Schoolroom shocker
Father detained after sub-machine gun found in seven-year-old son’s book bag
BLACK RIVER, St Elizabeth — Up to late Thursday evening police investigators were questioning a 32-year-old man after a sub-machine gun was found inside his seven-year-old son’s school bag in northern St Elizabeth.
A highly placed source told the Jamaica Observer that the child, who is in grade one at a primary school on the fringes of the Cockpit Country, revealed that the weapon belonged to a family member.
According to the source, mid-morning Thursday the police, acting on information, went to the school in a remote section of St Elizabeth, near the border with St James, where they searched the child’s bag and found the weapon.
The police force posted a photo of the weapon on its social media platforms on Thursday afternoon. The weapon has the initials JE carved into it.
It is understood that the matter has been reported to the Child Protection and Family Services Agency.
Police theorise that the weapon was intended to be hidden in the bag and the child took the bag to school not knowing that the gun was in it.
Efforts to get a comment from head of the St Elizabeth police, Superintendent Coleridge Minto, were unsuccessful as calls and messages to his phone went unanswered up to press time on Thursday.
The seizure follows an operation in which more than 800 rounds of ammunition were seized in Grosmound district near Santa Cruz two weeks ago.
At that time Superintendent Minto said the quantity of ammunition reflected that criminals were arming themselves with more weapons in the parish.
“This level of ammunition find underscores the point that we have persons in this parish that are arming themselves for criminal activities and we intend to go strongly after those committing criminal offences and to build case files and bring them before the courts,” Minto said.
“We continue to appeal to citizens in this parish to share any information you may have with the police regarding those who are committing criminal offences or even strangers, persons that you may see in your area that you are unfamiliar with,” added Minto.
