‘God is always with you’ - Grieving mother remembers Jahmar’s final words of comfort

A few weeks ago, Debbie-Ann Hamilton Francis bent down at the same spot on Cherry Tree Lance in Clarendon where her husband, her daughter, and her cousin were gunned down in a night of horror last August.

The memory of that massacre, in which eight persons were murdered, clung to her like a shadow she could never escape. As she silently mourned the loss of her loved ones, Hamilton Francis' grief was interrupted by the soft, reassuring voice of a young man walking by on his way to work.

"'Mummy, nuh worry yuh self man, God is always with you'," she related.

The young man was Jahmar 'Alex' Farquharson, the 22-year-old who was killed in his house under controversial circumstances last Monday.

"'Mi know how yuh feel, but no worry yuhself,'" Hamilton Francis recalled him saying, her voice heavy with sadness and disbelief.

"Mi say [to him], 'Thank yuh, mi son'. Him know mi did a worry about mi family dem," she said.

But in a shocking turn of events, the same young man who once comforted her was silenced forever.

Reports from the police are that sometime after 3 p.m. on September 15, lawmen went to a premises in the southern Clarendon community in search of a firearm, when their search was disrupted after Farquharson allegedly pulled a gun and was subsequently shot.

However, footage from a closed-circuit television (CCTV) at the house appear to show a different version of events. It shows a young man opening a door for lawmen moments before he was killed.

Assistant commissioner of the Independent Commission of Investigations (INDECOM), Hamish Campbell, confirmed that his team had secured the original footage, and was conducting an analysis as part of their probe. INDECOM said that from the reports it received, Farquharson, after opening the door was taken to his room by the police.

"The officers report that upon reaching the room, Farquharson reached for a firearm which was among some clothing items, and two officers discharged two rounds each and Farquharson was fatally shot. That's the police account," Campbell said.

INDECOM says none of the 23 cops who went on the operation had on body-worn cameras. It also revealed that Farquharson was not named on the search warrant for the premises where he was shot.

Hamilton Francis said she was shocked when she found out that Farquharson was killed by the police.

"The smallest baby in Cherry Tree Lane can tell yuh say that youth is a humble youth and him never deserve this," she told THE STAR.

Hamilton Francis said that when she heard the explosions, she had a gut feeling that something had gone terribly wrong.

"God in heaven know say any time mi hear bike or car weh buss like gunshot, mi just have a bad feeling inside. But mi never expect say a Alex dem kill. The youth was a hard-working youth," she said.

"Him is a youth weh full a manners and we really feel it for him because summen like that should never happen. It could have been anybody children and we are all humans. Even if the police come to arrest or search a place the outcome never have to be like this," Hamilton Francis said.

The killing has left Cherry Tree Lane drowning in grief and outrage. Residents remember Farquharson not as a criminal, but as a respectful young man whose greatest crime was trying to build a future.

Cherry Tree Lane, a gritty community near Four Paths and York Town, was already scarred from last August's bloodbath that claimed eight lives. Yet despite signs of progress -- new concrete homes rising where board houses once stood, repaired roads, and small businesses blooming -- fear now overshadows every step its people take.

Young men whisper that they feel like walking targets, terrified of meeting similar fate as Farquharson. They worry that the police, which offered reassuring presence in the wake of last year's attack, may not always act in a professional manner.

"Sometimes dem pass, and mi see dem look down in the lane where we are, and is like mi just a wait for them to come and knock the door one night," one man said.

He added: "I don't know what is going to happen when them come, and mi a nuh bad people, but is just the fear that is left in us after what happen."

Another added, his voice: "Nuff time yuh see dem a pass and just stop and threaten we, and tell we who a guh dead and who nah go dead. Nuff a di yute dem around here fraid, and mi a talk bout youth who get up and go work or school."

For Hamilton Francis, life in Cherry Tree Lane is no longer fun.

"Cherry Tree Lane use to be one of the happiest places ever ... Mi never expect dis at all," she said.