At left residents of 'Back Road', Kintyre, play a game of bingo. At right map shows location of Kintyre.-Carlington WilmotYvonne Chin, Staff Reporter
ON SATURDAY, March 2, 2002 a troubled old lady stood under a breadfruit tree in her community and whispered a desperate prayer.
It was near 6:30 in the morning and she had been earnestly begging God to stop the killings in Kintyre. But she wasn't praying alone other residents young and old, Christians and unsaved were walking around "Back Road" together, whispering a community prayer.
They had agreed to come out of their beds for seven Saturdays to ask God to cool things down.
However, the echo of gunshots and the Andem gang interrupted their prayers.
They knew it was another neighbour. This time it was Mr. T (James Altimon Thomas) was lying on his back in the riverbed, shot dead. The 57-year-old policeman, who had lived in and served the community for more than 25 years, was walking to work when he was murdered. The river had been dry for months, but the ground was wet with his blood and tears filled the riverbed.
Back Road was now front-page news!
In a matter of months, six people had been murdered there. In less than 24 hours one mother had lost two of her sons. Almost 20 children had lost a parent and families had been left to mourn and bury their dead.
The police statistics had been showing an increase in murder in St. Andrew Central and Kintyre was a major contributor.
When The Gleaner spoke to the mother who had lost two of her sons in the recent killings, she said she just couldn't get over the shock.
"De ting that really shock me is fi know se mi not a stranger here and knowing dat we all know each other. Dat really hurt me," she said.
She showed me the spot where one of her sons had been planning to build his house but he never lived to get it off the ground. And his four children, who she helps to take care of, can only play there.
A mother and father, still mourning the death of their son, now have to care for five children, which he has left behind. With the crime in the area, business is bad at their bar, money is harder to come by. Plus, nobody wants to move to Kintyre these days, so the room the mother has for rent remains empty.
But those who have lost loved ones aren't the only ones feeling the effects. Young and old residents had started to feel a new kind of fear.
"Is only God one keeping me," one elderly resident told me, "for me fraid a me own shadow. Some nights if a fly come into me room me frighten..."
Another said: "Right now I take a taxi come straight roun' a mi gate for we don't know who we can trust."
Yet another explained that the violence in Jamaica had really hit home.
"Everybody weh get killed in a Kintyre me know. Me know every single one of them!" she said.
Kintyre, NOT Mckintyre, is a small but growing community, which rests on the bank of Hope River and rises high into the hills of St. Andrew.
From Papine look beyond Hope Tavern and the green hills of Kintyre will greet you. The Electoral Office of Jamaica says just over 2,000 registered voters are living there. Add to that the unregistered voters and the children.
It's not a middle-class neighbourhood and there are signs of poverty along the way. Getting to some parts isn't easy because it's hilly and roads are bad. There is a community centre, but not much happens there and young people kick footballs in the streets and socialise on the street corners.
But there are ambitious people in Kintyre and walls have replaced many zinc fences. Most of the shacks of the 1960s and '70s have come down and in their place are bigger and better structures.
Mr. Leonard Dixon, who has lived in the community since the 1950s, has seen the community grow.
"As boys we would come to Kintyre and look all kind of fruit. Guineps, mangoes, star apples, guavas and tamarinds were all here," he said.
"In those days the river would run all year round and we would stop and have a swim to and from."
The area also developed a reputation as a camping site and the Scout Association sent many youngsters to an area of Kintyre known as "Scout Camp".
Mr. Dixon says that after the 1951 hurricane had destroyed many homes people started to relocate there. He was among them.
"At the time there were about 10 to 12 families living here. No domestic water supply. There was only a dirt track and there were only animals grazing in the area now known as Back Road," he said.
One 95-year-old resident who moved there in 1962 reminisced about how close-knit the neighbourhood had been in the early days.
"We had no bridge at the time so when the river came down, everybody would wait for one another up on 'Top Road' at 5' o clock in the morning and walk and talk and laugh through the hills until we got up to Gordon Town Road."
There are two bridges now and things are much different to the '60s. But the Papine police say before the killings started the neighbourhood had still been a pretty quiet place.
The word on the street is that the killings started when some young men in the area started to form associations with members of the Andem Gang of nearby Land Lease.
They say a number of the murders were committed to silence individuals who the gunmen felt knew too much. Senior Superintendent Tony Hewitt of the CIB Headquarters says the primary troublemaker had been an Andem gangster known as 'Jacket Man'.
He says that since 'Jacket Man', who was believed responsible for the murder of Mr. T, was killed in a shootout with the police about three weeks ago, the community has been calm again. He says the police continue to maintain a strong presence in Kintyre and the Papine area and have been holding regular cordons and raids.
Meanwhile, Detective Sergeant McKenzie of the Papine CIB says although the residents of Kintyre are warm and receptive when they visit
the area, those who witness crimes refuse to give statements.
"The Papine Police Station is located in a plaza," Sergeant Oliver Cranston of the station told us, "and because of that the people cannot come to the station without being seen, so they tend to call us."
Though they are grateful for the increased police presence, many residents are upset that it took bloodshed for the police to come to Kintyre.
"I think the relationship with the police is poor. It can't be any poorer," one resident told The Gleaner. "They only come when there is a crisis over here," he said.
"I think Kintyre is like a back-bench student," he continued, "You get ignored and you get away with little things and the little things get bigger. It's like a bomb getting ready to explode."
He said there was need for greater community policing and that they needed to respond promptly to calls from the community. He also said that it was common knowledge that there were guns in the area and coupled with its deviant young people it was a perfect place for miscreants from other areas to come in and blossom.
Since the killings, Kintyre has been taking a second look at the youths on the street corners.
"I would like to see the young people get involved in things that could benefit them. Instead of them just on them own, behaving wild and sitting on the street corner," a female resident said.
She pointed out that the young people needed skills and guidance and should be doing something with the community centre.
"I think this area needs a social worker," another resident told us. "The young boys and girls are leaving school and the parents have them in the house like they are running a crèche. They won't send them out to get a skill," he lamented. "There is just no real parental monitoring and to me that is a recipe for disaster."
The people of Kintyre had been praying for the disaster to be over. Now they're giving thanks that there have been no killings in the past few weeks but they know it's going to take work, alongside their prayers to get their community back together.
