‘Baby blood dem a hunt’

The blood had dried stiff against the tiny waistband of the undergarment one would struggle to believe was all white, but at least two bullet holes were very much visible as a reminder of the onslaught.

Ladonia Cunningham could not let it go. She wore it on her head as a stark and painful reminder of the manner in which her infant son, Jace ‘Zaza’ Pinnock, was slain.

Hours after her three-year-old was shot dead inside his Denham Town, Kingston home on Saturday morning, she walked up and down Nelson Street clutching the bullet-pierced, blood-soaked brief her baby had been wearing when gunmen attacked.

She wept and wailed with her belly banded.

She stared blankly at neighbours who gathered, some crying with her, others too stunned to speak.

“My baby was just three. A weh unuh want with my babyfather? Jesus! Fada God! Only You. Only You. Look pon mi three-year-old white brief,” she kept repeating.

“Mi deh a work and, when mi get the call, mi run offa mi work,” Cunningham told The Sunday Gleaner. “When mi look, mi see me babyfather lay down on the ground … . Mi end up rush with mi babyfather go [Kingston] Public [Hospital] with him.”

She was still unaware of the scale of the attack and recalled how her world slowly began crumbling.

“When mi look, me see emergency a come. When mi look, mi see say a mi three-year-old. Likkle after, the way me a cry, the nurse say, ‘Mommy, just take it easy and try.’

“Mi come outside and, when mi look, a mi eight-year-old a come in a car again,” she recalled.

“Fada God, a mi two son, and, if mi six-year-old was on the bed with the three-year-old and eight-year-old, mi nuh know weh mi would a seh,” Cunningham cried, adding, “A inna di house the shooter go.”

She told The Sunday Gleaner this was not the first time the family was attacked.

“Mi a ride or die with my babyfather . Mi nuh know why unuh hate him. Unuh dweet already and it never happen before mi last baby born,” she said. “Mi babyfather tek up him baby dem, lift up the mattress and push dem under, and unuh come back again and kill mi three-year-old, graze mi eight-year-old and mash up mi babyfather liver?”

Residents say the father repeatedly begged the gunmen to spare the children, but his pleas were ignored.

They recalled the silence in the dead of night being shattered by rapid fire.

“There will be no peace. The place mash up. Mi birthday ruined,” one woman said, adding that she came home in the wee hours to the devastating news.

The police have linked the attack to ongoing gang conflict in the area.

But residents insist something more sinister is unfolding.

According to several community members, gunmen have made repeated attempts over recent months to harm children in the area.

“Dem a target the pickney dem. Dem come inna Christmas and dem never get through. Dem come back Wednesday night and it never work. So dem come back this morning and tek the likkle baby life and shoot the next one and dem father,” a resident said.

Another resident did not mince words.

“When we cuss one another over the pickney dem a just cussing, but, when you attack and kill one, di whole a we feel it. Once yuh hurt a child, everybody feel it,” the female resident said, weeping.

The anger Saturday was raw, as mothers shouted from verandas, behind the protection of walls, and fathers paced the streets.

“Not even inna yuh home yuh safe,” said a resident with eyes swollen from crying.

Some openly accused sections of the community of harbouring strangers while failing to protect their own.

“People quick fi give strange man room ‘bout ya,” one woman said.

“But, when woman with pickney need a room, dem cyaan find none.”

For many, the message is chilling, the war is no longer confined to rival men.

“Baby blood dem a hunt … . The pickney dem under the bullet now,” one elderly resident declared.

Denham Town has long been scarred by gang violence.

But, even in communities accustomed to gunfire, there are lines some say are not supposed to be crossed.

As word spread, residents questioned how a conflict between adults could morph into what they describe as deliberate attacks on children.

They say fear now grips the narrow lanes, fear that children playing, sleeping, or simply existing, could become targets.

“Mi a tek weh my pickney dem ‘cause mi nuh know what happening, but dem a turn di guns pon di young. Imagine di father tell you say pickney in deh and you go in deh and shoot dem up, kill dem,” the resident said.

West Kingston Member of Parliament Desmond McKenzie condemned the deadly attack and announced a reward of up to $600,000 for information leading to the arrest and charge of those responsible.

“We must resolve, as communities, to indicate that this kind of savagery will not be tolerated,” he said in a statement on Saturday.

“The incident is most regrettable. We cannot allow our community to return to a state where violent crime is the norm. I appeal to residents to tell the police what they know, to enable a breakthrough in investigations as soon as possible. The perpetrator(s) of this act of criminality must be brought to swift and lawful justice,” he said.

McKenzie added that he will be taking steps to ensure that adequate grief counselling is offered to the grieving family

The police have since identified two men – ‘Juby’ and ‘Romy’ – as persons of interest, who are said to be members of the Scream Corner gang.

They are being asked to turn themselves over to the Denham Town Criminal Investigation Branch (CIB) immediately.

Assistant commissioner of police (ACP) in charge of Area 4 police division, Michael Phipps, who was former commander for Kingston West Police Division, said, based on preliminary information, the incident is stemming from a resurgence of gang activities in the Denham Town community.

A curfew had been imposed from Thursday in the area.

The Kingston Western Police Division recorded four murders as at February 14.

andre.williams@gleanerjm.com