A brutal mid-afternoon shooting at Jamaica’s Papine Market has left a well-loved local staff member dead and sent shockwaves through the adjacent Mona Commons community, prompting Kingston’s top official to plead for restraint amid public grief and anger.
Colleen Bernard, a long-serving supervisor at the popular public market, was gunned down in a public attack this past Friday. Within hours of the shooting, law enforcement officers launched an urgent manhunt for the perpetrator. Pursuing the suspect across the area, police eventually intercepted the shooter, who was wounded in the confrontation and remains hospitalized for treatment as of the latest updates.
Two days after the killing, Kingston Mayor Andrew Swaby — who also serves as chair of the Kingston and St Andrew Municipal Corporation (KSAMC) — released a public video address directly to residents of the nearby Mona Commons neighborhood. In the message, Swaby urged community members not to resort to vigilante justice in response to Bernard’s death, emphasizing that official investigations remain in their early stages.
“In moments like this, it’s only natural for people to want to form their own conclusions about what happened, but right now, many critical details are still unconfirmed,” Swaby said in the address. He stressed that the responsible path forward is to let trained police investigators complete their work unimpeded by community unrest.
Swaby also shared that the entire KSAMC workforce is reeling from the unexpected loss of one of their own. “Colleen was an exceptional, dedicated worker,” he said, describing the attack as a pointless act of violence. “It’s senseless that someone would walk into a busy public market, take her life, and then try to run away.”
The mayor publicly praised responding police officers for their rapid work that led to the suspect’s apprehension. Looking ahead, Swaby confirmed that municipal leaders are already reviewing next steps to improve public safety at the market, and will arrange professional mental health counselling for both market staff and vendors who witnessed the traumatic incident.