There were many acts of heroism when the massacre occurred in Cherry Tree Lane, Four Paths, Clarendon, last Sunday. From residents opening their doors, to those running for cover, to others who didn’t hesitate to bloody their vehicles to take the injured to hospital where another group of heroes took over, the community came together in a remarkable way.
Perhaps the bravest of them all, however, is Jake*, a young man who risked his safety to save an injured one-year-old child when the chaos broke out. Like most of the others, however, Jake would rather remain unsung, fearing that his story and efforts could cause the attackers to return.
Four days later, residents were faced with an even worse fear when The Sunday Gleaner visited the community last Thursday. This fear was very different from the immediate horror of Sunday evening, when gunfire, blood and the sight of dead and injured bodies lying around had created a scene of chaos and panic.
With the motive for the attack still unclear and the brutality of the attackers still alive, the situation in Cherry Tree Lane remained tense even though the area was swarming with security forces.
For those residents who dared to carry on with their lives, it was a nightmarish wait until the 6pm curfew, after which they retreated to their homes alone, still stunned by the tragedy.
Unprecedented evil
In the attack, which took place at two locations, 18 people were shot, eight of them killed, including a seven-year-old boy. This is an unprecedented level of evil in a country that has seen a number of murders and shootings in recent history, with Clarendon being one of the communities most notorious for this.
Jake, who deals with blood in his job, is glad he’s still breathing and reacted indifferently when his colleagues called him a hero last week. He didn’t see himself as a hero, just a man full of adrenaline and fear.
“I’ve seen a lot of blood in my line of work, but this kind of blood is not visible to people,” he said last Thursday, recalling the death and destruction that greeted him as he emerged from his hiding place behind the betting booths at the ill-fated car wash and bar, the scene of the first and more devastating attack.
He braced himself, smoking two cigarettes in a row as he continued, remembering how he had lured the screaming baby from his hiding place into his arms, handcuffed him, and sat there in fear while the armed men ran away several meters from the bar.
“I heard the first two explosions and I looked around. There was just the man (gunner) going at everyone. Everyone was running away, he left too,” Jake continued. “(A woman) was in front of me running away. I wanted to move, but – I wanted to tell a man not to panic, but despite the panic I still thought – and said, ‘No, if I move I’m dead.'”
He said it was as if the space behind the casino was made just for him, as he was just out of sight of the shooters. Then the screaming toddler entered the store.
“The baby went to the back door and I said ‘shhh’ and he looked around and I said ‘come’ and he came,” Jake continued. “And I held him and said ‘stop making noise.'”
It took several minutes for the shooting to subside, and when Jake emerged from his hiding place, he saw “only an empty corpse.”
After the chaos, Jake said he couldn’t find the boy’s parents, so he handed him over to another man. It wasn’t until much later that he realized that the part of his shirt he had been holding the boy on was soaked in blood – and that it wasn’t his.
Dr. Bradley Edwards, chief medical officer at May Pen Hospital in Clarendon, reported Thursday that the toddler was among the other injured, all but two of whom remained in hospital. The others have been discharged home. One of the remaining two is in hospital recovering, and the other is awaiting an expensive machine for surgery on a broken femur.
“Fortunately, none of the patients discharged required major surgery, so none of them had any incisions. Most of the injuries were serious enough for us to observe, but nothing that required surgery,” Edwards said gratefully.
“They were mainly flesh wounds. The bullets went straight through and had an entry and exit wound. There is no vascular damage or injury to the blood vessels. It’s like they suffered a knife cut and it didn’t damage anything. But there happened to be bullets involved,” he said, explaining the severity of the heavily bandaged arms and legs of two of the discharged victims seen in the community last week.
On Thursday, the spots where the dead and injured lay after the bingo birthday party was abruptly ended were still littered with discarded slippers, overturned bookmarks and fly-strewn bloodstains.
Local residents pointed to the spots and named the victims; others showed bloody car seats.
Deaf cousin
At least three of the dead were from the same household, and Debian Francis, 48, who lost her daughter Kavle Daley, her husband Lawrence Francis, 50, and her deaf cousin Courtney Messam, has been in a state of despair since the incident.
“They took my baby, they took my husband, they took my cousin, but only God knows. My husband died in my hand,” cried a distraught Francis, watching as police detectives revisited the crime scene and members of the Justice Department’s Victim Assistance Unit did their best to help the grieving and traumatized relatives and friends.
“Kerry (Kavle) was shot in the head. When I turned her head, I saw blood coming out of both her ears and when I looked, I saw some bone marrow coming out of her nose. I said, ‘Jesus, they’re killing Kerry.’ Because I didn’t know she had been shot before… but when I shook her and saw that she wasn’t getting up, I turned around,” Francis said, adding that since the incident she has hardly been able to sleep and food has taken on a sour taste.
Messam, who residents said only ran away because he saw others running away, was shot in the face, reportedly after he turned around.
Lawrence Francis was chased and shot by the attackers. He was later found in a bush. His body was still twitching when he was taken to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead, local residents said.
Kavle, 27, reportedly died alongside 20-year-old Diamond Bennett, whose mother Marjorie Johnson resorts to denial as a coping mechanism.
“Every morning I wake up crying, every night I go to bed crying. Diamond doesn’t have a life yet, none at all,” she said. “When they say Diamond is dead… just don’t mention it because I don’t really want to face the reality that it really happened. Just don’t mention it.”
“Every time I scroll through social media, every move I make, it’s repeated over and over again. Sometimes I don’t even want to answer when the phone rings. I don’t want to receive messages. I’m trying to save myself because I realize that I… I have to go to the doctor between now and Saturday,” she feared.
Among the dead were seven-year-old Aiden Bartley, 58-year-old Errol Stewart, 32-year-old Jermaine Boothe and a woman named “Margaret.” They all lived on Cherry Tree Lane.
Prime Minister Andrew Holness described the incident last week as a terrorist incident whose perpetrators could not be treated like ordinary criminals.
“We know that there are people overseas who are involved in this act and who have links to it. We know that there are multiple gangs involved in this act. Any gang, any person who helped in any way, supplied the weapons or pulled the trigger themselves, we will find you and bring you to justice,” Holness said.
At least five men arrested
Last week, police investigators said they arrested at least five men and on Wednesday shot and killed another man, identified as Steve Smith, or “Thicka” or “Fly Brain,” who was involved in a gun battle with members of the security forces at the Osbourne Store in the community.
“Our investigations have made significant progress and uncovered links to at least six previous violent incidents in Clarendon. These incidents include a quadruple homicide in Havana Heights in 2021, a murder committed on April 21, 2024, and a subsequent shooting and arson on April 25 in West Park. The other incidents include a murder on April 29 on Cherry Tree Lane, a murder on May 11 along Foga Road, May Pen, and a murder committed on May 15 in York Town,” said Acting Police Commissioner Fitz Bailey.
“Unfortunately, our findings show that these local violence problems have international roots and have involved local actors, some of whom are in prison. These individuals, who were once friends in Jamaica, clashed in the United States over the spoils of crime, resulting in each of them accepting murder contracts to spread fear and terror.”
*Name changed to protect identity.
Notable multiple murders in Jamaica’s history
• Gunmen kill four people in Duanvale, Trelawny (October 2023)
• Seven shots, four dead in attack in Park Lane, St. Andrew (July 2021)
• Four dead in Mountain View, St. Andrew, after home break-in (September 2021)
• Seven killed, eight injured in Grange Hill, Westmoreland (May 2018)
• Five people killed in shooting and arson in March Pen, St Catherine (October 2016)
• Five shots, four dead in Norwood, St. James (December 2016)
• Six people murdered in gruesome massacre in Hanover (October 2015)
• Eight victims, including an 11-year-old girl, killed in Tredegar Park, Spanish Town, St. Catherine (August 2010)
• Seven dead, including a four-month-old baby in Norman Gardens, East Kingston (October 2007)
• Five people murdered in Prospect and Needham Pen in St. Thomas (February 2006)
