Three women shot in MoBay attack

Three women were shot and injured in Montego Bay on Wednesday night, just hours after the Jamaica Constabulary Force's rolled out the city's Beat Officer Patrol Division (BOPD), which is designed to create order in the St James parish capital.

According to reports, the women were ambushed in a yard at King Street at about 10:20 p.m. by a lone gunman, who walked in on them. According to police reports, the women were having a conversation inside a yard when the gunman walked in, pulled a handgun and open gunfire on them. The frightened women ran off in different directions as the shooter retreated from the yard. It was later discovered that all three women suffered bullet wounds, one in the left shoulder, one on her right shoulder and one on her left hand. All three were rushed to the Cornwall Regional Hospital (CRH), where they were treated. Wednesday night's shooting comes sharply on the heels of the murder of a man identified as 'Chris', who was shot and killed shortly after 10 a.m. during the roll-out of the BOPD.

In addition to putting pressure on the security forces, the spate of shootings is also affecting the health services as CRH is running low on blood supply. According to Dr Delroy Fray, the clinical coordinator at the Western Regional Health Authority, with each new shooting incident, the supply in storage is significantly impacted.

"[Recently], we had only nine units of blood in the Blood Bank, and during Wednesday night, four gunshot wound cases came to CRH. They mopped up every bit of the blood we had available in the Blood Bank," said Fray.