Three dead in Manchester police shootout; Golding distances PNP from leaked voice notes

A woman and two men were killed on Saturday in an alleged shootout with police at Horseshoe Curve on Caledonia Road in Mandeville, Manchester, authorities reported.

Police said officers, shortly after 4:00 p.m., tracked a getaway vehicle linked to a robbery spree. When the car was stopped, occupants opened fire and a gun battle followed. Three wounded suspects were taken to hospital and pronounced dead on arrival. Two firearms were recovered. The dead were identified as party promoter and mother Sutanya Booth, also known as Chun Chun, Lester Morris, and Travis Baker. Police said both men were known to them.

The clash came days after a separate killing in nearly the same area, where nursing student Nickeisha Pownall and Sadeefa Henry were shot dead by a gunman who had posed as a taxi passenger. Manchester police have stepped up anti-crime operations amid concerns over lottery scamming and other illegal activity.

In Kingston, People's National Party president Mark Golding told the party's National Executive Council at UWI Mona that a review of leaked voice-note allegations was complete. He said the recorded talk did not occur in any official party forum, no party officer took part, and the PNP has no official NEC or executive WhatsApp group. The chat, he said, was formed by party members expressing personal views and does not reflect PNP policy. Official positions, he added, come from constitutional organs such as the NEC and the executive committee.

Senator Abka Fitz-Henley, chairman of the Jamaica Labour Party Communications Task Force, called Golding's remarks embarrassing, shameful, and misleading. He said the opposition leader spent about two minutes on the matter without strongly condemning claims that a PNP executive member backed delay tactics against major National Reconstruction Authority projects meant to help communities recover from Hurricane Melissa. Fitz-Henley said he was advised the group includes most PNP executive members, including co-opted ones, is labelled "executive members," and uses a PNP logo as its display photo.

Jamaica also launched National Trafficking in Persons Week under the theme "Trapped Behind the Scam: Exposing and Disrupting Human Trafficking." Ambassador Alison Stone-Roofe, chair of the National Task Force Against Trafficking in Persons, spoke at Saxthorpe Methodist Church on Sunday, warning of trafficking into forced criminality in online scam compounds. She cited International Labour Organization estimates of US$236 billion in illegal profits from forced labour and trafficking yearly — with some anti-crime coalitions putting the figure as high as US$498 billion — and United Nations figures that about 50 million people are trafficked each year. She pointed to amendments to the Trafficking in Persons Act of 2007 in 2013, 2018, and 2021, and to MOCA's mandate to investigate trafficking under its 2018 Act, while urging wider community training to help victims.