WESTERN BUREAU – Monday night’s killing spree in the inner-city areas of Norwood and Glendevon, St James, has left four people dead and pushed the parish’s murder tally to 80, twice the number of people killed up to this time last year.

The bloodshed, which took place over a 20-minute period, has obviously rattled Member of Parliament for North West St James Dr Horace Chang, who has political responsibility for many of the violence-prone sections of the tourist resort city.

“It looks like we are just ignoring the inner-city communities, they are becoming like killing fields, (and the attitude from the civic leaders and government agencies is) ‘let them stay there’,” Chang argued. “We literally have a killing field surrounding Montego Bay. but we cannot continue to live like that. We have to find a way to police the community and bring back security in the area.”

At about 8:10 pm Monday, the lights went out in Norwood. Yesterday, the Jamaica Public Service Company would only say that there was no scheduled interruption in the electricity supply at that time and it was unclear if the power outage had stemmed from a problem with the JPS supply or was linked to the violence that followed.

The men were shot under the cover of darkness and a white Toyota Corolla station wagon was seen at the scene of all four shootings. Police have identified the dead men as:

. Ex-convict Shane “Bulbie” Anthony Frazer, 32, a shopkeeper from Norwood;

. Milton Spence, 29, a vendor from Hendon;

. John “Big John” Campbell, 29, a labourer from Hendon; and

. Garth Anthony Allen, a construction worker from Salt Spring.

The police say that at about 8:10 pm,, a white Toyota Corolla station wagon motor car drove up to the front of a shop that Frazer operated and an undetermined number of men got out of the vehicle. The men entered the shop and called out for service. Frazer, who was lying on a small bed behind the counter, got up to attend to the men who pulled guns and opened fire, killing him on the spot. They then got back in their car and drove away, cops said.

Less than two minutes later, a white Toyota Corolla motor car stopped at Spence’s shop – a short distance away from Frazer’s store – and the men in the vehicle opened fire on Spence, injuring him. The vendor was taken to the Cornwall Regional Hospital and succumbed to his injuries yesterday.

Shortly after Spence was gunned down, a white Toyota Corolla motor car drove up on Hendon Road where Campbell was standing at the side of the roadway with a group of friends. Men from inside the vehicle began firing shots wildly and Campbell was hit in the neck. He was taken to the Cornwall Regional Hospital where he was pronounced dead.

According to CCN liaison officer for the parish Constable Camille Tracy, eyewitnesses to the third shooting identified only the numbers of the car’s licence plate, which they gave as 4002, but they did not get the letters of the plate.

Then at about 8:30 pm, Allen was standing at the intersection of Salt Spring and Sunvalley Roads when a number of explosions were heard. He was found lying at the side of the road in a pool of blood. He was also pronounced dead at the Cornwall Regional Hospital.

Yesterday, Dr Chang and Montego Bay Mayor Noel Donaldson toured the affected communities. They were outraged by the killings.

“This is a culmination of a very frightening year of criminal activities in Montego Bay,” Chang noted. “Last night (Monday) we were at 90 per cent of killing in St James, today we are at 100 per cent. What is further alarming is that we are not getting a sense of concern from any of our civic leaders and government agencies involved.”

But President of the Montego Bay Chamber of Commerce Winston Dear said the business sector was playing a pivotal role in curbing crime in the parish by helping to equip the police with well-needed gear. Panicking, Dear said, would solve nothing.

“We are concerned but we live in a primary tourist industry and we cannot be caught in a situation where we are panicking out the very industry which we are dependent upon,” he argued.

The crimes being committed in the city, Dear argued, are either:

. directed at gang members and/or are revenge against people who have families involved with gangs,

. persons who are eyewitnesses to violent crimes; or

. those involved in love triangles.

It was unclear what data he was using to substantiate his theory.

According to the Chamber president, some of the main factors preventing the police from effectively fighting crime in the parish are a lack of proper road infrastructure and poor lighting and he urged the government to correct these problems.

“Government has to put in street lights in there,” Dear said. “The government has to invest in putting street lights there – it is not a private sector situation.”