MANDEVILLE, Manchester — The troubled community of Greenvale, just west of here, was rocked by its fourth murder in less than a month, early Thursday, just hours ahead of a planned community ‘peace’ walk by police, political representatives and religious leaders.

Head of the Manchester Police Division Superintendent Shane McCalla and Member of Parliament for Manchester North Western Mikael Phillips were among those who were expected in the community for the social intervention, but had to shift focus to the murder of 40-year-old David Junior Reid at the entrance of Bethel Street in Greenvale.

“It is really regrettable that on the morning that we are supposed to do the walk through I received this news,” Superintendent McCalla told the Jamaica Observer.

A police report said about 6:30 am, Reid was opening his establishment when a gunman shot him. He was later pronounced dead at hospital.

“Right now we cannot truly ascertain what was the motive behind this. We have information that it was a man on foot and that as Reid opened the shop, the man just went across and fired,” said McCalla.

Last month a restriction was placed on entertainment events in the community following the August 5 killing of 34-year-old Adrian Nation, alias Blue, a chef of 14 Street in Greenvale and a man known only as Lloyd Levy at a party in the community where a man and woman were also shot and injured.

Last Saturday, Chandane Harriott, 20, was fatally stabbed by his 16-year-old girlfriend on Bethel Street in Greenvale.

Superintendent McCalla said the police mobilised the walk through as a response to the incidents.

“This is one of the communities in which the police have, over the years, invested a lot of time and effort with policing strategies; as you see before we had planned our community walk through from two weeks ago as part of our response to some recent incidents that took place in the space,” he said.

“…We are still pushing through with the community walk through and we are still pushing on with speaking to the MP, the church, other interest groups [and] social intervention individuals to see how best we can bring back that level of normalcy to this particular space,” he added.

He is appealing to residents to continue collaborating with the police.

“We just ask the citizens of Greenvale and the wider Manchester to come on board as we try to curb and stop this monster… At this time there are going to be some measures that everybody might not be comfortable with. The shops will have to be closed at a particular time and so forth, but we just ask citizens to work with us as we get the space back to somewhere where everybody can come back out and enjoy themselves,” he said.

Phillips, meanwhile, said he knew Reid as an entrepreneur and was a peaceful person.

“He wasn’t one of those youths who you could brand as a troublemaker; he usually keep to himself [and] runs his little business. It is disturbing of what is happening in the community; this is the third murder in weeks that we are having in the community,” he said.

Phillips is hoping that the peace that was restored to Greenvale will not be reversed.

“…It took us years to bring the community to where it is, not with violence, but with peace. There were days when if you lived in bottom Greenvale and your child went to Hatfield [Primary] you couldn’t even walk through Top Greenvale, that is how tense the community used to be, that [was] the violence that we used to see,” he said.

“We brought it where the community came together [and] the police have been working with the community…A few months ago we had a shooting in the community and it was the youths in the community who handed over the person who did the shooting, that is how much they have been working with the police and to see this happening now in reversing the gains that we have had it is a bit frustrating, he added.

Phillips is calling on the police high command and Minister of National Security Dr Horace Chang to bolster the resources available to the Manchester police.

“…Because what has been happening in Greenvale is systematic of what has been happening across the parish itself. We don’t want to them to wait until the parish has fallen as a murder capital before they send resources into the parish itself; if you go to the divisional office, they would tell you that they are short of manpower [and] cars,” said Phillips.

“We have been asking for a while for some of those to come into the parish, it can’t be just when you have a shooting then you send in a one or two extra police and then you pull them back out, if we are going to deal with the matter of crime, we have to deal with it in a systematic way in trying to suppress it and keeping the communities in a peaceful manner in doing community work with them,” he said.

Added Phillips: “I am hoping that those who would have committed the murders in the community and the shootings that they [will] be brought to book, but we can’t be easy on them, because when one puts the effort — the community members, the police, myself, the political directorate — in bringing peace to the community and then see it taken away like this, it is not easy at all,” he said.

And Superintendent McCalla said more social intervention will be done in the community.

“We are also looking at having some sporting activities and some other development activities in the space and we are partnering with some other interest groups, but as time goes by those particular projects will be communicated,” he said.

When asked if there are gangs operating in Greenvale, McCalla said the police are aware of violence producers in the area.

“I wouldn’t say that they are active, but there are criminal elements in various spaces that seek to carry out mayhem and havoc, but we as the police are putting our strategies in place… We will be continuing with certain security measures and certain security initiatives to cauterise those problems,” he added.