A police curfew was last night imposed on one troubled Kingston community, while political meetings were cancelled in central Manchester in the wake of separate shootings that left seven people dead last Friday night.

At least one of the incidents was believed to have been politically motivated.

For patrons at the bar and grocery in Georges Valley, just outside Mandeville, last Friday evening was like any other.

The driver of a People’s National Party (PNP) campaign car had parked at the front of the bar and grocery as he usually does at day’s end for a drink and a few games of dominoes and cards.

Everyone, including those on the outside of the shop waiting for taxis or just hanging around, was relaxed and happy. Then at about 10:00 pm all hell broke loose.

Gunmen alighted from a blue Toyota Corolla that had just parked a few metres from the shop and opened fire with high-powered weapons on the PNP campaign car and those in the vicinity.

The police say there were four gunmen, while at least one man, who claimed to have been an eyewitness, told the Sunday Observer that three gunmen were responsible for snuffing out the lives of Queline Lampart, 28; nail technician; Carol Cohen-Simms, 37; Nardia Wright, 35; and a man known only as ‘Tom’, all of Georges Valley.

Yesterday, residents of the district were still asking themselves the same question again and again: “Why? Why dem do this?”

Chief of Police in Manchester, Superintendent Martin Baylis told journalists yesterday afternoon that as a result of the murders he had instructed the political parties to cancel meetings they had planned yesterday for Royal Flat (PNP) and Greendale (Jamaica Labour Party – JLP) in Central Manchester for “security reasons”. Under the law, campaigning ends today, 24 hours ahead of tomorrow’s parliamentary elections.

Peter Bunting of the ruling PNP and Sally Porteous of the Opposition JLP are contending for the Central Manchester seat.

Meanwhile, the police imposed a curfew in the Mountain View area of Kingston following the shooting deaths of three people in separate incidents in Vineyard Town, Kingston 3 Friday night.

In the first incident, which happened about 11:10 pm, 43-year-old taxi operator Patrick Livingston, also known as ‘Stullo’ of First Avenue in Vineyard Town, was found suffering from gunshot wounds on the street after the police received reports of explosions in the area.

He was pronounced dead at hospital.

About 10 minutes later, in the Robert Avenue area, an unidentified man and woman were killed.

The Constabulary Communication Network (CCN) reports that the body of the man, thought to be in his early 30s, was found slumped over the steering wheel of a white Mazda motor car. He was stoutly built and dressed in blue jeans, a light blue shirt and blue Timberland shoes.

The woman’s body was found lying beside the car. She, thought to be in her late 20s, was wearing blue jeans, a white top and black and white slippers. The Elletson Road Police are investigating both cases.

The boundaries of the curfew are east along Mountain View Avenue between Langston Road and Goodrich Avenue, west along Mountain View Avenue between Deanery Avenue and Langston Road, north along Deanery Avenue between Mountain View Avenue and First Street and south along Langston Road between Mountain View Avenue and Fourth Avenue. The curfew is expected to be lifted at 8:00 am today.

Yesterday, the Manchester police chief pledged that the police would do all in its power to ensure peace, safety and a free and fair election tomorrow.

“People will go about their business to exercise their franchise without any threat or hindrance whatsoever. I am going to see to that,” said Baylis, who said he was anticipating additional security personnel.

As the police pressed ahead with their investigations, Deputy Commissioner of Police Mark Shields was among senior police officers visiting Georges Valley.

Director of communications for the Jamaica Constabulary Force, Karl Angell, told the Sunday Observer that “based on intelligence, we are of the strong view that the murders last night in Manchester were done by criminals from outside of the parish”.

Angell said the police were also “making an appeal to all owners of motor vehicles to ensure that before they rent or lease” those vehicles they check the bona fides of those with whom they reach agreement. Angell suggested that “knowing the people you are doing business with would be useful”.

Even as Georges Valley mourned yesterday, both political sides – while expressing extreme distress at the killings – cast stones at each other. “This is obviously an attempt at intimidation,” Bunting told the Sunday Observer late Friday night. His campaign manager and former member of parliament John Junor was even more vehement, claiming the action was that of “JLP thugs”. Junor recalled that he had written to the Political Ombudsman Herro Blair “weeks ago” expressing concern at “strange faces” and “strange men” in the constituency. His worst fears had been confirmed, he said.

An angry Porteous accused Junor of attempting to smear her name and threatened legal action. Like her opponents, Porteous also spoke of a “pattern of intimidation” in the constituency. She emphasised, however, that the “will of the people in Central Manchester will not change now”.

When the Sunday Observer team visited the scene shortly after midnight Friday, the bullet-riddled car bearing the orange emblem of the PNP was being driven away. Bunting and Junor were among the large, stunned crowd looking on. Police investigators took statements and compared notes.

Close to the spot vacated by the car, which some suggested was the initial target of the gunmen, was a large dark splatter of blood. “Nardia and Tom dead right yah so,” one man said. Residents say ‘Tom’, Wright and Cohen-Simms were awaiting a taxi to attend a wake in a neighbouring community when their lives were snuffed out.

Inside the bar, others pointed under the domino table to more blood. There, Lampart, who was playing ‘French’ dominoes with three men, had died. And at the back entrance, Cohen-Simms had fallen as she and others ran frantically to escape.

The proprietor (name withheld), her voice starting and stopping, demonstrated how she had sat beside the domino players, book and pen in hand “scoring” the domino games.

As she told it, she first heard the “blap, blap, blap” of gunfire outside the shop but only got up to run when a bottle of stout on the bar shelf exploded – shot to pieces. The proprietor recalls that “Carol was right behind me” as she fled.

When she re-entered the shop she “buck up on Carol dead right there” at the back entrance, and “Queline in the corner”.

The blood on the ground had dried yesterday, but onlookers couldn’t miss it. A blood-soaked cap said to have belonged to Wright still lay on the spot.

Onlookers pointed to 12-year-old Duvall, one of Cohen-Simms’ three children, who was bravely fighting to hold back tears. He had just “passed” his exam for St Elizabeth Technical High School (STETHS), they said.

Additional reporting by Kerry McCatty