‘Two gun kid’ shoots 12, two fatally, at Westmoreland bar
WHITEHOUSE, Westmoreland — The blood-caked floor inside the sports bar where 12 male patrons were peppered with bullets by a shooter, reportedly armed with two handguns, was a vivid reminder of the carnage that unfolded here Sunday night.
Two of the victims died. Yesterday, police identified them as 31-year-old Mark Morgan, who was unemployed; and 28-year-old farmer Kason Blair, affectionately called Cocoa, both of Petersville, Westmoreland, addresses.
The condition of the 10 other victims was not ascertained up to late yesterday evening. A woman was said to be injured by broken glass as panicked patrons ran for cover during the shooting.
Police report that shortly before 8:00 pm a gunman went seemingly berserk and sprayed the venue with bullets.
The police are theorising that the bloodshed was triggered by a dispute between Morgan — who, according to a usually reliable police source, has had several run-ins with the law — and another man who threatened to go for his gun before leaving the scene.
“Me hear that some argument developed before he came there and the man said he was going fi him gun and come back… that dem say. He [Blair] wasn’t there during the dispute, so when him come he was there like about 15 minutes and then the gunman come,” a teary-eyed Novelette Wedderburn, Blair’s mother, told reporters.
She described her son as a peaceful individual, even as she tried to come to grips with his murder.
“It’s very difficult for me… a difficult time. It’s very hard for me right now, knowing my son just die like that. He’s not a wrongdoer… a person who don’t love quarrel, him don’t love fight, nothing like that. No, not a troublemaker; a loving person, a good father to his three children,” Wedderburn said.
She recounted that the last time she spoke to her son was about 1:00 pm the day he died.
“Him say, ‘Mommy, mi soon talk to you, mi soon come look fi you’ and the next thing I hear was that he got shot,” she related.
Several family members and residents gathered at Wedderburn’s home yesterday.
They all described him as a kind, peaceful, loving and hard-working man.
Commander of the Westmoreland Police Division Superintendent Robert Gordon told the Jamaica Observer that investigators expect to make an early breakthrough in the case.
“No one has so far been taken into custody, but we are following some strong leads and hopefully in short order we can take the culprit or culprits into custody,” the senior cop stated.
