AN area spokesman for the troubled Tawes Pen community in Spanish Town, has called for the intervention of the wider Jamaican society to stem widespread violence in the old capital. Delroy ‘Father’ Pendley, 47, fears an eruption of reprisals resulting from the murder on Thursday of a resident who, with others, was returning from a meeting aimed at brokering peace between two gangs.

Describing himself not as an area leader but “a concerned citizen, a real Jamaican”, Pendley said he was desperately trying to maintain peace between the JLP-affiliated One Order gang and the PNP-associated Klansman gang, following the shooting death of Omar ‘Thicurus’ Campbell, 25, a jobless man of Tawes Pen.

Brian Williams, 33, radio technician, of the same community, was also shot and hospitalised.

“We are appealing to the wider Jamaica to make the future Jamaicans see hope for Jamaica as a peaceful place and not a battlefield,” Pendley told the Sunday Observer, “for right now the youth are looking on Jamaica as a battlefield. So, we would like to show them some hope any way that we can.”

Monsignor Richard Albert, the Roman Catholic Church’s Episcopal Vicar for the parish of St Catherine, said the people had taken the shooting “very bad” because the man who was killed was well-loved.

“You can almost smell the anger in the air.

And so, I just said to them I think they should choose the high road and seek peace, as retaliation is only going to mean more dead people and we don’t need it and we can’t have it. I am appealing to both sides to come back and talk again,” said the priest.

The meetings were to be followed by a peace concert in Spanish Town.

Pendley is mostly concerned about the reactions of the youngsters.

“The youth don’t fraid for war. Like we now, we say no war. The youth say war anytime. And if we join them and say war, a whole heap of people going to die. People from here (Tawes Pen) are going to die, people from there (Rivoli, De la Vega City, Bus Stop) are going to die.”

He said they had gone through many confrontations and been to many funerals through the years.

Pendley described the peace meeting at the Parish Council building at Rivoli as a success. “It was a joy, for it was the best peace meeting for a long time. The police were there and they assured us that everything was alright. We bought it. So we felt safe.”

He said the participants from the other side drove out first.

“When we drove out, about 20 metres from where the meeting was held on Wellington Street, we just saw a lone gunman step out into the road and started to open fire at the MP’s car,” said Pendley, referring to Olivia “Babsy” Grange, MP for St Catherine Central, which includes Spanish Town and its environs.

“And on the motorcycle that was behind the MP’s car … also. Then when our car which was third in line came up, they opened fire on our car.”

Looking back on that, said Pendley, a father of two, who in June 2005 was named ‘Model Father of the Year’ by Fathers Inc, “we don’t see any hope”.

He said he and other older persons had to be telling the younger guys who act in ignorance: “No retaliation.”

Said Pendley: “Sometimes they look like they would want to retaliate on we. Because they look on us as people who will give away our lives … and we are not sending them to go kill. So, all we confuse too.”

Pendley said he could not relate the meeting to the shooting as “the meeting was perfect. But it happened on their territory. That is what is causing the confusion. I am not throwing any blame on the meeting.”

The shooting, he added, happened about 20 metres from where the meeting was held, about 10 minutes after the talks ended.

Now, he said, the future looked dim as it would be difficult to persuade the younger guys to attend another peace meeting “or anything at all to do with holding down things”.

He said that persons from Tawes Pen who normally would not have ventured into the Rivoli area where the meeting was held, went”because we convinced them that we can have peace”.

Men from the ‘other side’ kept calling and insisting that they had nothing to do with the shooting, said Pendley.

“But, since it was in their area, we can’t investigate anything, because if we go down there, we can die. So they, along with the police, are doing the investigation. We are just trying to keep our guys quiet and hoping to get some results.”

Pendley described Spanish Town as “jittery and nervous, because people have different erratic opinions”.

He said the conflict didn’t start with the One Order and Klansman gangs, but with labourites and PNP.

“One Order and Klansman just become now the dominant names to call, but it’s an on-going conflict.”

The community spokesman said the conflicts had taken “an uncountable” number of lives over the years, and at least 70 in the last three years since the One Order gang surfaced.

Sometimes there were 18 deaths a week, he said. According to Pendley, Spanish Town used to be a place where everybody could move about freely.

“It’s not so we grow up in Spanish Town. All of a sudden Spanish Town has become two towns – one over here and one over there. We don’t see any future in a town like this for our children or for business. If we can’t see a resolve to this conflict, then we have to just leave the town.”

But that is exactly what the more mature residents want to avoid.

“We trying to see if we can build back the town,” Pendley said, adding that Tawes Pen saw hope in the dialogue that started Thursday.

We (were) in strong dialogue. That meeting was good. Another was planned for Saturday, so we don’t see where that breakdown come from.”

He remains hopeful for a breakthrough, saying: “We have some phone talk going on. So we are watching and seeing.”

Thursday’s shooting damaged the trunk lid of a rented blue Suzuki Liana car in which Grange was a passenger.

A white Toyota Corolla motorcar which was travelling close to it was also damaged by bullets. But neither Grange nor other occupants of the two cars were hurt.

Detective Sergeant Paul Thomas, sub-officer in charge of the Spanish Town CIB, told the Sunday Observer that about 6:00 pm the two cars and the motorcycle on which Campbell and Williams were riding, had just turned on Wellington Street from White Church Street on the way from the meeting, when a man with a handgun came out of a gate and opened fire on them.

Bystanders took the injured men to the Spanish Town Hospital where Campbell died while being treated for bullet wounds to the right side. Williams was wounded in his right buttock.

The targets of the shooting had just left a meeting by Grange, Sharon Hay Webster, MP for St Catherine South Central, and representatives from various communities in and around Spanish Town.

“We are following leads and at the same time appealing to persons who may have witnessed the shooting to call the Spanish Town CIB at 984-9757 or 911,” said Thomas.

williamsl@jamaicaobserver.com