Howard Campbell, Gleaner WriterAT FIRST glance, Bayshore Park looks like a normal community with children romping at the local basic school and small businesses dotting its hilly landscape.
One would never believe that two weeks before, a gruesome triple murder took place in this sprawling squatter settlement which overlooks the Harbour View housing scheme.
Things appeared to be back to normal when The Sunday Gleaner visited the east St. Andrew community last week.
But memories of the shocking April 17 murders of 47-year-old higgler Ivenora Campbell, her 27-year-old son Miguel Panton and 42-year-old Everton Brown at her Everest Drive home, are still fresh enough to cause some residents to have sleepless nights.
SCARED
"Nobody nuh trouble nobody 'bout yah since den but wi still scared," said one woman who says she has lived in the area for 12 years. "Anywey violence dey, yuh mus' scared."
Campbell, Panton and Brown were murdered by gunmen at around 1:30 am. Ms. Campbell's nine-year-old daughter was also shot but survived the assault which sparked a mini-exodus by residents fearing further attacks.
Superintendent Doric Sinclair of the East Kingston Police Division told The Sunday Gleaner that no arrests have been made for the triple slaying, nor has there been any breakthrough in the death of Michael Ferguson who was reportedly killed by gunmen in Bayshore Park just hours after the Everest Drive massacre.
The Bayshore murders took place two days after the charred remains of two men from the community were discovered in the Rose Lane area of West Kingston.
The men, Leroy Farqhuarson and Breighton Williams, were allegedly lured there and shot execution style. Their bodies were then burnt and dumped in an open lot.
The Denham Town police, who are investigating that incident, have made no arrests. The gory homicides have put Bayshore Park on edge, with some residents scampering at the sight of
unfamiliar vehicles.
Reverend D. Wilfred Alexander, pastor at the St. Mark's Methodist Church which borders Bayshore and Harbour Drive in Harbour View, says there is a "controlled fear" among his parishioners.
"They want to know what type of ministry we can excercise in the area. No one has spoken to me in a counselling sense but they share how they feel, their fears and so on," Rev. Alexander told The Sunday Gleaner.
Bayshore Park is one of several squatter communities in the constituencies of East Rural St. Andrew and East Kingston and Port Royal. The land is splintered with homes of varying architecture: from board shacks to elaborate concrete structures.
The entrance from the west is in the East Kingston and Port Royal constituency, which traditionally supports the People's National Party. It is a stone's throw from the Carib Cement Company.
The Everest Drive end extends to Harbour View Football Club's mini-stadium, and is part of East Rural St. Andrew for which Joseph Hibbert is the Jamaica Labour Party's Member of Parliament.
Mr. Hibbert, who once lived in Harbour View, says people first began settling on the hillside land in the 1970s but were eventually evacuated. One resident told The Sunday Gleaner that a second wave of squatters set up homes in Bayshore after Hurricane Gilbert in 1988 and this migration has not stopped.
The government owns the land and Mr. Hibbert says the National Housing Development Corporation plans to develop the community's infrastructure. He does not know when that will be, but he sees brighter days ahead for Bayshore when it materialises.
"We need to upgrade the area, have proper facilities in place like drainage," he said. "After this infrastructure is in place, the next step is to integrate residents in formal society."
Mr. Hibbert told The Sunday Gleaner that many Harbour View residents frown on the squatter villages that go as far as Bull Bay and St. Thomas. He says there are complaints from some that refuse is dumped in their homes whenever there is heavy rain; others reportedly fear that with the settlement being so close, there is a danger of property values going down.
Several Harbour View residents refused to speak with The Sunday Gleaner about their relationship with their Bayshore Park neighbours. However, Mr. Hibbert's Bayshore Park constituents were not tongue-tied about the relationship with their MP.
"From him win, him nuh come 'bout yah," said one man.
Mr. Hibbert says such statements are political as Bayshore Park is split in its allegiance to the JLP and the PNP. He vowed that party loyalty will not discourage his goal to improve conditions in the community.
