GEORGE “Father Binns” Duhaney, the Jamaica Labour Party’s local government candidate for Greenwich Town, yesterday said he is giving serious thought to dropping out of the local government race because of a recent spate of gun violence in that community.

His comments come in the wake of yesterday morning’s slaying of 33 year-old Leroy Harris, who was shot as he stood on 9th Street in the area.

According to the Constabulary Communication Network, Harris was approached by a man, known only as “O’Niel”, who pulled a gun and shot him in his head and chest. Harris was taken to the Kingston Public Hospital where he was pronounced dead. The South St Andrew Homicide Unit is investigating the killing.

“I cannot say it was political. I was not there and the man who can tell me is now dead. Dropping out of the race might just be the best thing to do. It is getting out of hand,” Duhaney told the Observer yesterday.

On nomination day, Duhaney himself got a first-hand taste of gun-related violence when he came under fire while walking back from the community’s nomination centre with a group of supporters.

According to him, he was about 20 feet from the man who opened fire on him; and he knows his attacker as he (Duhaney) has been living in the Greenwich farm area for 50 years. JLP leader, Edward Seaga, later said that the matter would be brought before the Political Ombudsman, Bishop Herro Blair.

But when contacted yesterday, Blair told the Observer that, to date, he has had no complaints about incidents of violence linked to the upcoming polls.

People’s National Party sources have argued, however, that last Tuesday’s shooting and injuring of a man in Frankfield, Clarendon was politically motivated. The man, they said, was a former labourite who had switched allegiance to the ruling party.

However, the May Pen police have said the shooting was linked to the robbery of a grocery store in Frankfield.