UNDER THE GUN
Mother of three, popular dancer among women killed, injured in separate attacks
Published:Friday | May 9, 2025 | 12:12 AMAndre Williams/Staff Reporter
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Two women died from gunshot wounds while a third was injured by gunmen in separate incidents between last Saturday and Thursday. One man was also killed in one of the incidents. Brittanya ‘Tashna’ Ranike, mother of three, succumbed to gunshot...
Two women died from gunshot wounds while a third was injured by gunmen in separate incidents between last Saturday and Thursday. One man was also killed in one of the incidents.
Brittanya ‘Tashna’ Ranike, mother of three, succumbed to gunshot injuries on Thursday, five days after being attacked while working at a bar on Wildman Street in the Spoilers community of Kingston.
Ranike, of a Ladder Lane, Southside, address in Kingston, was shot around 8 p.m. on Saturday by a man posing as a customer. Surveillance footage of the incident, now widely circulated on social media, shows the assailant entering the establishment, ordering an item, then pulling a firearm from his waistband and opening fire before fleeing.
A relative told The Gleaner that Ranike was simply trying to earn an honest living to provide for her children.
The deadly shooting is reportedly stemming from previous attacks in the Kingston Eastern space.
Police believe the attack may be linked to ongoing tensions in the Kingston East area. Ranike’s death marks one of three cases involving female victims of gun violence over the past five days, spanning three separate police divisions – Kingston Central, St Andrew South, and Manchester.
In another fatal shooting early Thursday morning in Richmond, Manchester, 26-year-old Brittania ‘DHQ Chicken’ Francis, a well-known dancer from Brinkley District in St Elizabeth, was killed after leaving a bar. According to police reports, Francis was with bar operators, who were closing the venue when gunfire erupted around 1:30 a.m.
She was found with gunshot wounds near a Toyota Voxy, which had a shattered window. Her death has left the local dancehall community in mourning, with many expressing condolences and disbelief online.
The third incident occurred Wednesday night in Seaview Gardens, St Andrew, where a 32-year-old woman was shot and injured while her companion, 21-year-old Davion Salmon, was killed. Police say the pair were on Red Sea Drive around 9:30 p.m. when armed men approached and opened fire. Both were taken to hospital, where Salmon was pronounced dead. The woman remains hospitalsed.
Francis was found suffering from gunshot wounds, and a window in the door of a Toyota Voxy motor car was also shattered.
Meanwhile, investigators have probed the murders of 619 women in Jamaica between 2019 and 2023, averaging 124 female homicides annually, according to data published by the Statistical Institute of Jamaica.
Over the five full years, 2021 saw the most women being murdered in the island with 133 reports.
There were 113 women killed in 2020, the lowest for the period.
Up to May 3, Jamaica had recorded a 37.7 per cent year-on-year decline in murders with 236 cases for 2025, compared to 379 for the corresponding period in 2024.