Robert Lalah, Staff Reporter
WHEN GUNMEN shot and killed two young men along Penrith Road in the Cross Roads area some weeks ago, it was another horrific attack on a community which has seen an intense upsurge in violence since last December.
Residents say that since then, they have been living in fear, terrorised by unknown gunmen and unsure of what to do next to save their own lives and the lives of their children.
FEAR
The Gleaner visited Penrith Road soon after Andrew Bent, 29, and a 15-year-old male were shot and killed at the entrance to a tenement yard. The double murder took place on the third day of 2006.
The news team drove through the community only hours after the double murder had occurred. The air was tense and people were scarce.
As the marked news car travelled through
the area, the few people who were standing on the sidewalks looked away from us, or walked swiftly away.
Eventually we came across four women sitting together at the entrance to a house. A few bare-footed children were playing nearby. There was nobody else in sight. A gentle breeze rustled the sun-browned leaves of a large mango tree. The place was almost completely silent.
CHILDREN SCATTERED
As the car pulled up beside the women, the children scattered and two of the women retreated behind a fence. The two who remained gave sceptical looks.
One of the women said she lived in the tenement yard where the bodies of the men were found earlier that morning. Her eyes were red and droopy.
"Things getting really bad around here since about December. The man dem a get bad. Mi nuh know what to do or where to go now," she said.
The women said that only a couple weeks earlier, they experienced first hand, an unexpected attack on the community.
The women, who all live in the same tenement yard, said they were asleep in their beds when they were awakened by a loud noise. One of the women said she peeked through a window and saw about seven men, some of whom were carrying M16 rifles, making their way into the yard. A few of the men were dressed in full police outfits. The gunmen started kicking down doors and shouting, 'Police! Police!' An elderly man who dared to suggest the men did not look like real policemen, was threatened and pistol whipped.
The gunmen made away with several DVD players, money and other electrical equipment. Before they left however, the armed men opened fire on the residents. One of the women with whom we spoke said that, to avoid being shot, she had to jump through a window onto the roadway, about 15 feet below. Others were just lucky that the bullets missed them.
TALES OF GUNSHOTS
As the women recalled the incident, they started looking around nervously. "Mi deh here not even know where mi going next. It so bad, mi can't even eat or sleep," the eldest said.
Telling other tales of gunmen opening fire on the area and gunshots whizzing past the ears of children seemed to make the women even more uncomfortable. Before walking away however, the women asked the news team to alert the Jamaica Public Service about three street lights on Penrith Road that have not been working for months. The residents said they have reported the matter numerous times, but the lights have not been fixed. They said they feared that the upsurge in violence in the community was only aided by the darkness the malfunctioning street lights ensure.
