Police Hold Hanover Massacre Suspect

CAMPBELLTON, Hanover — The police have in their cus­tody one of the prime sus­pects fin­gered in Thursday night’s blood­bath in this rur­al com­mu­ni­ty, where 10 mem­bers of a fam­i­ly were shot, six fatal­ly, by gun­men who sprayed bul­lets on their five-bed­room board house, then fire­bombed it. The sus­pect was hand­ed over to the police by a rel­a­tive late Friday after­noon, after the police went to his home and did not find him. Reports say that the police were prepar­ing the process for an inter­ro­ga­tion of the detainee, who had not been charged up to late yesterday.

The deceased have been iden­ti­fied as Linett Bloomfield, 62, Mark Bloomfield, 40, Brian Mangaroo, 29, Kerrian Bloomfield, 36, and her two chil­dren Alliah Mahabee, 17, and Davian Mahabee, 15. Linett is the moth­er of Mark and Kerriann, while Brian is her nephew. The 62-year-old’s hus­band, said to be over age 70, is among the four hos­pi­talised. The father of Alliah and Davian is also in hos­pi­tal. Reports are that mem­bers of the Hanover police divi­sion were sum­moned to the Campbellton com­mu­ni­ty around 11:00 pm after res­i­dents report­ed that they heard a bar­rage of gunshots.Upon their arrival in the com­mu­ni­ty, the police team spot­ted a house engulfed in flames and the fire brigade was called in.

Firefighters, after car­ry­ing out cool­ing down activ­i­ties, found the charred remains of six fam­i­ly mem­bers in the rub­ble. Four oth­er occu­pants of the house who were severe­ly burnt were rushed to the Noël Holmes Public General Hospital in the parish cap­i­tal of Lucea, where they were admit­ted. Up to late yes­ter­day after­noon the police were still main­tain­ing a strong pres­ence in the trou­bled com­mu­ni­ty where res­i­dents con­tin­ue to reel from shock and dis­be­lief over the action that they described as “heart­less”. In the mean­time, some of the grief-strick­en res­i­dents are point­ing fin­gers at one of the vic­tims, who is accused of being the tar­get of the onslaught which claimed the lives of inno­cent fam­i­ly mem­bers. “Everybody is say­ing because of that guy, the inno­cent peo­ple dead. Him and some peo­ple inna ‘rup­tion and I under­stand that them send threat that they are going to kill him,” a res­i­dent told the Jamaica Observer yesterday.

That the­o­ry was also put for­ward by police inves­ti­ga­tors. The police con­firmed that before the shoot­ing ensued, the shoot­ers called out two per­sons who were at the house, one of whom was among the six lat­er killed, and anoth­er who was includ­ed in the four hos­pi­talised. During his vis­it to the com­mu­ni­ty on Friday with Commissioner of Police Dr Carl Williams, Minister of National Security Peter Bunting appealed to com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers that asso­ci­a­tion with crim­i­nal ele­ments can result in expo­sure to harm. “I want to use this oppor­tu­ni­ty to appeal to res­i­dents of Hanover and indeed all Jamaica, when­ev­er you asso­ciate with crim­i­nals, whether vio­lence pro­duc­ers or scam­mers, those who have ille­gal guns, you put your entire fam­i­ly at risk,” Bunting stated.

He added: “When we do the analy­sis of vic­tims of gun mur­der, the vast major­i­ty of them are either per­sons involved in crim­i­nal activ­i­ty or the close fam­i­ly or asso­ciates of those involved in crim­i­nal activ­i­ty. So I would appeal to the ladies, stay away from these gang­sters, they come to vis­it, they will put the rest of your fam­i­ly at risk. As you have seen when they get into this reprisal and counter-reprisal vio­lence, they are indis­crim­i­nate. They don’t care who is the tar­get from who is col­lat­er­al damage.”

Dr Williams point­ed out that the iden­ti­ties of the killers and arson­ists are known to the police. “There were some dis­putes from weeks ago; I am not going to speak on the details of them now because those mat­ters are still under inves­ti­ga­tion but suf­fice it to say we have a very good sense, based upon our inves­ti­ga­tion, on what led to these killings here and we are going to use it to aid us to catch the per­pe­tra­tors,” Williams said. He also expressed con­cern over the surge of vio­lence that has dogged Hanover in recent months, lament­ing that the onslaught of the fam­i­ly unfold­ed even as the police have pro­vid­ed addi­tion­al resources to the parish.

“I was here two weeks ago because I was very con­cerned about the trend that was hap­pen­ing in the parish and I sought to put some things in place, some addi­tion­al resources, we sought to strength­en the com­mand in Hanover, we gave them some vehi­cles and we saw what we saw last (Thursday) night so we know we need to mount a stronger response, as the min­is­ter indi­cat­ed ear­li­er. We are going to have to ensure that the cit­i­zens of Hanover can be safe when you go to bed at nights,” the police com­mis­sion­er pledged. Bunting was also wor­ried over the unprece­dent­ed 54 mur­ders record­ed in the nor­mal­ly peace­ful parish since the start of the year.

“Ironically, I was speak­ing at a nation­al secu­ri­ty sem­i­nar at the University of the West Indies yes­ter­day (Thursday) and I was bemoan­ing the sit­u­a­tion in Hanover (where) we are see­ing such rapid dete­ri­o­ra­tion in the secu­ri­ty sit­u­a­tion here in a parish with less than 70,000 peo­ple. “But since the begin­ning of September I think we have had more mur­ders in Hanover since the begin­ning of the month than in Kingston and St Andrew com­bined,” Bunting bemoaned.
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