The Tribune

By SANCHESKA BROWN

Tribune Staff Reporter

sbrown@tribunemedia.net

A MAN was shot in the head and killed Tuesday night while driving on Augusta Street.

He became the country’s 90th murder victim for the year, according to The Tribune’s records.

According to police reports, shortly before 10pm, the victim was driving in his Suzuki vehicle on Heath Street, off Augusta Street, when he was shot in his head.

The victim crashed into a nearby fence and was pronounced dead at the scene.

Police identified the victim as 58-year-old James McKenzie of West Street.

Police are unsure if the victim was the intended target or if he was in the “wrong place at the wrong time.”

Tuesday’s murder came four days after a man was shot to death while walking on Charles Vincent Street.

According to police, the victim, who has been identified as Jamal Bridgewater, was walking when two people in a black coloured Honda Civic drove near him.

Speaking to reporters at the crime scene last Friday, officer-in-charge of the Central Detective Unit Chief Superintendent Paul Rolle said one of the suspects got out of the car and pursued the victim, shooting him in his upper body.

Police are actively looking for suspects in both cases.

Murders this year continue to outpace the number of killings recorded in 2014 compared to the same period. At the end of July 2014, police had recorded 71 homicides, meaning that murders are up 27 per cent compared to this time last year.

In July 2014, police recorded seven murders that month however in July of this year there were 15 homicides, according to The Tribune’s records.

Anyone with information on these crimes is asked to contact police at 911 or 919, the Central Detective Unit at 502-9991 or Crime Stoppers anonymously at 328-TIPS.