WATCH: As many as a third of people killed and injured by Jamaica security forces were unarmed, says INDECOM

KINGSTON, Jamaica – The Independent Commission of Inquiry (INDECOM) has highlighted that as many as one-third of the people who were shot, killed or injured by Jamaica’s security forces in alleged clashes over the past 10 years appeared to be unarmed.

“It was a case last year, and it has been a phenomenon for over a decade, where almost a third of all people who were shot, killed or injured had no weapons on them or certainly no weapons recovered,” the deputy commissioner said at INDECOM, Hamish Campbell.

Campbell spoke at an INDECOM press conference on Friday, during which he announced that as of October 31, security forces had killed 149 people and another 66 had been shot and wounded.

He described a weapon as a gun, rock, scissors, stick or other implement.

Campbell said that two months into the year, it appears that fewer people were found to be unarmed by security forces in 2024.

Commenting on the number of people killed so far this year, Campbell said that “current projections show that unless Jamaica’s security forces reverse trends, security force fatalities in 2024 will be the highest since 2013.”

He noted that 253 people were killed in 2013, compared to 86 in 2019. “From 2019 to date, the number of fatal shootings has increased by 80%,” the deputy commissioner said. This represents an increase each year from 115 in 2020; 127 in 2021; 134 in 2022 and 155 in 2023.

Regarding multiple deaths, Campbell said 20 people died in 2023 and 30 people died in such accidents this year. There were two such incidents in which four people died and two in which three people died. Campbell said this is in addition to multiple double shootings that have occurred throughout the year.