GIVE HAR A HYPE FUNERAL PLEASE

Published March 11, 2012 | By

‘I want a hype funeral for my daughter’
Mom of 13-year-old victim, others express anger and grief after Denham Town shootings
BY COREY ROBINSON Sunday Observer staff reporter [email protected]
Sunday, March 11, 2012

BEVERLY Kennedy is convinced that her daughter, Nickeita Cameron, was killed by a police bullet.
Thirteen-year-old Nickeita was one of six persons shot dead last Monday in Denham Town, West Kingston, in what the police said was a firefight with gunmen.
Beverly Kennedy cries as she reminisces on the death of her daughter Nickeita Cameron, one of six persons killed during an alleged gun battle between thugs and the police in Denham Town, West Kingston, last Monday. In her arms is her two-year-old grandson, Jermaine Kennedy. (Photos: Naphtali Junior)
1/4
The grieving mother is so convinced that the police are to blame for her daughter’s death, that she has already compiled a list of demands from the State.
“I want them to bury my daughter decent and nice; no poor people funeral. I want a hype funeral. I want her to get a nice sepulchre. I want there to be a (marching) band, and I want there to be video light,” demanded the 41-year-old mother, tears welling up in her eyes.
“I want her body to be driven in a chariot, because that’s what she was planning to carry me in when I die. And I want some help with her ‘nine night’ because I don’t have anything. I am a mother of six and I also take care of my mother and my grandson,” lamented the woman.
“I know all that won’t bring her back, but that is what I want for my daughter right now,” she continued, grimacing as she reflected on the loss of her fourth child.
Kennedy said the past week has been hell, adding that she has not eaten because she simply has no appetite; nor slept, because “as me close me eyes is Nickeita me a see”.
The ordeal, she said, is driving her insane, and remaining in the depressed ill-fated tenement yard at 88 Charles Street is only making matters worse, she said.
“I would like them to build me somewhere so I can move the rest of my children so that they (Government) don’t send them Government man come kill them. I can’t stay in this yard because there is just pure memories,” she moaned.
The memories of last Monday’s shootings were equally distressing for Craig Simpson.
Up to yesterday afternoon, he was still grappling with the reality that he would no longer see his father — 88-year-old Wesley Simpson — sitting on his small chair inside a passage in the dilapidated house.
Wesley Simpson, who had retired from years of making a living with his handcart at Coronation Market, was shot multiple times as he sat eating on his favourite chair. Yesterday, not even the bloody chair remained — it was taken for processing by investigators.
“Is just justice I want; that alone. I just want the police to stop acting like people are dogs; it wasn’t a shooting range that they were at,” said the younger Simpson. “Is a whole heap of children live in the yard, suppose they were shot, what would they say?” he asked.
“My father don’t have a trouble in the world. I work, cook, and make sure him eat food. From he stopped pushing cart is there him sit down; him eat there, sleep there, him don’t get up. And now them shoot him and kill him,” Simpson fumed, pointing to the spot from which he dragged his father’s lifeless body while ducking bullets during the incident.
Yesterday, anger consumed the more than 30 occupants of the dwelling, who on Monday wept openly as three of their own lay dead inside the narrow passage connecting their rooms. Next door, on Bond Street — outside 74-year-old George Edmonson’s house, where he and two youngsters were killed — the mood was similar.
Edmonson’s daughter, Ann Marie Clarke, has been pouring out her grief in tears.
“I really could not believe when I heard that my father was killed,” she said. “Although he was 74, my father has never been sick. So to hear that he is dead is really hard. My father was a very quiet person, he was very nice, gentle, and loving; everybody had him as a father. I am so angry I cry every 30 minutes.”
According to the police, the six were killed during a 40-minute running gun battle between them and armed thugs. The gunbattle, the cops said, started at the Charles Street premises and continued when they chased the marauding gunmen into an adjoining yard.
Three of the men — Romaine Stern, 20, also called ‘Tete Ras’; Shawn Tyrell, 25, also known as ‘Chinnie Man’; and Karlton Alvaranga; all of addresses within the community — were later identified by the cops as being wanted for murder, shooting with intent, and robbery, among other crimes. Four weapons were taken from the scene, police said.
But yesterday, while the residents did not dispute that the three men may have been wanted, they challenged the police’s allegation that there was a shootout.
The residents said the three, whom they claimed grew up at the Charles Street address, were among a group drinking liquor at the front of the premises when the police turned up. The residents said the cops immediately opened fire and the men ran into the passage where Simpson was having breakfast, and where Cameron and other teenagers were sitting.
Stern was shot in the back and died at the rear of the passage.
Tyrell and Alvaranga managed to climb into Edmonson’s house nearby, but after realising that they were surrounded, surrendered to the cops, the residents claimed as they insisted that both men were shot in cold blood.
Samantha Braker, 18, was shot in the ankle during that incident, while another resident, Errol Tracey, lifted his shirt to reveal wounds which he claimed he received when a policeman discharged his weapon during a curfew imposed in the area Monday night.
“There was no shootout; they (police) didn’t even come into the yard at first. They just stayed outside and started firing shots at the youths in the yard. They murdered them in cold blood,” protested Tanisha Stewart, Cameron’s aunt. “Everything that they came out and say about shootout is pure lies. They kill the people them and are now trying to cover it up.”
The incident has sparked much controversy between the Office of the Public Defender, human rights group Jamaicans For Justice (JFJ), and the Jamaica Police Federation.
Executive director for JFJ Carolyn Gomes has described the incident as very unfortunate, and said that proper investigations must be done to determine whether or not the policemen unnecessarily used deadly force during the operation.
In the meantime, Public Defender Earl Witter on Friday defended statements he made which questioned why no police officer was injured during the shootout.
After coming under heavy criticism from Inspector David White, general secretary of the Jamaica Police Federation, Witter, in a release, countered:
“The CCN’s (Constabulary Communication Network’s) version of events is that the killings took place in the course of an “intense and sustained running gun battle between policemen and gunmen lasting more than 40 minutes,” Witter said.
“This version is vehemently disputed by every member of that community interviewed by this office. The two old men were each killed inside their humble abode. Like the 13-year-old, none of them was ever accused or suspected of any criminal activity,” he continued.