Mark Wignall | Why were they shot dead?
Published:Wednesday | November 21, 2018 | 12:00 AM
In May of this year, six months before the 41-year-old accountant in the civil service, Kirmani Linton, was shot dead, he reached an unpleasant end to a five-year relationship. "Towards the end of the relationship, it was more like a feud every day," one person close to him told me a few days ago. "He was relieved it was over."
A few months later, in August, he was at home with his car parked in the driveway of the house on Kirk Avenue in Havendale. It was in the evening and he was in his bedroom, studying, when he heard a strange whoosh sound. He saw that the rear section of his car was on fire. He responded quickly and doused the fire. The car was driveable afterwards. He was puzzled, or, was he really?
On October 25, when he changed his WhatsApp 'about' quote to read, "Your new life is going to cost you your old life," did it constitute an awareness of some omen which led to his death less than two weeks later, or was it just words strung together as inspiring pearls of wisdom?
DEATH WASN'T FAR AWAY
On the evening of November 8, maybe about six, Kirmana was out jogging. He was much less than a mile from his home, close to Swallowfield and Burbank, when he was shot multiple times. Death wasn't far behind. The modes of entry and exit of the killers have not been properly determined, but it is quite easy to rule out the assassins coming and leaving on foot.
That murder demands the investigative skills of smart minds in the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF).
Less than two weeks ago, a young man drove up to a soup vendor at a well-trafficked gathering spot in Ackee Walk, well to the south of Havendale and closer to Pembroke Hall. He left the car, made his purchase and was waiting on it when a car drove up, the killer stepped out and shot him dead. All of the people in the area - Ackee Walk, Jackson Town, sections of Red Hills Road carry - a common narrative based on either what they know or have heard.
It was indeed a hit, another assassination, but it was the wrong target. In other words, the killers were on the hunt for someone else and that person missed death by mere seconds. What must the relatives of the deceased think?
This murder, and many more puzzling ones of late, demand the investigative skills of the JCF. One young constable with a specialist degree and a dogged determination to make a real difference in the JCF told me yesterday, "In the developed countries, persons who apply for the armed forces are assessed and streamed into different departments which match their academic levels, skill sets and cognitive abilities.
"Not so in the JCF. I'm sent in the guardroom because I'm not liked by a female sergeant, but forget me. I just spoke to a trained teacher, about 27 years old, who left the teaching profession to pursue his boyhood passion in the JCF despite his promising career. In fact, he was in line to becoming vice-principal at the school where he was teaching.
"Now, the young policeman said he can't even recognise himself. He is almost brain-dead. He is working at the cells, serving those who are locked up food, supervising their baths and basically just serving them hand and foot. Yes, someone's got to do it, but even the little man on the streets knows there is a place for brain and a place for brawn. This is gross misallocation of human resources based on petty and personal likes and dislikes.
"We in the JCF are asking you to address this matter for us."