Jamaica Evangelical Alliance condemns St James church shooting

The Jamaica Evangelical Alliance (JEA) is urging the culprit who shot 38-year-old Cora Thompson at the compound of the New Testament Church of God in St James last Wednesday to turn himself in to the police.

In a statement, the church group declared that justice cannot be evaded indefinitely.

“We strongly urge him to turn himself in to the nearest police station and submit to the rule of law. Beyond earthly justice, there is a higher accountability that no individual can escape,” it said.

Thompson, a member of the church on Water Lane in St James, was in the churchyard selling books when she was attacked by a lone gunman wearing a mask, who opened fire before escaping in a black Toyota Voxy.

She was rushed to hospital, where she was pronounced dead.

Senior Superintendent of Police Eron Samuels, Commanding Officer for the St James Police Division told The Gleaner that the police are actively pursuing leads into the fatal shooting.

The JEA also lamented what it described as a troubling erosion of respect for life, order, and the sacred spaces that should be havens of peace and refuge.

“This tragic incident reflects the desperate and deteriorating state of our society and highlights the urgent need for national reflection and spiritual renewal.

As a people, we must confront the moral decay that fosters such violence and seek a return to God, whose principles uphold life, justice, and peace,” the statement said, while expressing sympathies to Thompson’s family.

Thompson’s death marked the second fatal shooting of a woman at a church in western Jamaica in recent years. In 2021, Andrea Lowe Garwood was shot and killed by gunmen at a church in Falmouth, Trelawny.

- Sashana Small

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