ST CATHERINE, Jamaica – Police say they have found no evidence at the moment to suggest that Thursday morning’s shooting death of Ainsley Parkins, a People’s National Party Councillor for the Southborough Division, is linked to last year’s murder of Lennox Hines, a Jamaica Labour Party councillor-caretaker for the division.

Parkins was shot dead sometime after 9:00 am on Laurel Road in Southborough. One man who claimed to be an eyewitness told OBSERVER ONLINE that Parkins was overseeing a debushing project in the area when a man disguised in a vest as one of the men clipping the foliages approached his parked vehicle and fired bullets in rapid succession.

He was rushed to the Spanish Town Hospital where he was pronounced dead.

Speaking with reporters at the scene, Deputy Commissioner of Police, Fitz Bailey said, “We have assembled a top-level team headed by the CIB [Criminal Investigation Branch] headquarters and the major investigation division to lead on this investigation. I am appealing to members of the public who may have seen or heard anything to call us at 311 or 811 with any information that you have to support this investigation.”

He said at this time investigators do not have any evidence to indicate that the incident is connected to councillor-caretaker Hines’ murder. In May 2022, Hines was shot and killed on Marcus Garvey Drive in Kingston in rush hour evening traffic.

“We will not be making any assumptions. We will do our investigation and we are very open in our approach,” Bailey said.

He added that he is unaware of any gang war in the area.

“We are appealing to the residents. We normally get support from the public so assume that the public, who are responsible citizens will tell us what they know. We have a duty to protect the citizens and to reassure the citizens. Whatever we have to do to ensure that the citizens of this community are reassured then that will be done. If there is a need for additional deployment then that will be done and we will [use] our own assessment to see what we need to do,” Bailey said.

In the meantime, residents who spoke with OBSERVER ONLINE at the scene remembered the late councillor as being “controversial” and expressed mixed views about his legacy in the division.

“Him always keep the place clean, because you see the grass right here a him cut it up. But he is very controversial,'” one man said.

“If you a nuh PNP and him have farm work then you nah get it. A pure badness him push,” he added while speculating the incident to be some sort of reprisal because of the amount of enemies Parkins had gathered.

However, in an earlier OBSERVER ONLINE report, a source described Parkins as one of the “best councillors in Portmore” who tried to root out known violence producers.

“He was one of the best councillors in Portmore. Never tolerated the gunmen and gave information to the police on their activities consistently,” the source said.