News On The Go

Cops seize firearm and ammunition

A team of officers assigned to the St Catherine South police division seized 16 rounds of ammunition during an operation in Hellshire in the parish last Saturday.

Reports from the Portmore Police are that about 11:30 p.m., lawmen were in the area when they saw two men who ran on seeing the police; an object fell from one of them.

The object was retrieved and closer examination of the object revealed that it was one magazine containing sixteen .40 rounds of ammunition.

No one was arrested in relation to this seizure. Meanwhile, one chrome Taurus pistol was seized by the St James police during an operation in Glendevon in the parish also last Saturday.

Reports from the Montego Bay Police are that about 3:30 p.m., lawmen were in the area when an open lot was searched and the weapon was found in bushes. Investigations continue.

Man pleads guilty to hitting mom

A man was remanded when he appeared before the Kingston and St Andrew Parish Court last Friday after he allegedly hit his mother and damaged her furniture.

Charged with assault and malicious destruction of property is Mario Pottinger. Reports are that during a dispute with his mother Opal McKenzie, he damaged her fan and cellular phone.

Pottinger had pleaded guilty to the accusations but stated that he had an explanation.

“I had borrowed her phone to make a call and it fell out of my hand and the screen crack and mi tell mi grandmother to tell her mi a go fix it when mi come home from work. Later that day mi a go road and mi madda lick mi and mi start throw some stone and one a dem catch her fan and mash it up,” he said.

Judge Chester Crooks then asked Mckenzie if her son was known to have any physcological disorder to which she replied “no”.

“Him very bad tempered and sometimes when him bun the weed him tell who and where to such and other things,” she said.

This is the second time that both mother and son appeared in court. Crooks ordered that the accused be given a physciatric evaluation while stating that he could only be granted bail if moved from the residence which he shared with mother.

McKenzie then stated that no one in the family would accommodate him because of his bad temper. They are to return to court on October 23.

St Elizabeth gets two water shops

Residents of Top Hill and Retirement District in Malvern in St Elizabeth, now have access to free potable water following the opening of two water shops in the areas.

Minister of Local Government and Community Development, Desmond McKenzie, officially opened the two facilities on Thursday, (October 3).

St. Elizabeth is the latest parish to benefit under the Government’s initiative to construct water shops as a way of addressing water shortage in parishes that traditionally suffer severe drought conditions.

The Top Hill facility was constructed at a cost of $8.9 million and will serve over 1500 residents in the community and its environs. The Retirement District Water Shop, was built at a cost of $9.7 million and will benefit of some 3000 residents.

The facilities will each provide 16,000 gallons of purified water on a daily basis.

Cassava Piece cleaning up its image

Residents of Cassava Piece in St Andrew recently received 21 drums to store garbage across the community courtesy of the Violence Prevention Alliance (VPA) and Island Dairies Limited.

Members of the community as well as from the VPA, Social Development Commission, and other sectors, gathered recently on International Peace Day to officially hand over the drums, which were placed strategically across the community.

According to Sasheena Johnson Boyd, SDC’s community development officer, the collaboration with the VPA and Island Dairies to assist with the drums came out of priority planning discussion that the SDC had been having with the community.

“The VPA was invited to be a part of the discussion because of their continued presence and purpose in the community. One of the priority issues that came out of one of our weekly discussions was the matter of the poor management of garbage, not only the collection of it but also how the residents disposed of garbage,” she explained.

VPA’s chair, Dr Elizabeth Ward, said that cleaning up the community was important for building peace in the community, while noting that the bins would be branded ‘Climate Action for Peace’.