Two months after a fatal school violence incident shocked Jamaica, a second brutal attack at another campus in the same parish has reignited urgent conversations about the country’s growing bullying crisis and failures in school safety. On March 4, 2026, 16-year-old Ocho Rios High School student Devonie Shearer was killed when a 17-year-old classmate allegedly struck him in the head with a metal chair. On May 4, that same act of violence nearly played out again: an 11-year-old sixth-grade student at St John’s Preparatory School, located in St Ann parish, was surrounded and beaten by five of his schoolmates, one of whom lifted a chair to strike him. The child, still haunted by news of Shearer’s killing, left the attack convinced he would suffer the same deadly fate.
The attack unfolded while teachers were distracted assisting graduating students with graduation photographs. School accounts frame the incident as a casual “play fight” that spiraled out of control after a verbal altercation. But the victim and his mother, who have chosen to remain anonymous to protect the child’s privacy, describe it as a coordinated, life-threatening assault. According to the 11-year-old’s account, the confrontation began when a classmate targeted him with unprovoked harassment. After repeated pleas for the harassment to stop were ignored, the aggressor began shoving him around the campus. The victim pushed back in self-defense, which prompted four other students to join the attack. Fleeing for his safety, the child ran into an empty classroom, but his attackers followed, throwing objects at him as the violence escalated.
In the chilling moments that followed, one of the attackers picked up a metal chair and prepared to swing it at the victim’s head – the same weapon that killed Shearer just two months prior. “I thought I was going to die,” the 11-year-old told Jamaica Observer in an interview. Exhausted and shaken from the sustained attack, he was unable to locate a teacher to report the violence immediately, and returned home injured and terrified. The attack was recorded on a student’s phone and circulated to a campus WhatsApp group, leaving the child subjected to further humiliation. “I had a sharp pain in my chest and my legs, and when I was going home, my legs were trembling. I just wanted to get home and lie down, and pray that the pain would go away,” he recalled. The child added that he was especially distressed by the attackers’ insults targeting his mother, and now refuses to return to campus, saying: “When I come back, I don’t know if the chair is going to hit me this time.”
Compounding the family’s anger, school administrators only learned of the attack after the victim contacted his mother directly, who then alerted the school. The child’s mother, who was in the middle of sitting final exams to qualify as an attorney, told reporters she first found out about the assault when her son called her via video call after school, showing her the large bump on his head from the attack. “I have since withdrawn my son from the school, and I am considering legal action,” she said. “It is outrageous that I had to hear about this from my child, not from the school administration. This is not an isolated incident – my son has been targeted in at least four separate bullying incidents at this school, and nothing was ever done to stop it.”
St John’s Preparatory Principal Bertram Watson confirmed that the school launched an internal investigation immediately after being notified by the mother. The students accused of involvement were removed from campus and asked to stay home while the school board reviews the incident and determines further disciplinary action. The parents of the aggressors have already offered to cover the victim’s medical costs and issued a formal apology. Watson pushed back on claims that the school has a persistent bullying problem, noting “There has never been any gang-related violence or organized group fighting of this nature at our school. One of the boys involved had a previous conflict with the victim in grade five, but that incident was resolved through meetings with parents. To call this an ongoing issue is inaccurate.” The principal added that the school maintains a strict zero-tolerance policy for bullying, pointing to regular anti-bullying campaigns, distributed educational flyers via parent WhatsApp groups, webinars organized in partnership with the Ministry of Education, and regular class and school-wide devotional discussions on the harms of bullying.
While the mother acknowledges the school has taken steps to address the incident following her complaint, she remains resolute in demanding accountability. Multiple parents of the involved students have reached out to her to apologize and urge her not to pursue formal action, but she says she cannot let the incident be swept under the rug. “I am not doing this to be vindictive. I appreciate everything the school has done for my son over the years,” she explained. “But children need to learn that there are real consequences for violent actions. If I stay silent now, my son will grow up knowing five boys attacked him and I did nothing. That is something I cannot allow.” The mother, who has been deeply affected by seeing her son’s trauma – he has become withdrawn and unusually quiet since the attack – shared that she feels every bit of his pain: “There were nights I laid in bed and felt every blow my child took to his head. It is an agony no parent should have to go through.” She is calling on parents across Jamaica to address aggressive behavior in children early, before it escalates into irreversible violence.
The incident comes as Jamaica observes Child Month 2026 under the official theme “Prioritise Our Children’s Mental Health: Strong Minds, Safer Future.” The 11-year-old victim himself has joined the call for reform, noting that bullying causes irreversible damage to young people’s mental wellbeing. “Bullying affects your mental health and makes you unstable. Sometimes when bullying gets too bad, it can lead to children taking their own life – or the bully ending it for them,” he said. He is calling for closer adult supervision on school campuses to prevent future attacks, stressing that “It is important to keep children safe, because if you don’t keep children safe, they lose their lives.”
Jamaica is a signatory to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, which Article 19 guarantees all children the right to be protected from all forms of violence, including bullying, physical harm, and emotional abuse. Bullying violates fundamental child rights to education, health, and human dignity, requiring signatory nations to implement robust legislative and social measures to prevent attacks, support victims, and maintain safe, inclusive learning environments. But official data obtained by the Sunday Observer reveals that reports of bullying across Jamaica have risen steadily for four consecutive years, with the trend accelerating into 2026.
Between January 1 and March 26 of 2026 alone, 49 bullying incidents were reported to the National Children’s Registry, a division of Jamaica’s Child Protection and Family Services Agency. January led with 22 reported cases, followed by 11 in February and 16 in March. Looking back over the previous four years, the trend is clear: 130 bullying incidents were reported in 2022, climbing to 140 in 2023, 151 in 2024, and 167 in 2025. Between January 2022 and January 2023, 55 critical incident reports related to school violence were submitted to the Ministry of Education and Youth – 15 at the primary school level and 35 at the secondary level. Data from the 2023 Jamaica Violence Against Children and Youth Survey further reveals that among school-attending youth aged 13 to 24, one in four females and one in three males report knowing of active gang presence on their school campuses.
