A Jamaican who is a retired member of the US Navy says he intends to take legal action against a local security company after one of its employees, he claims, shot and paralysed him last month.

Retired Petty Officer Trevor Delano Jones Jr, who is still bed-ridden at Spanish Town Hospital in St Catherine, told the Jamaica Observer yesterday that he was shot on June 5 at the Portmore Toll Plaza.

The 49-year-old Jones, who said he spent more than eight years in the US Navy, told the Observer that he arrived in Jamaica last year with the intention of spending a few months with his mother in Greenwich Town, given that he had left Jamaica more than 30 years ago.

The father of five children said that on the night of June 5 he was riding a bicycle from Portmore back to Greenwich Town, missed a turn and ended up on the toll road.

“When I reached the toll booth I was ordered to stop by a security guard,” Jones said. “I complied, parked my bycicle and was proceeding to take out my ID to show to the guard and was shot three times.”

He said the first bullet threw him to the ground, after which “the guard came over me and pumped two other bullets into my body” .

He said that later he was thrown into a vehicle by police and taken to Spanish Town Hospital.

Jones said he spent several weeks in the hospital unable to contact his family. “It was after I got access to the Internet I was able to inform them of my situation,” Jones said.

“I am moving to take legal action against the security company for the injuries that I have received. I was attacked and shot for no reason and then brought to the hospital and abandoned,” said Jones.

“At least six security guards were at the location watching at the time, so there was no need to use force,” he added.

“I am also disappointed with how I was treated by the police who also came and took me from the scene. No thought was taken into moving me in the correct way to avoid further injuries and also how I was transported from the area,” he said.

“I was placed in the hospital; no effort was made by authorities to contact my family to even inform them of my condition,” he said further.

“At this point the hospital doesn’t have all of the equipment to deal with my current case,” Jones said, adding that he is now trying to get help to return to his home in Georgia where he can receive adequate medical treatement at a military hospital.

Yesterday, his mother, Pauline Jones, who said she was disappointed with the treatment meted out to her son, appealed for help.