(Jamaica Observer) When 15-year-old Cleon Morgan said farewell to his friends at Penwood High School yesterday, no one thought it would be his final goodbye.
Cleon was reportedly stabbed by three men on Block C in Seaview Gardens in St Andrew minutes after 3:00 pm.
His mother, Margaret Morgan, who was scheduled to leave the island tomorrow for medical attention in the United States, told the Jamaica Observer that she was making preparations for him to leave the community due to ongoing violence.
“Mi buy the breadfruit them and mi a say mi a wait until Cleon come home to ketch di fire. Him nuh come home. Three o’clock nuh normally pass and him nuh come home. Three o’clock him come home! Three o’clock!” she cried as she sat on a board bench on Flora Sea pathway.
The mother of four, who was inside her house when she got word of the tragedy, said she became concerned minutes after three when the ninth-grade student did not walk through the gate.
“Mi say, a weh Cleon deh and a three o’ clock? Him reach round there three 0’clock and dem hold him round there and stab him up. Just round di road deh suh, just fi come round here suh. Cleon nuh do nobody nutten, ask anybody,” the distraught mother continued.
Morgan said that her son was a jovial teenager who was loved by everyone. She said she last saw him yesterday morning when he told her goodbye and left for school.
When the Observer arrived in the community, a resident who was seen on her roof removing clothing from a line was overheard saying: “Everybody afraid, afraid to come out, afraid to go shop.”
Assistant Superintendent of Police Andrew Johnson concurred.
“Persons are not willing to talk. Criminals live among them, they know them. They are fearful that when the police leave the community they will have to face the criminals,” Johnson told the Observer.
Admitting that there has been a flare-up of violence in the community, Johnson was unable to say whether yesterday’s killing was connected to a number of murders and shootings there.
At the same time he encouraged residents to share whatever information they had that will assist the police in apprehending the perpetrators.
“When they attack children, it goes against everybody’s sense of right and wrong,” he said.
