PETERSFIELD, Westmoreland — Five men, including one who is believed to be the trigger man, have been taken into custody in connection with Tuesday’s killing of two brothers from this rural western community.

“They have apprehended all the relevant people, including the shooter,” Minister of National Security Dr Horace Chang told the Jamaica Observer after meeting with the victims’ relatives in Carawina district on Thursday.

He said those in custody are known to be involved in criminal activities, including scamming. The minister added that the brothers killed, in contrast, were honest and hard-working men who are not known to be involved in any wrongdoing. He said their deaths were apparently a case of mistaken identity.

Forty-three-year-old Dervin Jones and his 41-year-old brother Sheldon Jones were fatally shot a few feet from their respective homes shortly after midnight. Their bodies were found about 4:30 am, leaving their community reeling and Dervin’s partner of 21 years pleading for a sit-down with Prime Minister Andrew Holness, as well as a return of the state of public emergency (SOE).

Holness himself did not visit the community but during a National Day of Prayer service on Wednesday he spoke of how the plea had moved him and his general unease with the level of crime in the country.

Dr Chang, who is also the deputy prime minister, said the aim of his Thursday visit was to demonstrate the Government’s concern and provide moral support to the family, which only four months ago buried the mother of the men killed.

Dr Chang said while the Government is not able to give a commitment at this time, consideration will be given to the possibility of providing assistance to the family.

Meanwhile, he noted that more manpower from the security forces has been added to Westmoreland, which began the new year as it ended 2021 — bloody. At the end of 2021 the parish had a 48 per cent increase in murders when compared to the previous year. There were three murders within half an hour of each other on New Year’s Day. The Jones brothers’ were the second known multiple killing in the parish and pushed the total known number of murders in the parish to five with only four days gone into the year.

There have long been calls for the Government to do more to stop the bloodshed in the parish. It was among those for which the Holness Administration had rolled out SOEs, until the Opposition People’s National Party withheld its approval, during a vote in Parliament, for the continued use of those measures as a crime-fighting tool.

As they grieved on Tuesday, the Jones brothers’ loved ones urged the Government to bring back the SOE to the parish. With that option unavailable, the Government said it will instead provide additional resources.

“We have given the commanding officer [Superintendent Robert Gordon] some more resources. That is the commissioner’s remit, to go into detail, but we have certainly added more manpower here, some of them permanent,” Dr Chang told journalists during a stop in the parish on Thursday to give support to the police.

He said 40 lawmen, recent trainees, have been added to the division while other members of the force had been added for operational purposes.

In addition to the shored up manpower, Dr Chang, who commended the police in the parish for their significant success over the years despite the less than ideal state of the buildings in which they work, reiterated the Government’s commitment to providing four new stations for the parish.

“The Little London and the Frome station will begin and I will speak to that in more detail. The divisional headquarters will begin by mid-year. When that is done, of course, we will refurbish the Savanna-la-Mar local station,” he said.

“While the Government puts the necessary resources in and gives the required tools, there is some legislative activity that must be done. But essentially, despite cries for a crime plan, there is no magic wand. You need to have a highly trained and adequate number of police officers who have the relevant legislation to Jamaica’s circumstances and we need to have the budget to give the resources,” Chang added.

Superintendent Gordon noted the importance of the additional resources.

“A lot of what we do is really manpower-driven. It is not a machine. Technology is very critical and useful and it aids in what we do, but the bulk of what we do is manpower-driven. So any other resources, whether it be human or mechanical, will give a boost to what we do,” he said.