MOM WASN’T EXPECTING ‘DEATH NEWS’
ST ANN’S BAY, ST ANN, Nov. 6, 2024
Members of the Constabulary and a mother in the hills of St Ann are mourning the death of a young police officer in a traffic crash in Discovery Bay, St Ann, on Sunday, November 3, 2024
Dead is 26-year-old Constable Ramone Sterling, of Stepney near Alva, St Ann and assigned to the Montego Hills police station in St James.
Constable Sterling who graduated from police college in November 2022 was driving a Honda Fit motorcar toward Montego Bay on Sunday, November 3. The North Coast Times was told the young constable was heading to work, about 7 a.m. The road was wet and he lost control of the vehicle near Green Grotto Cave, Discovery Bay. The car ran off the road, became airborne and crashed into bushes. Fire personnel had to cut away a section of the car to remove the young constable.
It is reported that Constable Sterling was still conscious and was able to give the number for his fiancé, Abigail and asked for someone to contact her.
After she was contacted, his fiancée called his mother, Jasmine Brown, affectionately called Miss Olga and told her of the crash and that Ramone had been taken to hospital.
Ms Brown told the North Coast Times that she immediately began to prepare to go to St Ann’s Bay Hospital, some 40 kilometres away, when she got further news that her only son was unconscious. “I was getting some clothes for him for the hospital stay. I wasn’t expecting any death news.”
However, that’s what she got by the time she reached the hospital. Ms Brown was told that her first born of three and only son had died while undergoing treatment.
His body had been moved to a funeral home in Ocho Rios, by the time she arrived at the hospital. “It is hard but I am trying [to cope],” she told the North Coast Times. She said his two sisters and other close family members were taking the news hard “Everybody is on the same side [of grief]…Today is a little better than yesterday,” she said, speaking Wednesday, November 6.
Ms Brown said she spoke with her son by telephone Friday night, November 1, when he told her of arrangements he was making to get some funds to her. She said he was a loving child. “He was a fun-loving person, jovial and so on,” she said.
SECOND MOTHER
Businesswoman Sonia Nevins was very close to Constable Sterling. In fact his mother describes Ms Nevins as his “second mother.”
(Skid marks showing where the car left the road)
Sterling was placed by HEART NSTA at Miss Nevins business, The Business centre in Alexandria, St Ann, at the start of 2019.
When he finished his internship nine months later and was unable to find work she took him on to work in the variety store and ice cream parlour. He was there for nearly two years more.
“People really loved him. And we developed a bond. He was a fine young man, different from the others. He loved children. He was very playful. He was respectable,” Mss Nevins said.
During that period, Sterling re-sat some CSEC subjects he had failed in school. He set his sights on fulfilling a dream of joining the Jamaica Defence Force. But after Sterling failed twice to get into the JDF, Miss Nevins encouraged him to enlist in the Police Force. She remembers helping him do the applications. He was successful.
He kept in touch with Ms Nevins after his graduation two years ago. She said he always decided he was going to expand and improve his mother’s house at Stepney.
“He had an ambition to add to his mother’s house. He was a real little gentleman,” she said.
Ms Brown said she felt grateful for the visit of a police team from St James, consisting of more than a dozen officers. She said they sought to encourage and comfort her. On Sunday hours after the crash and death of Constable Sterling, Superintendent Eron Samuels in charge of St James reported on the crash saying it was with great sorrow that “I announce the passing of #23420 Constable Ramone Sterling who was attached to the Montego Hills Police Station.” The Superintendent said:“It is really another sad day for the St James Division.”
