JLP candidate says shots fired at her in Vineyard Town
THE police yesterday promised to increase patrols in the violence-torn constituency of South East St Andrew, following a reported attack against Joan Gordon-Webley, the Jamaica Labour Party’s candidate for the August 27 general elections.
Gordon-Webley said yesterday that she was shot at when she attempted to tour sections of Fourth Avenue in the Vineyard Town community, a known enclave of the ruling People’s National Party (PNP).
Head of the Kingston East Police Division, Superintendent Assan Thompson, yesterday confirmed that Gordon-Webley had made a report about the alleged attack.
“She has made an official statement but we don’t have much to work with because she was not able to identify anyone but we will be increasing our presence in the area,” Thompson told the Observer.
Gordon-Webley, in the meantime, took exception to a denial from the PNP camp that no shots were fired.
“The police have had difficulty verifying the report and persons in the community say no shots were fired then but that a JPS transformer had exploded,” a PNP South East St Andrew party worker said.
Said Gordon-Webley: “It is not a figment of my imagination. When I went into the community there was no light.”
PNP deputy general secretary Julian Robinson said his party was, however, probing the alleged attack against the JLP candidate. “We are now investigating the allegations to see how much can be verified,” Robinson said.
The allegations of the gun attack resulted in the cancellation of a Peace Management Initiative organised peace walk through sections of Mountain View Avenue, a volatile community in the South East St Andrew constituency.
The peace walk was planned to include political candidates for Eastern St Andrew, the PNP’s Trevor Munroe and incumbent member of parliament, St Aubyn Bartlett, as well as Gordon-Webley and her opponent, Maxine Henry-Wilson, who is the sitting member of parliament for South East St Andrew.
Communities, including Back Bush, Saunders Avenue and Thorbourne Lane, run off the northern side of Mountain View Avenue and are integral to any peace initiative which is brokered in the neighbouring constituency.
