ÐÓ°ÉÐÔ°É

Following yesterday's gruesome discovery of the body of a senior citizen on the compound of the Pembroke Hall Primary School, Percival Braham, People's National Party caretaker candidate for North West St Andrew, is appealing to the authorities for a police station in the area.

"As it is now, there is no police station in the entire consistency of North West St Andrew, which is home to over 30,000 residents. We are serviced by the Duhaney Park and Constant Spring police stations. We are appealing to the authorities as we would not want another case like this [to] happen, because our schools are supposed to be centres for learning, and when our children are supposed to be discovering knowledge, we don't want them to be discovering bullet-riddled bodies," Braham said.

The deceased has been identified as 62-year-old Owen Mardner, otherwise called 'Chris', of a Waltham Park Road address. Mardner was the school's night watchman. Commanding officer for the St Andrew South Police Division, Superintendent Damion Manderson, told THE STAR that the watchman's body was discovered by students yesterday morning. His bullet-riddled body was found under a car.

"The students alerted the staff who informed us. The watchman came on duty sometime after 10 p.m. on Tuesday and was shot and killed on the school compound. We are theorising that he was targeted based on the nature of the scene and we are currently pursuing various avenues of investigations to seek to identify the source of this incident," Manderson said.

Members of the police's Community Safety and Security Branch also visited the institution to offer counselling to the staff and students.

"School was dismissed given the circumstances and interventions will start as well. We the police will continue to work with the staff and see what support we can give to the students. But the act itself is gruesome and unfortunate. The children are traumatised, as expected, but we will continue to work with them," the senior cop said.