Dundonald Hill residents call for peace after murder of dad, baby

Shane Su­perville

Se­nior Re­porter

shane.su­[email protected]

While res­i­dents of Dun­don­ald Hill, St James, con­tin­ue to grieve the mur­der of 11-month-old Jay­den Sut­ton, they say they con­tin­ue to live as best as they can, al­though the fear that blood­shed will con­tin­ue de­spite an on­go­ing State of Emer­gency (SoE) lingers.

Jay­den and his fa­ther, Joseph Sut­ton, 25, were gunned down while in bed at their Up­per Dun­don­ald Hill home on March 31.

Rel­a­tives said a gun­man shot fa­ther and son by point­ing his gun through the bed­room win­dow be­fore es­cap­ing through a nar­row dirt track which bor­ders the fam­i­ly’s home.

When Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed the neigh­bour­hood yes­ter­day, sev­er­al res­i­dents were seen con­tin­u­ing their dai­ly rou­tines.

Life­long Dun­don­ald Hill res­i­dent Matthew Williams said he was deeply sad­dened to hear about lit­tle Jay­den’s mur­der and ap­pealed to crim­i­nals to stop per­pet­u­at­ing a cy­cle of vi­o­lence. He said the killer/s were like­ly res­i­dents of Dun­don­ald Hill and urged them to con­sid­er that it was their own neigh­bours who were be­ing harmed and in­con­ve­nienced by their ac­tions.

“It’s bet­ter they just stop that non­sense be­cause it makes no sense. In­no­cent peo­ple are dy­ing, in­no­cent chil­dren are in­volved and they’re not study­ing the in­no­cent by­standers. The crim­i­nals and them are study­ing them­selves they’re not study­ing the in­no­cent peo­ple who are feel­ing the back­lash of every­thing they do,” he said.

He added that while the mur­ders did not pre­vent any­one from go­ing about their busi­ness, there was some feel­ing of un­ease among the res­i­dents.

“The neigh­bour­hood wouldn’t feel too re­laxed, it’s not the first time a child has died, there’s a lot of things hap­pen­ing, but every time a killing like that hap­pens here, it al­ways makes the com­mu­ni­ty silent, be­cause no­body knows ex­act­ly what’s caus­ing it. At the end of the day, we just want it to end.”

An­oth­er res­i­dent, who asked not to be named out of con­cerns for his own safe­ty, said he was al­so shak­en by Jay­den’s mur­der, lament­ing that the in­fant’s life was cut short.

De­spite this, the man said he was not par­tic­u­lar­ly sym­pa­thet­ic to­wards the child’s fa­ther.

“I don’t re­al­ly feel sor­ry for him, but you see the ba­by, that one is hit­ting me hard be­cause that is an in­no­cent child who didn’t do any­thing to any­body.”

De­spite the re­cent mur­ders, the man said he, along with many oth­er res­i­dents, were not par­tic­u­lar­ly fear­ful of fur­ther vi­o­lence, but was not op­ti­mistic that peo­ple with in­for­ma­tion on the mur­ders would be in­clined to speak with po­lice, ow­ing to mis­trust among res­i­dents.

“When you talk to the po­lice, the po­lice will go back and call your name. No­body go­ing to talk on any­body be­cause when you go in the (po­lice) sta­tion and say who it is, they (the crim­i­nals) com­ing to your door and say ‘Ay I hear you call­ing my name,’ and then who you go­ing to trust if that hap­pens?”

Mean­while, one woman said she felt the neigh­bour­hood was for­got­ten by the au­thor­i­ties, lament­ing that even with Dun­don­ald Hill’s rep­u­ta­tion as a crime hotspot, po­lice pa­trols were few and far be­tween.

“Why is it that the of­fi­cers aren’t do­ing a dai­ly pa­trol? Be­cause it’s an SoE, you tell your­self that every­thing would be qui­et and okay? We need po­lice of­fi­cers to still be pa­trolling the hotspot ar­eas and I don’t know why they’re not do­ing it.”

The woman says she has lived in the area for years and feels the crime has got­ten worse, de­spite pe­ri­ods of peace, not­ing that the se­cu­ri­ty of the com­mu­ni­ty will not get bet­ter with­out their di­rect in­volve­ment.

“We don’t need them (the po­lice) to dri­ve in and dri­ve out. They need to be more alert, right out in the open where I walk there was a shoot­ing there last week.”

Guardian Me­dia sent ques­tions to an of­fi­cial from the TTPS Cor­po­rate Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Unit for re­sponse since March 31, with re­minders up to yes­ter­day, but re­ceived no re­sponse up to news time.

The three ques­tions sought the TTPS’ re­sponse on whether they felt the SoE’s an­ti-crime op­er­a­tions were ef­fec­tive in curb­ing crime, if there would be any height­ened po­lice ac­tiv­i­ty in Dun­don­ald Hill to curb pos­si­ble re­tal­ia­to­ry at­tacks and what their mes­sage would be to res­i­dents who may be shak­en in the af­ter­math of the mur­ders.