Two teens cut down in Benbow Street shooting
TWO teenagers were shot dead at Benbow Street in Jones Town, Kingston, yesterday.
The teenagers – Leon McDougal, also known as “Lee”, a 16 year-old student of the Charlie Smith Comprehensive High School, and 19 year-old Francisco Nedrick, also called “Alrick” and “Antsman” – were gunned down at about 3:15 in the morning.
McDougal died on the spot, while Nedrick died while on his way to the Kingston Public Hospital, the police reported.
McDougal lived in the Torrington Park area and was killed at the bottom section of Benbow Street. Yesterday is body lay stiff on the hot asphalt, dressed in a blue jeans pants and a grey and blue bloodsoaked T-shirt. The left foot of his slippers lay upturned a few feet from his body and his eyes were half-opened.
Yesterday residents said the murder of the two teenagers was a part of a fresh feud between two gangs in the community.
“This don’t have anything to do with no long-time war. Is a set of friend fall out and start war them one another,” one man at the death scene said yesterday.
“Men from top Benbow Street and in conflict with those from the bottom. They have linked with men from Torrington Park while those from the bottom section have linked with men from Craig Town and are at war among themselves,” a senior police investigator told the Observer.
The police said they recovered a number of 9mm and .40 spent shells on the scene. There were also a number of bullet holes in the wall of a shop at Benbow Street.
The killings bring to three the number of murders to have taken place in the Kingston West Police Division for the new year.
And the police yesterday went into the nearby community of Wilton Gardens, better known as Rema, and took a number of men into custody after they were said to be involved in a shoot-out with with gangsters from the “Fatherless Crew” on Sunday night.
The Fatherless Crew, the police said, has been wreaking havoc on the community. “They are a lowly bunch, who terrorise the taxi men, rape the women and carry out all manner of evil,” one cop said.
E-mail: walkerk@jamaicaobserver.com
