FRIGHTENED students and teachers at Rousseau Primary School in St Andrew were sent home early Friday following the shooting death of a parent just outside the school gate.

Although happy to head home after the traumatising incident, some students were disappointed that Crocs and Socks Day — a fun activity that ends in them voting for the student wearing the best Crocs and socks — had to be postponed.

The Jamaica Observer was told that parents were asked to pick up their children immediately after the deadly shooting.

“I got a message in the WhatsApp group that I should come for my child because someone got killed at the school gate,” one man told the Observer.

The murder victim, 36-year-old Deshawn Newry, had just arrived at the school when he was pounced upon and shot multiple times.

The murder was committed approximately 10 minutes before 9:00 am, according to the police.

Very few children witnessed the murder, the Jamaica Observer was told, due to the fact that they were already in their classrooms. However, parents and residents from the Rousseau Road area said they were traumatised, especially because this was the second incident of that kind just outside the school in less than a month.

In October a man who had gone to pick up his child was killed on the school compound by a gunman.

“Imagine, the children are at school and you come and do that? I am traumatised,” one woman said. “I heard around eight loud explosions.”

A man, at the same time, called the gunmen callous for carrying out the murder near the school.

“The man dem need to stop kill people a the school dem; this is madness,” the man said.

A woman who lives near the school said the shooting left her traumatised.

“I was in my house when I heard the shots, and I came out. The way how the shots sounded, I knew that someone definitely got shot. It was a young Rasta youth who come drop off the pickney them. He died with the car keys in his hand,” she said.

Meanwhile, a man said people should not be dropping off children at school if they know they are mixed up in certain activities.

“When yu mix up you are not to carry children to school. The man who died last month, people said he was a don. If you are mixed up you must hold your corner. Many times, if you don’t put yourself in the position to get gunshot, you are not going to get it — especially in front of a school gate,” he said.

Superintendent Damian Manderson, commanding officer of the St Andrew South Police Division, said detectives have not ascertained a motive for the murder but shared that they were following a few leads. He said his division is collaborating with the St Andrew North police to crack the case.

“We were called about the situation about 8:50 am. When we got there we saw a male in the vicinity of a white Probox with spent casings on the ground, suggesting that he was shot. The team took him to the hospital where he succumbed. He is from Barbican in the St Andrew North Police Division. So far, we have not yet fully established a motive for the killing. What we can say thus far, though, is that it has nothing to do with any situation within that space. It would appear that he was trailed to the location,” Manderson said.

“We are looking into his lifestyle, his background, and the circumstances that may have led to his killing. We are following several possible leads,” he said, adding that police are trying to determine if a previous murder victim in the Barbican area could possibly be linked to Friday’s murder,

“We are trying our best to reassure the school; my community safety and security team is also working with them to provide the necessary support to the staff. Since the previous incident — which happened just about a month ago — we have been working with them, and we continue to work with them. We continue to give whatever security support we can give,” the superintendent told the Observer.

On Friday, Opposition spokesman on education Damion Crawford urged the Government to take immediate and comprehensive action to protect the nation’s children and school staff from violent crimes.

“We are calling for the introduction of a new law to establish ‘safe spaces’ around key institutions such as schools, hospitals, and transport terminals. These safe spaces would mandate scheduled police patrols, ensuring a consistent and visible law enforcement presence. Furthermore, we propose that any crime committed within a 400-metre radius of these safe spaces be subject to significantly harsher penalties to deter criminal activity near these critical facilities,” said Crawford.

Schools, he said, must be sanctuaries of learning and growth — not places overshadowed by fear and danger.