BROADCAST journalist Hugh Crosskill Jr was shot dead by a security guard early yesterday morning at a medical complex at 1 Ripon Road in Kingston in a highly questionable incident that sent shockwaves throughout Jamaica and the rest of the Caribbean.

Last night, homicide detectives were still interrogating the Superior Co Ltd security guard, whose firearm has been confiscated and sent for ballistic tests.

“We are still interrogating the security guard and are collecting statements,” police superintendent, Rosie McDonald-Barker, who is in charge of the St Andrew Central Division, told the Observer yesterday evening. “Based on our investigations, we may have to send them (statements) to the DPP for advice. I don’t know what will happen as yet as the investigations are not completed.”

So far, there are two conflicting reports about the killing of Crosskill, who had a cocaine addiction to which he confessed on national radio during one of his stints as a presenter on Nationwide, an evening news and current affairs show.

According to lead investigator, Detective Inspector Winston Henderson, one of the reports allege that Crosskill was seen in the building at about 6:30 am, was challenged by the security guard and during a confrontation was shot in the chest. He was pronounced dead by one of the doctors.

The other report said that a female worker arrived at the building at about 6:30 am and encountered Crosskill, in the building. She summoned the security guard who ordered Crosskill off the compound and during an altercation he was shot dead.

Yesterday, Hugh Crosskill Sr, the dead journalist’s father, was in tears at his St Andrew home. He said he was surprised when the police informed him of his son’s death.

“As a parent I feel very distraught, and under the circumstances under which he died and prior to that, his getting involved in cocaine, it is very distressing. I have done all that a parent could have done to make him kick the habit. I helped him in every possible way as a parent would want to do,” he said.

Jamaican and Caribbean journalists, as well as media owners yesterday expressed sadness at Crosskill’s untimely death, hailed his brilliance and all agreed that the profession is poorer for his passing.

“He brought a fresh but consistently professional approach to the job of broadcasting and his work as a journalist measured up to the highest standards,” the Press Association of Jamaica said. “In a long and noteworthy career, he carved out a monument that young journalists would do well to emulate.”

Jerome Larmond, the assistant programmes administrator at KLAS FM radio, where Crosskill once worked, said Crosskill’s “approach to broadcasting was thorough and detailed”.

Alston Stewart, executive chairman of Island Broadcasting Services, operators of KLAS FM, said Crosskill’s expansive knowledge and the fluent manner in which he engaged his audience will be greatly missed.

Cliff Hughes, with whom Crosskill co-hosted Nationwide and, prior to that, First Edition, described Crosskill as one of the finest broadcasters and journalists Jamaica has ever produced. “Hugh possessed a sharp intellect, a brilliant mind, with a tremendous grasp of the English language. He was multi-talented and able to capture the gist of an argument in a flash. He was as good a broadcast journalist as he was a good cricket commentator, he could move with ease and flair between radio and television and he possessed that rear gift which sees him being able to shine in any broadcast setting.”

Fae Ellington, who also co-hosted Nationwide with Crosskill, said he was the best broadcast journalist Jamaica had seen in recent times.

Ali McNab, who worked with Crosskill at the former Jamaica Broadcasting Corporation for 15 years, remembered him as a “most talented broadcaster and creative human being”. “His talent only comes along every two decades,” McNab said.

Former JBC director of sports, Lindy Delapenha, who employed Crosskill at the JBC in the early 1970s, remembered him as a natural sportscaster and one of the brightest persons he had ever known. “He was knowledgeable, caught on quickly — a great asset at JBC,” Delapenha said.

Editor-in-chief and president of the Nation newspaper in Barbados, Harold Hoyte, said Crosskill’s death was “such an awful waste of a life characterised by his excellent contributions to Caribbean journalism”.

“The fact that he had contributed to the poisoning of a good life by his lifestyle in later years does not in any way diminish from the excellence, the quality of his professional contributions.”

Caribbean media mogul, Ken Gordon, chairman of the Caribbean Communications Network and who chaired the Caribbean News Agency when Crosskill headed CanaRadio, said Crosskill “was one of the truly special voices on the region’s airwaves. He had returned to the Caribbean from the BBC because of his love for this region. It is indeed a tragedy that his life should be prematurely ended in this way”.

Delano Franklin, a close, personal friend of Crosskill for many years and currently chief adviser to Jamaica’s prime minister, P J Patterson, said: “He will always be remembered for his professionalism and commitment to the region. The sad twist in his life that caused so much pain for family, friends and colleagues somehow did not affect the quality of his thinking whenever it became necessary for him to examine, report and analyse on issues of national and regional importance.”

Paget deFreitas, editor-in-chief of the Jamaica Observer, described Crosskill as the finest journalist of all.

“It is not easy to speak about Crosskill’s outstanding contributions without bearing in mind a life that tragically went wrong at a critical moment. But for all of us who knew him, he was a role model in professional journalism and especially in the field of broadcast journalism. His death is a tragedy widely shared.”

Editor-in-chief of the Guyana Chronicle newspaper, Sharief Khan, who worked as a correspondent with Crosskill, recalled his strength of character in pursuit of investigative journalism.

Said Khan: “I well recall, for example, how, along with the regional journalist Rickey Singh, they had traced to Cayenne, capital of French Guiana, Gregory Smith, the ex-soldier who was wanted for the assassination of Dr Walter Rodney. Crosskill was a great and much admired journalist. It is a real tragedy that he should have died as he did at such a young age.”

The current chief operations officer of the Caribbean Media Corporation, Gary Allen, described Crosskill as one of the most knowledgeable and courageous journalists in the Caribbean.

“He possessed an incisive mind, he was fearless and always revealed his commitment to the Caribbean and will be remembered as having one of the best cricketing voices anywhere,” Allen said. “… It was to my own good fortune to have known such a fine journalist and citizen of our Caribbean.”

Jamaica’s information minister, Colin Campbell, who worked with Crosskill at the JBC, said he was always impressed by Crosskill’s “astute approach to journalism and his ability to delve behind the face value of a news story to find another level”.

The Opposition Jamaica Labour Party leader, Edward Seaga, remembered Crosskill for his “fine analytical mind and his ability to delve into the topic of the day during his radio programmes”.

In her tribute, the JLP spokesperson on information, Olivia “Babsy” Grange said Crosskill’s rise to the top of the profession was always tempered with a sense of balance, accuracy and independence.

“He was a realist who acknowledged his shortcomings and challenges and battled valiantly to overcome in an environment which could have afforded him much more support,” Grange said.

Crosskill began his journalistic career at the JBC library and shortly after was promoted to the sports desk as writer/commentator.

In 1983, he went on to work with the Caribbean News Agency as manager of news and, five years later, left for the BBC in London where he restarted its Caribbean News Service. He later returned to Jamaica as general manager of Radio Jamaica, but his stay there was short-lived and he went into presenting, with Cliff Hughes, First Edition at KLAS FM and, later, Nationwide at Hot 102.

Crosskill is survived by his ex-wife, three children, father and two brothers.