Portmore shooting kills two including teen as police probe bus arson reward and Portland landing

Major Crime investigators are looking into a Sunday morning attack in Naggo Head, Portmore, St. Catherine, that left three people shot and two dead. The victims who died were identified as 19-year-old delivery man Michael Elliott, also known as Bobby Sommore Bull, of Clifton District, St. Catherine, and 17-year-old Kenrick Ebanks, also called Welty Stones, of Naggo Head. A 27-year-old pregnant woman was wounded in the same incident.

Police said that around 4:30 a.m., Ebanks and Elliott were at a house on White Lane when armed men carrying high-powered rifles forced their way inside. The attackers shot the two men in the head and upper body in one part of the dwelling, then moved to another section where the woman was also struck in her upper body. All three were taken to Spanish Town Hospital, where Ebanks and Elliott were pronounced dead and the woman was admitted for treatment. Investigators recovered nearly 30 spent shell casings from rifles and handguns at the scene.

In St. Elizabeth, farmers found a decomposing body in bushes off Coke Drive in Santa Cruz around 9:00 a.m. on Sunday and called the police. Detectives said the remains were badly decomposed and appeared to be those of a male. Authorities noted it was the third body found in just over a week linked to the Central Village Road area, after a torso was discovered last Thursday in Aberdeen on the northern stretch of the road and the body of missing 40-year-old pharmacy technician Kadisha McKnight was found on June 11 in a cul-de-sac at Pepper.

The Jamaica Urban Transit Company is offering a $1 million reward for information leading to the identification of a man believed responsible for deliberately setting fire to a compressed natural gas bus at the Spanish Town terminal on May 30. Passengers and the driver had already left the vehicle and no one was hurt. Managing Director Owen Ellington said CCTV footage shows the suspect boarding the bus, paying cash, and trying to ignite something at the rear right before leaving as flames took hold. Ellington said the same individual may be connected to a 2024 bus fire at the Half-Way-Tree Transportation Centre. JUTC urged anyone with information to contact Crime Stop at 311 or the nearest police station.

More than a dozen Haitians were taken into custody in West Portland on Sunday after reportedly coming ashore along the parish's northern coastline shortly after midnight, in the Hope Bay or St. Margaret's Bay area. Police sources said the group included 10 adult males, four adult females, and two children, and they were held at the Port Antonio police station for screening and medical checks after residents reported people disembarking from a boat. Investigators were working to determine whether others had left the area before officers arrived.

Prime Minister Dr. Andrew Holness rejected claims that Jamaica was forced into signing a memorandum of understanding with the United States to accommodate third country nationals. "Was our hands forced? Were we coerced? Absolutely not," Holness said, adding that the agreement was signed but not yet operationalized and that a public briefing would follow once implementation details were settled. He argued Jamaica acts as an independent partner within the global system and pushed back against viewing relations with Washington only through a transactional lens.