CENTRAL VILLAGE UNDER SIEGE
Man killed in pre-dawn attack at his girlfriend’s house
As the spate of shootings continue in Central Village, a group of gunmen carrying high-powered weapons shot and killed a man and seriously injured his spouse at her home in the Windsor Heights community.
According to reports, the couple was at home about 6:30 a.m. on Thursday when armed men surrounded the one-bedroom house and shot Kowain Findlay and his 25-year-old common-law wife from outside the kitchen window. Findlay was pronounced dead at the Spanish Town Hospital, while the woman was admitted in serious condition.The men reportedly left the scene on foot. A resident told THE WEEKEND STAR that about 6:30 a.m. there was loud banging on both the bedroom window and and the back door to the house. Minutes later, loud explosions were heard.
“Mi peep over there and mi see some man a tek out the window pane at the bedroom window and two stand up at the kitchen window, one with a long gun. So mi duck back down and mi hear a whole heap a shot start to fire,” the resident said. It is believed that the couple were in the bedroom when they heard the window panes being removed, and retreated to the kitchen where they were shot. When the news team visited the house, relatives of Findlay’s common-law wife were busy cleaning up blood from the kitchen floor where the couple was found.
“Mi cousin no do nobody nothing at all. She just come back from overseas. Kowain is her spouse. Him only visit her now and then. We just a pray that she pull through,” said a cousin of the injured woman who was assisting with the cleaning-up exercise.
“See dem shoot through the window. See the hole dem yah inna the wall,” she said, pointing to the bullet holes. It appeared that some of the bullets narrowly missed a propane gas cylinder. “God mek the bullet no hit the cylinder because the whole place would a blow up,” she continued.
When contacted for comments, commander of the St Catherine South Police Division, Superintendent Christopher Phillips, said that he was in a meeting and couldn’t comment at the time.
However, efforts to contact him sometime after were unsuccessful as his phone repeatedly went to voicemail.
The police have confirmed that there have been a series of shootings in Central Village over the last two weeks. First a police corporal and a taxi driver were shot and killed in the Big Lane community. Six days ago, one man was shot and killed in the Chinatown area, and just three days ago, two persons were shot, one fatally, in the Zambia area near Windsor Heights.