The mayor had a 9-millimeter handgun tucked in his waistband beneath his swimsuit jacket. Law enforcement officials and civilians carrying balaclavas over their faces gathered outdoors the police station, gearing for battle.
Gangs looking for to regulate Kenscoff, his picturesque city within the hills above Haiti’s capital, had already attacked twice this summer season, burning homes and killing folks, he defined.
“The gangs need to kill me, too,” the mayor, Jean Massillon, informed a staff of visiting New York Instances journalists in late September. “I’ve chosen to remain and struggle.”
Police and authorities officers hadn’t listened when Mr. Massillon repeatedly informed them that the gangs would assault, making him one thing of a Cassandra whose warnings went unheeded till many individuals have been useless.
However Mr. Massillon, a longtime metropolis administrator, refused to go away, even after different residents fled in August. He grew to become the general public face of the resistance in opposition to unlawful armed teams wreaking havoc in his homeland.
He was additionally an emblem of how the Haitian state has successfully collapsed.
He all of the sudden fell unwell on Oct. 9, whereas strolling up a mountain on foot to succeed in an space the police had just lately cleared of gangs. However the ambulance service had deserted his metropolis a yr in the past due to gang violence.
After six years serving because the appointed interim mayor of this city of about 50,000 folks, Mr. Massillon died — one other sufferer of Haiti’s yearslong decline and incapability to guard its most weak residents. He was 53.
“There’s a complete decline of well being care and safety in Haiti; it’s just like the nation is dying,” Mr. Massillon’s brother, Christophe, stated. “The entire of Haiti will do not forget that Jean stood as much as defend the commune of Kenscoff and by no means gave up on this, even when he needed to pay for it along with his life.”
We met Mr. Massillon on the final Saturday in September, after we visited Kenscoff to report on a brand new United Nations-backed gang suppression power in Haiti.
Kenscoff had lengthy been generally known as a peaceable mountainous farming village the place Haiti’s elite went for weekend respites from the traffic-clogged capital, Port-au-Prince, a dozen miles away. However in recent times, Kenscoff had grow to be a strategic level in Haiti’s battle in opposition to gangs that have been more and more making incursions into new territory.
It’s tactical as a result of it borders Petion-Ville, a suburb the place most diplomats and rich folks reside.
Greater than 22,000 folks have been killed in gang violence in Haiti since 2021, and a whole lot of them have died in Kenscoff.
“Twenty-one months we’ve been resisting and preventing,” the mayor stated after we visited.
He confirmed us the bullet holes within the partitions of Metropolis Corridor.
The primary assault, in January 2025, killed 139 folks, in response to the Nationwide Community for the Protection of Human Rights, a number one Haitian human rights group.
Since then, Mr. Massillon despatched at the very least 200 letters to police and authorities officers begging for assist, town supervisor, Emmanuel Pierre, stated. He compiled them in a binder, which he was fast to point out us.
Gang surveillance drones flew over his home. He fired off extra letters.
“I can present you the papers that I wrote to the chief of the police to inform him that one thing must be executed, as a result of we heard about one thing that’s going to occur within the metropolis,” Mr. Massillon informed us.
His letter to the nationwide police chief, Vladimir Paraison, was dated June 30. Between July 4 and 9, gangs arrived, killing 61 folks, in response to a United Nations panel of consultants. The mayor put the physique rely at 105.
Regardless of the threats, the Haitian Nationwide Police withdrew key personnel and armored personnel carriers from the group, in response to Kenscoff’s former police inspector and a report from a number one human rights group.
“We didn’t have any assist,” Mr. Massillon stated.
On Aug. 23 and 24, gangs carried out coordinated assaults on town, killing 47 folks, in response to the mayor and the United Nations.
Yvener Metellus, a member of a neighborhood self-defense brigade, discovered his 79-year-old father burned alive in his residence.
“I believe the state is accountable,” he stated, standing beside the house’s charred ruins.
The pinnacle of the Nationwide Police, Mr. Paraison, didn’t reply to repeated requests over a number of weeks for an interview. The police’s director of communications stated he would refer an in depth checklist of inquiries to the company’s excessive command.
The mayor additionally wrote Prime Minister Alix Didier Fils-Aimé and the justice ministry. The prime minister’s workplace referred inquiries to the justice ministry, which didn’t reply to requests for remark.
Authorities officers within the capital had reached out to the native police inspector in command of Kenscoff earlier than the August bloodbath, and the commander claimed to have the state of affairs beneath management, in response to a senior Haitian official. The official spoke on the situation of anonymity as a result of he was not approved to talk publicly on the matter.
The police response could have been difficult, the official stated, by the actual fact that there have been tensions between the mayor and the native police inspector, Nikenson Cadet.
Mr. Cadet has been faraway from his submit and is going through disciplinary hearings.
Mr. Cadet, in an interview, acknowledged that the police had withdrawn gear and personnel earlier than the newest bloodbath. However he stated that, in his view, this indicated his superiors should have believed he was doing an excellent job and didn’t want further sources.
He, too, had written to his superiors concerning the threats, however as a substitute he grew to become a scapegoat, he stated.
“The issue is that we have now a scarcity of human sources on the police division,” Mr. Cadet stated. “We don’t have sufficient hearth energy to satisfy what the opposite guys have. We’re overwhelmed by this example.”
He stated gangs had extra machine weapons than his officers did and that they’d burned an armored personnel provider.
Within the hourslong phone interview, which was carried out earlier than Mr. Massilon died, Mr. Cadet additionally accused the mayor of complicity within the assaults. Mr. Massillon, he stated, had suspiciously disarmed members of civilian self-defense teams simply earlier than the August killing spree.
Mr. Massillon’s brother referred to as the accusation “absurd” and careworn that it was the job of the police, not the volunteer self-defense brigades, to guard town.
A report by the Nationwide Community for the Protection of Human Rights stated two members of the self-defense brigade had been disarmed after they dedicated an illegal killing. The mayor “strongly denied” disarming them and careworn that he held no authority over them, the report stated.
Marie Rosy Auguste Ducéna, who helped put together the human rights group’s investigation, stated the Haitian authorities was in charge for what occurred in Kenscoff. Although the police inspector was the one particular person faraway from his submit, she confirmed that he had written at the very least two letters asking for ammunition, weapons and armored automobiles.
“The very first thing is the absence, not even the dearth, however the absence, of will to guard the inhabitants,” she stated. “They’re by no means held accountable, actually, in Haiti — by no means.”
Mr. Massillon died earlier than The Instances had the prospect to ask concerning the police inspector’s accusations. His household and colleagues stated the allegations had upset him, notably after a political enemy denounced him on native radio.
Dr. Jean William Pape, a Weill Cornell Medical School professor who runs a clinic in Port-au-Prince and has a house in Kenscoff, spoke to the mayor the day earlier than he died.
He stated he had sounded drained and had not been taking treatment for his hypertension.
“When politicians have been mendacity about him on the radio station, he was profoundly harm,” Dr. Pape stated.
Dr. Pape’s residence, simply steps from the police station, was set ablaze in the course of the August bloodbath. A safety guard, a dozen horses and several other canine have been killed.
Dr. Pape stated he believes he was focused due to his assist for the mayor, who had spent the previous yr shifting each few weeks to dodge gangs.
Mr. Massillon almost definitely died of coronary heart failure or a stroke, Dr. Pape stated. With the closest ambulance about 40 minutes away, his household drove him from one clinic to a different, solely to be informed he had already died, Mr. Pierre, town supervisor, stated.
A month after the bloodbath, the Haitian Nationwide Police posted movies of the police and personal army contractors taking again gang-occupied territory in Kenscoff. The U.N.’s gang suppression power by no means responded to Kenscoff, however took over positions within the capital beforehand manned by the Haitian Nationwide Police, enabling the police to deploy.
Townspeople in reclaimed areas are slowly returning, although folks from different communities are nonetheless too afraid to return. A number of we spoke to had moved 4 occasions in two years, every time fleeing a bloodbath with simply the garments they’d on.
Lerionne Louis, 63, will not be even certain what number of of her kin died that August weekend. She noticed about 23 cadavers.
Our bodies are nonetheless lacking.
“If there’s no safety and no police presence,” Ms. Louis stated, “that can happen once more.”
Michael Anthony Adams and André Paultre contributed reporting.