BY riel mAJOR

POLICE are investigating the first recorded murder of the year which claimed the life of 19-year-old Terrance Rolle Jr.

According to police, shortly after 11am on January 1, a man was walking with other persons on Market Street in the vicinity of C R Walker Senior High School, when he was approached by a another man armed with a firearm, who shot him before running away. 

Paramedics were called to the scene and took the injured man to hospital, where he died from his injuries.  

When asked if the murder was gang-related, Chief Superintendent Solomon Cash said: “We have to protect the integrity of investigations. We don’t really want to put a bad image on any victim because you know they have families who love them.

“He is known to us in the extent that we conducted investigations and his name came up.”

CSP Cash said two persons of interest are in custody in connection with this incident.

The killing came after the country wrapped up 2018 with its lowest murder count since 2010. Ninety-one killings were recorded last year, according to this newspaper’s records. Not since 2010, when 94 people were murdered, have fewer than 100 murders been recorded in a single year.

Eighty-seven people were murdered in 2009. Authorities are now aiming to keep the murder tally below 90 in 2019, National Security Minister Marvin Dames has said. Police recorded 127 murders in 2011; 111 murders in 2012; 119 murders in 2013; 123 murders in 2014; 146 in 2015; 111 in 2016 and 122 in 2017.

Anyone with any additional information on Tuesday’s incident, or any other crime, is asked to call police at 502-9991/2 or Crime Stoppers at 328-TIPS.