Jamaican murder trend reaches new heights

Jamaicans woke up Friday to news that was both startling and routine: Two policemen, including the No. 3 officer in the Jamaican National Constabulary, had been gunned down on the streets of Kingston suburbs.

Murder is a grisly reality on the Caribbean island, which suffers the most killings per capita of any nation on the planet. Much of the slaughter goes on at gang level, among neighborhood political dons and drug runners, leaving many in the island's small middle and upper classes indifferent to the dangers of daily life in the shantytowns of cinder-block hovels.

But gun violence has begun creeping into the more comfortable suburbs of walled ranch houses and tourist venues like Montego Bay, threatening the lives and livelihoods of the more privileged population.

The island of 2.7 million suffered 12 killings Thursday, pushing this year's murder toll past 1,400, already a 15% jump over 2006 with the violent Christmas season yet to go.

The shooting deaths of the two policemen, Assistant Commissioner Gilbert Kameka and Constable Valentino Chambers, also brought to 18 the number of police killed this year, setting another distressing record.

Posted by Carol J. Williams in Miami