The decision by some police divisions to deny promoters permission to stage events in areas where criminals have been active was vindicated on Sunday night after a party in Franklyn Town, which the Kingston Eastern police had allowed, was attacked by gunmen, leaving 12 people nursing gunshot wounds.

The ban has now left residents worried about their economic survival as they make a living from entertainment events and other fund-raising activities.

On Monday, head of the Kingston Eastern Police Division, Superintendent Tomilee Chambers declared a ban on entertainment events in the community until the cops get a handle on the attack.

“No permit will be granted until we know the motive for this shooting. We haven’t had any serious incident in this space since last year August. The residents here have been working with the police, and I am surprised to see this happen,” she told the Jamaica Observer.

“Everything was going well and people were reaching out to us to say, since COVID, they haven’t really received permits and they would like to feel the togetherness again. I am disappointed that the first permit granted for the area, something like this would have occurred,” said Chambers.

But even as the police struggled to determine a motive for the shooting, Observer sources in the community claimed that it was a continuation of the bloody feud between members of the Darksyde and Gennasyde gangs, which operate out of the neighbouring central Kingston community.

For some time the two gangs have been engaged in a deadly battle, which started in central Kingston, continued in New York with the fatal shooting of the alleged leader of the Darksyde gang, Donald “Little Danny” Nash at a party in Brooklyn last August, and is believed to have spilled over into Park Lane in northern St Andrew, with the killing of two men last Tuesday.

According to Observer sources, the attack on patrons at the party Sunday night was carried out by men linked to the Gennasyde gang who had believed that a top ranking member of the Darksyde gang was in attendance.

On Monday, traumatised residents within the area between Wellington Street and Somerset Avenue, where the party was held, told the Observer that they are worried about the implications of the attack on their livelihoods.

This after the police superintendent declared that people who were already planning events will have to put those plans on pause for now.

In the meantime, Councillor Charmaine Daniels (People’s National Party, Allman Town Division) told the Observer that with additional barracks at the new Franklyn Town Police Station, which was opened in March, there is an opportunity to house more policemen and women to patrol the community.

According to Daniels, there needs to be a concentrated police presence in the community with more foot patrols.

“Let the citizens see more police on foot patrolling the place, instead of stifling the community to say, because this happened; at every party, something is going to happen. This event was a round-robin that was going on for so long and nothing like that happened.

“It shouldn’t be because something happened you stifle everybody. It’s a small community and most of their livelihoods come from round robin, party, fish fry, and bingo. With this now, everything might stop, and we really don’t know where this is coming from,” argued Daniels.

“The residents are in shock and they are asking why now. Twelve people were shot. There was a ceasefire in the community from October when everybody came together to say ‘enough is enough’, because production have to go on and people have to make money and empowerment have to go on,” she said.

“I am actually dumbstruck right now. This round robin, ‘Cheers and Beer’, has been going on every Sunday and people happy and people a mek dem little money different from what the promoter makes,” added Daniels.

She argued that it would be incorrect to link this attack with an on-again off-again dispute between gangsters from Franklyn Town and those from a neighbouring community.

“You might have people saying one thing or another, but I really don’t think it is coming from the previous feud with Dunkirk. We had a ceasefire and that was settled. We had dialogue with both communities about bringing back the communities together. If it was anybody from the other community I would be surprised,” declared Daniels.

Up to news time Monday, seven of the people shot had been treated and released from hospital, three remained admitted, while the condition of the other two was unknown.