5-year-old boy found with throat slashed

A five-year-old boy died yesterday morning after a man allegedly invaded his house in Frankfield, Clarendon, and slit his throat as he slept.

According to the police, Evan Spencer’s body was found shortly after 2:30 by his father.

The police said Evan’s father, who had gone to a nearby shop, returned to see a man running from his house. While checking inside, he discovered his son’s lifeless body sprawled in a pool of blood.  “That’s all the information that we received. The May Pen Police are investigating the incident,” an officer from the Constabulary Communication Network (CCN) told the Observer, yesterday.

Evan’s death followed Thursday’s gun-slaying of Christina Salmon, also five years old, and the wounding of her nine-year-old sister and father in Glendevon, St James, and added to the list of 19 children who are among the more than 530 persons murdered since the start of the year.

Yesterday, the Government and Opposition, in condemning the incidents, made a concerted call for Jamaicans — regardless of their political affiliation — to unite in the fight against crime. “I cannot fathom how someone can be so animalistic, to cut the throat of a five-year-old child. When are we going to stop shedding the blood of our innocent children, the blood of our babies in this country?” lamented National Security Minister Dwight Nelson, who was guest speaker at the launch of the People’s National Party’s (PNP) ‘Making our Communities Safer, 2010 Project’ at the Mico University College in Kingston.

Opposition leader Portia Simpson Miller, who also addressed the function, described the child killers as “brutal animals”.

“A good dog is protective of his family; a good brother or sister is protective of their family; if you have a pet bird, that bird is protective of the family in the house. Then how come sons of God, sons of men and women, can find it in their hearts to become so brutal, so wicked?” she said.

“Minister, we have to find a way, because there has to be another way; a better way. We have to explore all possibilities…. ’cause the level of murder and mayhem we cannot condone,” she said, reiterating her willingness to work with the Government in finding solutions to the crime problem.

The ‘Making our Communities Safer’ project is an initiative of the PNP’s Region Three and other associated groups. It is aimed at bolstering good values and attitudes among Jamaicans, especially those in impoverished violence-prone communities.

Yesterday, Nelson commended the project, saying, “I join in the hope that this approach will envelop not only the regions of the PNP, but also the groupings in all other political enclaves that exist.”

“Because it is not PNP people, not Jamaica Labour Party people, nor members of the National Democratic Movement that are being killed; it is Jamaicans. And, as Jamaicans, the time for talking has ended; it is now time for action,” he said, urging the public to assist the police with investigations.