Sheffield, Westmoreland

Family members of the four persons-including a 14-year-old eight grade Godfrey Stewart High student – who were reportedly fatally shot Saturday night during a shoot-out with members of the Westmoreland police, are crying foul.

The identities of the four, all of Westmoreland addresses are: 24-year-old Devine Parkinson and 25-year-old Clifton Walters, both of Seaton Street, Savanna-la-Mar addresses; 24-year-old Orville Russell of a Darling Street, Savanna-la-Mar address and 14-year-old Romario Bruce of Llandillo.

The Constabulary Communication Network (CCN) reported that on Saturday, at approximately 8:00 pm, a police party was carrying out patrol duties along the Bay Road main road when they signalled the driver of a Toyota Corolla to stop. However, after the car stopped, four men, brandishing guns allegedly alighted from the vehicle and opened fire at the cops.

After a firefight, it was discovered that the four men had been shot. They were taken to the Savanna-la-Mar Hospital where they were pronounced dead.

The police say a M1 rifle and a 40-calibre pistol, as well as a number of cartridges were recovered.

The Bureau of Special Investigations (BSI) has since launched a probe into the circumstances surrounding the death of the four.

But family members contend that three of the men were shot and killed execution-style by the cops while they were still seated in the car and the fourth who escaped from the vehicle was held and killed elsewhere.

In the meantime, Russell Parkinson, Devine’s father, is blaming himself for the demise of the four. He revealed that he organised a Fun Day last Sunday in the Sheffield community – approximately 13 miles from Savanna-la-Mar- and invited his son to join him on the grounds Saturday to assist with the preparation of food and refreshment for the staging of the event.

The distraught father explained that the other three partnered his son in helping to “cut up the meat, set up the bars, wrap forks, knives and spoons and so on”.

“And is like is really me that really call them to their deaths. Because if it wasn’t that day maybe they wouldn’t be together,” bemoaned Parkinson.

The grief-stricken father finds it difficult to accept that the men, who were all clad in vests during the day could have concealed any guns on their persons or how they could have hidden them in the car which he himself drove for the duration of the day with the public address system attached to it.

” If the car that the police said had guns… for us to put on the steel horn, go in the engine, go under the bottom to run wire. The car opened up on the playing field the entire day. The only time Devine went back in the car is when they were leaving and he said, ‘Tomorrow, daddy’.”

At the same time, the aunt of two of the deceased, Bruce and Walters, is also doubtful that the men were armed with guns as she claimed to have received information that earlier they were stopped and searched by a police team while on their way from the Westmoreland capital to Sheffield.

“On their way to Sheffield they were stopped by the police. Devine called his cousin and told her that they were stopped by police. They were searched and released. All they had was the knife to prepare the meat,” she asserted.

Meanwhile, Devine’s father recounted that the group was killed minutes after they left him.

“Surprising when I heard that four gunmen died there is no way I could believe it was them. It was about two minutes after they called and said is Devine them kill”.

When the Observer West pressed family members if the four were law-abiding citizens, it was revealed that Clifton Walters and Devine Patterson appeared in court last Wednesday on a rape-related case which has been pending since they were students at Godfrey Stewart High. The matter was rescheduled for January 11, 2008.