By Glenroy Sinclair/Nagra Plunkett, Staff Reporters GUNMEN STRUCK over the weekend killing at least 12 persons while injuring seven others, including a two-year-old girl, in separate incidents in five parishes.
The affected parishes are St. James, Clarendon, St. Thomas, St. Catherine and Westmoreland.
Among those killed are: Winston Hendricks, 49, of Summerfield, Clarendon and Kenroy Anderson, 24, bus conductor of Swansea, also in Clarendon. He was shot and killed at his home Sunday afternoon. Also killed are Oneil Wilson, 29, carpenter of Fitzgerald Avenue, Kingston 13 and Aubrey White, 35, of Old Harbour Road, St. Catherine.
The police also reported that 54-year-old Joshua Fletcher of Paradise district, Westmoreland, was stabbed and killed. Yesterday, 40-year-old Paul James, also of Westmoreland, was shot and killed on Ricketts Street, Savanna-la-mar, in the parish.
Also shot to death were Andre Patterson, 19 and Christopher McCauley, both of Capture Land in Flankers, St. James and Michael Faulkner, 33 and Omar Nelson, 31, both of Norwood, also in St. James.
On Sunday, five persons who were among others attending a birthday party on Old Harbour Road, St. Catherine, were shot. This resulted in the death of White. Two 12-year-old boys, a 17-year-old youth and a 30-year-old woman sustained injuries.
The police said on Sunday night three persons were shot by gunmen, two fatally, in Roselle and Yallahs, St. Thomas. The victims were identified as Dalton Taylor, 57, farmer of Hampstead, St. Thomas. The second man is Barrington Beswick, 42, of Yallahs. The injured person is a 28-year-old woman.
Speaking with The Gleaner yesterday, Deputy Commissioner of Police Lucius Thomas said there was no particular trend in the killings, as the incidents took place across the island.
Up to yesterday, police records were showing that over 380 persons were killed since the start of the year. The weekly police records point to 27 murders reported over the past week, in addition to 29 cases of shootings.
Homicide detectives probing the killings were yet to establish the motive for 17 of the reported cases. Five were categorised as domestic, three related to robberies and one each to gang and drugs.
Over in St. James, investigators probing the two cases of double murders committed in Norwood and Flankers on Sunday, have come up empty-handed in their pursuit for motives and leads into the killings.
Reports are that gunmen attacked Faulkner and Nelson about 12:40 a.m. Sunday morning while they were walking along the Gulf Road in Norwood. A third man has been admitted to hospital for injuries he received in the same incident.
Later in the night, there were more murders in the nearby community of Flankers in a section known only as 'Capture Land'. Reports are that about 9:15 p.m. citizens heard explosions and called the police.
When the lawmen went to the area, Patterson and McCauley were found in a dirt track with gunshot wounds to their heads. McCauley was pronounced dead on arrival at the Cornwall Regional Hospital while Patterson died while he was being treated for his injuries.
