Protesters storm Oracabessa station over police killing
RESIDENTS OF Stewart Town in St Mary protested for a second straight day over a police killing, storming the nearby Oracabessa station on Tuesday and demanding to speak with a senior officer.
Commander for the parish, Superintendent Bobette Morgan-Simpson, and her team met with the mother and other family members of the deceased before addressing the angry mob. She succeeded in maintaining clear passage along the island’s main north coast thoroughfare.
The killing of Savion Hinds sparked protests on Monday, with residents using old appliances and other debris to block the road, cutting off traffic between Ocho Rios and Port Maria.
Hinds’ mother, Carmen Purcel, is demanding answers about her son’s killing, allegedly by the lawmen.
After emerging from the meeting with the police on Tuesday, Purcel was still too emotional to speak in detail with reporters about what transpired a day earlier.
“It sad, mi nuh know wha fi do right now. ... Wi want justice fi mi pickney because dem brutalise mi pickney,” she said.
“Mi know mi pickney a nuh gunman.” Morgan-Simpson urged the demonstrators to desist from blocking the road and allow the investigation to be completed.
The matter is also being probed by the Independent Commission of Investigations.
“We just had a meeting with the family where both parties would have expressed their feelings,” Morgan-Simpson said.
“... I sympathise with the family members based on the whole situation.”