CHANTILLY, Westmoreland — The Westmoreland police are investigating a suspected case of suicide believed to be committed by a man who, they say, shot and injured two people, including his girlfriend, before turning the gun on himself.

However, the parents of 28-year-old Daniel Porter, also known as “Fats”, are insisting that their son was murdered, as he was not a man prone to violence.

According to head of the Westmoreland Police Division Superintendent Robert Gordon, preliminary reports are that about 4:00 am yesterday Porter and his girlfriend, who were at premises close to his home in this district, had an altercation when he brandished a firearm and shot her in the arm.

Upon hearing the gunshot, the owner of the premises went to investigate and during a tussle between both men the firearm went off and the house owner was shot in one of his legs.

It is alleged that Porter then shot himself in the side of his head, resulting in his death.

The injuries to the man and Porter’s girlfriend are reportedly not life-threatening.

“We are doing all the necessaries, as it relates to scientific work by way of swabbing… the ballistics test will be done, et cetera. But as it stands, it is the information that we have,” Superintendent Gordon told the Jamaica Observer yesterday.

“Based on the preliminary information that we have, one thing that we know for sure is that three persons received gunshot wounds; one died. That is what is positive, and it is alleged that the person that died took his own life. That aspect is still under investigation to determine if it is so or not,” Superintendent Gordon added.

But Porter’s father, Donald, refuses to believe that his son had the courage to kill himself.

“Dem say a suicide, but him too coward fi do dem things deh. As you lift you hand him run go hide. They murdered my son,” the grief-stricken father told the Observer.

The father alleged that his son was shot in the left side of his head and questioned how a right-handed person could manage to carry out such an act.

“A kill dem kill him,” the father insisted.

However, the police said the younger Porter was shot in the right side of his head, which is consistent with the suspected suicide.

At the same time his mother, Andrea Grey, who bemoaned the loss of her only child, contends that he never owned a firearm.

“They said he shoot girl in her hand, one in a foot and shoot himself and him don’t have no gun. So mi don’t know where gun come from,” she argued.

Grey said that about 9:00 pm on Wednesday, Daniel — who lived with her — left their house to go to premises across the road where he usually hangs out with friends in the evenings.

She recounted that at her behest, he promised to return early.

“Him never come back… mi hear the banging after 3:00 this morning and when mi call his phone it just go to voice mail. I call someone else over there; I never hear her and then she call me back and say ‘Girl, shooting! Shooting! Shooting!’” Grey said.

“Same time mi run over there in my nightie and saw everyone sitting on the verandah. Mi say where is mi son? They said Daniel in the bathroom,” she related, adding that she went into the bathroom where she found her son’s slumped bloodied body.

The distraught mother said her son was not a known troublemaker.

““Daniel is a quiet person, him no give me no trouble rather than he loves to drink rum. Mi can tell you that. Him love him rum. Him love him little drinking. Mi son don’t really give trouble. No, him a nuh dem type a person; him is a loving, nice person,” she said.