A birthday bash for a two-year-old baby in Greenwich Town, South West St Andrew ended in tragedy on Sunday night, when gunmen shot up the party, killing one child and injuring four others, including a one-year-old baby.

Dead is 13 year-old Norman Manley High School student Shana Palmer, of Central Road, Kingston 13.

Battling for life in hospital is the one-year-old infant, Maleki Palmer, who was shot in the side, back and hand. Tashana Redwood, 13, and two others – an eight year-old and another four years – have also been admitted to hospital.

Yesterday, a bewildered crowd, saddened by the tragedy, gathered at Palmer’s Central Road home to comfort her parents. They were quiet.

Sand barely covered the bloody spot in the yard where Shana’s bullet-riddled body had fallen.

Her father Harold Palmer, 60, wearing a black shirt, sat by the gate in mourning. “It is one of the wickedest acts we ever see, she (Shana) is everybody’s lover, she is a happy little girl,” he said, sighing.

Alecia Senior, 19, Shana’s cousin, told the Observer that on Sunday at about 7:00 pm, she had a birthday party for her two-year-old son Kawayne Cummings at her Central Road home. The more than 45 children present were playing in the yard.

“I was upstairs sharing the food and about 7:30 (pm) me hear gunshot. Me run downstairs to protect them and me see the pickney dem a run and a bawl out, and everything in a chaos. Den me buck up pon Shana pon de ground ina de yard a bleed. Dem shoot her in her head … she did dead. When me look me see the little one year–old baby grandmother, run come pick him up. Him a wash inna blood. Him get shot ina him back and it come through him belly and one shot inna him hand too,” Alecia, her face reflecting fright and horror, explained in a whisper.

The police reported that at about 7:30 pm Sunday, a white Toyota Corolla motor car with four men drove along Central Avenue. The men fired shots into the group of children at the birthday party, hitting the five children.

Police picked up 16 AK 47 and 9mm spent shells on the scene.

Shana’s mother, Maureen Laird, 37, sat quietly on the verandah with her head wrapped. “Is right here I was sitting when the gun shot dem start,” she said, pointing to a hole on the wall about six inches above her head. She said that when the shot hit the wall, “me wet up myself and do everything same place. What a wicked and heartless man dem fe kill off me little daughter and shoot the one-year-old baby, dem wicked fe true.”

Shana was the only daughter of her three children.

Neighbours said Shana was a bright child who loved her school work.

An eyewitness saw the car with four men driving south of Spanish Town Road on to Central Road. “When him reach about a chain from the party, him start to spray shots come down to the yard and shoot up the yard; everybody get flat,” he said.

The Hunts Bay police said the shooting emanated from a war between Whitfield Town and Greenwich Town over roadworks along Spanish Town Road.

Police said last Friday, Shawn Planter of Greenwich Town was shot dead along Spanish Town Road. “Men from Greenwich Town and Whitfield Town are fighting over road work in the area, as to who should be given the work,” a senior police officer said.

Police intelligence, he said, showed that there was an eyewitness to Planter’s shooting death and the Whitfield men had sent a message that they would kill the eyewitness. According to a senior detective, the witness was seen near the birthday party and the gunmen hearing he was in the area, came for him but missed. “However, we have some names and we are working at them,” he said.

Meanwhile, Superintendent Newton Amos, the officer in charge of St Andrew South Division (Hunts Bay), said yesterday he was optimistic that an arrest would be made soon. Amos said there had been an increase of police mobile and foot patrols in the area.

And a curfew was imposed at 5:00 pm yesterday on sections of the troubled area. It will be lifted at 10:00 this morning.