标签： Jamaica

On a recent Friday in Junction, a community located within Jamaica’s St Elizabeth parish, local law enforcement rolled out a new proactive road safety outreach effort by distributing 30 free protective helmets to local motorcyclists. The initiative marks a expanded push by police to address a persistent public safety crisis that has seen motorcyclists consistently account for the majority of traffic-related deaths in the region.

Superintendent Coleridge Minto, head of the St Elizabeth police division, outlined the current state of road safety in the parish during the distribution event. So far in 2025, the division has recorded 12 confirmed road fatalities, a slight decline from the 14 deaths reported during the same period in 2024. But despite this small overall improvement, Minto emphasized that motorcyclists remain the group most at risk, accounting for a growing share of traffic deaths year over year.

According to Minto’s data, 14 motorcyclists lost their lives in crashes across St Elizabeth in 2024, a figure that has already risen to 16 in 2025. Even with just over half of 2025 completed, six motorcyclists have already died in traffic incidents in the parish this year. This grim trend has pushed local police to combine traditional enforcement efforts with new preventive and educational programming to reduce preventable deaths.

“Law enforcement patrols and compliance checks will continue, as they have proven critical to upholding road safety rules,” Minto stated. “But we recognize that enforcement alone is not enough to reverse this trend. That is why we are doubling down on public education efforts to raise awareness of the risks riders face every day on our roads.”

As part of the expanded education push, Minto confirmed that local police officers have been assigned to deliver road safety talks at venues across the parish, including primary and secondary schools, local church congregations, and regular community organization meetings. The helmet distribution, he added, is just one part of a broader, long-term strategy to cut motorcyclist fatalities and make St Elizabeth’s roads safer for all travelers.

Four months after Category 5 Hurricane Melissa left a trail of death and widespread destruction across western Jamaica, a Jamaican singer with deep roots in the hardest-hit region has returned to her childhood community to deliver much-needed aid to struggling families still picking up the pieces.

Sophia Brown, who grew up in the farming district of Carisbrook in St Elizabeth — the parish that bore the brunt of the storm’s devastation — had watched the disaster unfold from her home overseas in the months after the storm hit. It was not until her recent trip back to the island that she got to see the full scale of the carnage that had upended hundreds of lives across the region.

Making the trip in early March, Brown and a volunteer team from her non-profit, the Angel Of The Hearts Foundation, distributed 85 care packages stocked with non-perishable food and critical daily essentials to local residents. The foundation extended its support further by dropping off additional relief packages at the Marie Atkins Shelter located in Kingston, Jamaica’s capital.

Recalling the months she spent following the storm’s aftermath from abroad, Brown shared her experience with Jamaica’s *Observer Online*. “It was very heart-wrenching looking from abroad and seeing what was going on in the island. It made me realise that we all have to give back to our community,” she said. Though Brown was born in Kingston, her childhood in Carisbrook gave her a personal connection to the community hard hit by the storm. She also emphasized that the relief effort was not a solo project: the initiative received critical donations from Food For The Poor, fellow Jamaican singer Johnny Osbourne, and Barbara Ellison, all of which made the distribution possible.

When Melissa made landfall on Jamaica on October 28, it left a devastating mark across the country’s western parishes. In addition to catastrophic damage to St Elizabeth, the storm also ravaged neighboring Westmoreland, Hanover, St James and Trelawny. Infrastructure, residential homes, and local schools were leveled, and the storm ultimately claimed 45 lives across the affected regions.

In the wake of the disaster, members of the Jamaican diaspora overseas were moved to action, rallying together to raise millions of dollars in relief funding. All donated funds are currently monitored by the Jamaican government to ensure they reach affected communities.

This is not the first charitable work carried out by Brown’s foundation: the Angel Of The Hearts Foundation runs annual programs supporting people living with Down syndrome. But in the wake of Hurricane Melissa, Brown stressed that long-term, sustained assistance is critical for communities still recovering months after the disaster.

“It was necessary to go into my community and give back. It was really something to witness four months after the hurricane,” she noted, underscoring that recovery from a disaster of this scale is a slow process that requires ongoing support from both local and global contributors.

KINGSTON, Jamaica — A senseless act of violent crime has shaken St Andrew’s bustling commercial district, after a 68-year-old courier working for a local financial firm was gunned down in broad daylight during an attempted robbery on Half-Way Tree Road Friday afternoon.

The victim has been identified as Lawrence Kessna, a resident of Phase 2 in Seaview Gardens, St Andrew. The fatal shooting followed a physical struggle between Kessna and the would-be robber, who targeted him shortly after he completed a banking transaction, law enforcement officials confirmed.

According to initial police reports, the incident unfolded at approximately 1:22 p.m., when Kessna had visited a local bank branch to cash a J$10 million cheque on behalf of his employer. The funds were earmarked for customer disbursements across multiple distribution sites, and Kessna carried the cash in a plain grey knapsack when he left the bank building.

As Kessna exited, the suspect immediately moved to seize the knapsack. A struggle broke out when the victim resisted the theft attempt, and the attacker — failing to wrest the bag away — drew a weapon and fired multiple shots, striking Kessna in the upper body. Immediately after the shooting, the perpetrator fled the scene on a motorcycle that had been waiting nearby for a getaway. Bystanders alerted emergency services quickly, and police transported the wounded 68-year-old to Kingston Public Hospital, where medical staff pronounced him dead upon arrival. The grey knapsack holding the cash remained with Kessna and was turned over to law enforcement at the hospital.

In the wake of the brazen midday attack, Jamaica’s top law enforcement officials have issued a firm condemnation of the violence, while extending condolences to Kessna’s family, friends, colleagues and the local business community mourning the loss.

“We will not allow criminals to turn our commercial centres into hunting grounds,” said Assistant Commissioner Michael Phipps, head of the Jamaica Constabulary Force’s (JCF) Area Four division. Phipps noted that he has issued direct orders for expanded, sustained high-visibility patrols across St Andrew’s commercial districts, a measure designed to disrupt criminal planning, deter potential attacks, and apprehend perpetrators before they can strike.

Phipps confirmed that investigations into the attack are already underway, with forensic evidence collection ongoing and law enforcement partnering closely with the local business community and other key stakeholders to identify and locate the attacker. Financial hubs across the region have been designated a top priority for both investigative work and increased proactive patrols going forward.

In a public safety advisory released alongside the condemnation, Phipps reiterated a longstanding JCF offer for free police assistance to businesses transporting large sums of cash, urging operators to take advantage of the service to reduce risk.

“We continue to urge business operators to ensure strong security measures when transporting especially large amounts of cash. The JCF continues to alert and advise persons doing large financial transactions and transporting large sums of cash to contact the police who are more than willing to assist, free of charge and I repeat free of charge,” Phipps said.

The assistant commissioner added that public safety remains the JCF’s top priority, with stepped-up operations set to continue in high-risk areas around banks, commercial offices, and ATMs. He urged the public to remain calm but maintain a heightened state of vigilance in these zones.

“The JCF remains committed to restoring order and public confidence. We will not relent until those responsible are held,” Phipps said.

AUSTIN, Texas – As the United States grapples with an ongoing, devastating public health crisis of school shootings that has left hundreds dead and traumatized communities nationwide, one Texas-based company has proposed an unconventional new first-line defense: unarmed, human-piloted drones designed to intercept active attackers before first responders arrive on scene.

Founded by former Navy SEAL Bill King, Campus Guardian Angel developed the system, drawing inspiration from the effective use of small unmanned aerial vehicles on battlefields in Ukraine. The firm is currently running pilot programs of the drone defense technology at K-12 campuses in Georgia and Florida, with growing interest from school districts and parent groups in Texas, including in Houston, following the high-profile 2022 Uvalde school shooting that killed 19 children and two adults.

Unlike armed defensive systems, the 2-pound, roughly square drones are not outfitted with bullets or lethal projectiles. Instead, the system is activated immediately after a teacher triggers an alert via a mobile phone when an active shooter is spotted. The drone launches from a pre-positioned indoor location, navigating the school’s halls using custom 3D maps created by the company, while being remotely operated by trained staff based in Austin.

Operators have multiple tools to neutralize or delay an attacker. Two-way audio allows them to communicate directly with the assailant, attempting to de-escalate the situation and persuade them to surrender, while also sharing real-time location data with responding law enforcement to speed up their response. If the attacker continues to harm civilians, the drone can either deliver disabling kinetic impacts by colliding with the assailant or spray them with less-lethal JPX pepper gel to incapacitate them, buying critical time for police to arrive.

Notably, the system is fully human-operated, with no artificial intelligence involved in decision-making, a feature that company leadership says has reassured parents and school administrators concerned about autonomous errors. Alex Campbell, a 30-year-old professional drone racing competitor who works as one of the system’s operators, says the role allows him to contribute to school safety without being on the front lines directly. “To be the nerd behind the scenes, to help the heroes on this Earth saving us from the bad things happening, it’s really fulfilling to be able to have a hand in that,” Campbell explained.

The company offers the system through annual service contracts, with pricing scaled to a school’s size and number of buildings. King emphasizes that the system’s greatest value lies in its potential deterrent effect: “The best-case scenario is we put this in every single school in America and then never have to use it, right? Because it’s got a deterrent quality to it.”

To date, the technology has not been tested in a real active shooter scenario, and it aligns with a long-running strain of thought in U.S. gun violence policy debates that argues for adding defensive technology rather than pursuing stricter gun control legislation to curb mass shootings. Data from tracking platform IntelliSee recorded 233 separate gun-related incidents on U.S. school grounds in 2023 alone, underscoring the urgent demand for new solutions to the ongoing crisis.