Abduction mystery
Cops yet to ascertain motive for brutal attack on St Elizabeth teacher
SANTA CRUZ, St Elizabeth — Police here up to late yesterday were yet to establish a motive for Tuesday’s abduction and wounding of a primary school teacher who remains hospitalised.
Police said the woman’s ordeal started sometime Tuesday afternoon in the parking lot of a plaza as she waited for her children to exit a supermarket.
Head of the police’s Constabulary Communications Unit (CCU) Senior Superintendent of Police Stephanie Lindsay told the Jamaica Observer yesterday that the teacher was abducted from her car by two men in Santa Cruz.
Lindsay said the police were told that a Toyota Probox motor car drove into the plaza, two men alighted and attacked the teacher.
“[They] took her from her vehicle in Santa Cruz to another location in the parish
somewhere in the Lacovia area where at some point her throat was slashed and she was thrown from the [Probox],” added Lindsay.
“However, we understand that she managed to get her strength to get to the main road where she got help and was taken to hospital where she is receiving treatment,” Lindsay said.
A source told the Observer that the woman used her dress to wrap her neck after her abductors slashed her throat and threw her out of the vehicle.
Lindsay said there was no evidence of anything being taken by her attackers as her personal belongings were apparently intact in her car.
Councillor Christopher Williams (Jamaica Labour Party, Santa Cruz Division) condemned the incident.
“It is a very horrific and frightening incident. It is not something that you would want to wake up to and hear of. My heart goes out to the family of the lady involved and I really hope that the police can move speedily [to] identify the persons who carried out this dangerous and horrific act,” he said.
“This will have an impact on persons in and around the Santa Cruz area. Women will be terrified, because I have seen some comments from some people already because they are really frightened that this is happening in their neck of the woods,” said Williams.
When asked about the progress of the Government’s national closed-circuit television (CCTV) surveillance programme dubbed ‘Jamaicaeye’ in Santa Cruz, Williams said: “I’m not 100 per cent certain if all the preparations are completed. I didn’t get that information as yet, but I would want to believe that would be of great assistance. I am also hoping that the business place where she was allegedly abducted [that] they have cameras up in those parts.
“Let me use the opportunity to encourage other businesses in Santa Cruz to ensure that they have cameras up [at] the front, back and sides of their buildings, because at the end of the day we have to protect all persons who are coming into all of these spaces,” he added.
Launched in 2018, Jamaicaeye is designed to network CCTVS owned by the Ministry of National Security as well as accommodate feed from privately owned cameras.