KINGSTON, Jamaica — The Independent Commission of Investigations (INDECOM), has highlighted that up to one-third of the people who have been shot and killed or injured by Jamaica’s security forces in alleged confrontations over the past 10 years appeared to have been unarmed.

“That was a feature last year and it has been a feature for over a decade where nearly one-third of all people who were shot, killed or injured did not appear to have, or certainly no weapon of any type is recovered from them,” said Assistant Commissioner at INDECOM, Hamish Campbell.

Campbell was speaking Friday at an INDECOM press conference where he announced that 149 people had been killed by the security forces up to October 31 with another 66 shot and injured.

He described a weapon as a gun, stone, scissors, stick or other implement.

With two months remaining in the year, Campbell said it would appear that a fewer number of people who were found not to have a weapon, were shot and killed or shot and injured by the security forces in 2024.

Commenting on the number of people killed so far this year, Campbell said “the current projections show that unless trends are reversed by the security forces in Jamaica, 2024 will see the highest level of security force fatal incidents since 2013”.

He noted that 253 people were killed in 2013, while 2019 had the lowest number in 86. “Between 2019 and now, there’s been an 80 per cent increase in fatal shootings,” said the assistant commissioner. This represents an increase each year from 115 in 2020; 127 in 2021; 134 in 2022 and 155 in 2023.

In terms of multiple death incidents, Campbell said 20 people died in 2023, while 30 people have been killed in such incidents this year. There have been two such incidents where four people were killed and two incidents which each claimed three lives. Campbell said this was in addition to multiple double fatal shootings during the course of the year.