud, police said yesterday, is among members of the Sunlight Street, Zimbabwe, and the Ramsay Road gangs.
“Since the upsurge of violence at the start of the year, we have captured some wanted men and so we believed that that would have brought back the area to some normalcy. But apparently, based on what we are hearing now, there are still quite a number of players who are not necessarily sleeping in the area but come back in the area, sometimes in the day, to create mayhem,” said Acting Senior Superintendent of Police Howard Chambers, who heads the Kingston Western Police Division .
Chambers also told the Observer that the police were in pursuit of the perpetrators
