Trainee cop third brother killed by gunmen
Published:Friday | November 19, 2021 | 12:09 AMAdrian Frater and Albert Ferguson/Gleaner Writers
WESTERN BUREAU:
Twenty-six-year-old Duvaughn Brown was murdered in Naggo Town in Whithorn, Westmoreland, on Wednesday night as gunmen continued their bloody rampage in the western parish despite it being under a state of emergency (SOE).
Brown, who was a student at the National Police College of Jamaica in St Catherine, is the third of his mother’s children to be murdered by gunmen.
Yesterday, a distraught Mabel Forbes told The Gleaner that she was not even aware that her son had returned home to the community.
“Last night, I was sleeping when mi neighbour come and beat down mi door and tell me seh dem kill Duvaughn, and me seh, ‘Where?’, and dem seh, ‘Up di road’,” she recalled.
“Mi seh, ‘Stop the foolishness and tell me where because Duvaughn nuh down here’,” Forbes said.
She was then informed that Brown had returned to the community to effect repairs to a block-making machine he owned and which was being operated by his brother.
When she rushed to the scene, her worst fears were confirmed.
According to reports, at about 9:50 p.m., Brown was walking towards the grocery shop when he was pounced upon by four men, who opened fire at him, hitting him multiple times all over his body.
He was subsequently pronounced dead on arrival at a Savanna-la-Mar-based medical facility.
Assistant Commissioner of Police Clifford Chambers, commander for the police’s Area One region, told The Gleaner that while Brown had not yet graduated from training school, he had been assigned to Area Three as part of the Jamaica Constabulary Force’s policy to expose officers to first-hand policing.
“What we know is that his relatives are living in the location where the incident occurred,” said Chambers. “We understand that they rear goats and that there might have been an altercation between his relatives and other persons in the same exact location ... . Investigators are trying to get to the bottom of this.”
Two men have since been arrested in relation to the shooting, and another two are being sought.
Chambers said that police investigators are also “looking at incidents that may have involved relatives of his, which he might not have been aware of or have anything to do with”.
Brown’s killing is the second high-profile homicide in Westmoreland since a state of emergency (SOE) was declared in the parish in response to a spate of gang-related killings linked to the feuding Dexter Street and Dalling Street gangs.
Six other police divisions are also under SOEs.
On Tuesday, 19-year-old Shadane Campbell, of a Dalling Street address, was shot and killed at the doorway to a location at which a gender violence training session was taking place. Minutes later, another man from Dalling Street was killed a short distance away.
More than 100 persons have been killed in Westmoreland since the start of the year. Some 144 persons are being held in custody in the parish, many for gun-related offences.