Two killed at illegal party in St James
Published:Tuesday | August 31, 2021 | 12:07 AM
WESTERN BUREAU:
Two men were shot and killed and a woman seriously injured at an illegal party staged in defiance of the Disaster Risk Management Act in Bogue Hill on the outskirts of Montego Bay on Friday night.
One of the deceased has been identified as 36-year-old businessman Kayon Thompson, of Bogue Hill, while the other is yet to be identified.
The injured woman was reportedly hospitalised with non-life-threatening injuries. Her condition is stable.
Reports are that approximately 11 p.m., four hours after the national coronavirus curfew started, the party was in full swing when an altercation developed between two men. One of them was allegedly poked in the eye.
“The man who get juck inna him eye lef’ and return little bit later with some of him friend them and open up gunfire,” a person familiar with the incident told The Gleaner. “People start run up and down and a tek weh demself.”
The party, a Friday night staple in the community, has escaped the scrutiny of the police because of its partly isolated location, a resident said.
“The young people don’t seem to care about their life because week after week,people from all over St James come up here come party ... . Nobody care bout curfew or COVID, and you can’t talk to them because next thing yu hear seh yu a dis dem,” the woman said. “You have to be careful what yu seh because everybody have gun and dem don’t fraid to kill people.”
Over recent months, the St James Health Department has been pleading with the public not to stage, or participate in, illegal parties, which are viewed as environments vulnerable to the transmission of the coronavirus.