Residents demand streetlights after boy fatally hit by car
Residents protest in Norman Lane yesterday, calling for more streetlights on Spanish Town Road in St Andrew.
RESIDENTS of Norman Lane off Waltham Park Road in St Andrew yesterday blocked a road in the community, calling for more streetlights on Spanish Town Road, after a 12-year-old boy was fatally hit by a car while riding his bicycle on Saturday night.
The boy, who has been identified as Tyrese Perry, is a recent graduate of St Peter Claver Primary School and was set to make his high school debut at Edith Dalton James High yesterday.
According to reports from the Corporate Communications Unit (CCU), about 9:30 pm Saturday, the driver of a Toyota Probox motor car was travelling along Spanish Town Road when, on reaching the vicinity of Norman Lane, the boy allegedly rode into the path of the car and was hit.
He was taken to the Kingston Public Hospital where he was pronounced dead.
The driver of the motor car reportedly turned himself in at the Hunts Bay Police Station, but up to press time yesterday CCU was unable to provide a further update.
Yesterday angry residents, armed with placards that read: “We want justice, “We want light and water”, blocked the road with tyres and other discarded items that were set ablaze.
“A because no light nuh deh down weh the likkle bwoy was hit; because if light did deh deh the taximan would a at least see the little bwoy,” one resident told the Jamaica Observer.
The residents also disputed the account given by the police as to how the boy was killed.
“The little bwoy was riding his bicycle and a lady stop to let him cross, and so it look like say the taxi never see him and come round and hit him. The likkle boy drop from about two miles from weh dem lick him. If yuh ever see how far the likkle bwoy drop!” the resident said.
The boy’s father, Omar, who was in Ocho Rios, St Ann, working when he got the terrible news, said he, too, received a similar report.
“A Ochi mi deh cause mi sell shoes, bag and clothes, and Saturday night mi get a call say mi son die, say car lick him dung. So when mi come home at the spot where him get lick dung mi say, ‘Wah happen?’ and people dem tell mi say a car stop fi give him way and the next man come round and bounce him kill him. So mi find out say the people dem [angry] inna the place and mi cannot talk to dem fi say, ‘Stop. Unuh done wid dis’, cause Diamond (Tyrese’s nickname) is a loving person, him behaving good; him jus’ do everything right,” he said.
Perry, who told the Observer that he did not approve of the protest because it will not bring back his son, complained about the manner in which the police who responded to the protest allegedly behaved.
According to him, an officer who came to the community yesterday physically assaulted a young boy who had lit a fire during the roadblock.
“So after the officer hit the little boy and assault mi babymother, mi turn to him, ’cause this morning a Monday morning, a mi son first morning fi go Edith [Dalton James High], so mi ignorant; mi dark. Everything mi get fi him — from a pin to an anchor… so me just turn ’round and say, ‘Yuh know say yuh a b@……? Come een like yuh a b@……,” Perry said.
However, he said while he was inside his house, he heard people shouting “Murder” and realised that police officers were there to arrest him for indecent language, but he refused. He said the officers allowed him to go after the crowd came down on them.
In the meantime, the angry residents, who have called for the intervention of their Member of Parliament Angela Brown Burke, say they will continue to block the road until someone responds to them.
Never worry about the life lost its important to bring change for the others.