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Author Topic: Has the world gone mad?  (Read 5615 times)

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Offline Trini

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Has the world gone mad?
« on: May 04, 2005, 11:16:34 PM »
I jus finish watch a documentary on the rwanda genocide, log on to read meh TT and yard newspapers and this is what I seeing....
Add this to the promenade shooting the other day in T&T, lawd have mercy.
I starting to contemplate migrating yes!

www.jamaicaobserver.com

Mayhem!.....Three cops, guard slain
Police say they will not retreat
Observer Reporter
Thursday, May 05, 2005
 

 
Deputy Superintendent Cornwall 'Bigga' Ford inspects the body of his colleague, Inspector Lascelles Walsh, who was shot dead by gunmen in downtown Kingston early yesterday morning. Walsh, who was on his way to work, was cut down when he stopped his motorcycle at a traffic light. (Photo: Bryan Cummings)

THE police pledged yesterday not to retreat in their fight against criminals despite the bloody attacks between Tuesday night and early Wednesday that left three cops and a security guard dead and the Cross Roads, Kingston police station potchmarked from a brazen assault by gunmen.

At the same time, the government called for consensus in its effort to "conquer this evil in our midst".

Slain gunmen Christopher Coke, alias 'Chris Royal and 'Royal Blend', 23, and his partner in crime, identified only as 'Jello', lay at the intersections of West Kings House Road and Waterloo Road in Kingston, after they were killed by the police just minutes after they murdered Corporal Hewitt Chandler of the Protective Services Division, at the same intersection Tuesday night.

"Now is the time to put aside all partisan considerations or selfish concerns and unite in the fight against crime," said Prime Minister P J Patterson in a statement.

The JLP, apparently stung by rumours that it could benefit from instability, sought to distance itself from the attacks and urged the police to do their all to bring the perpetrators to justice.

"We call on anyone with information about these events which might be useful to the police . to come forward and use the available confidential means of communicating with the police . to assist them in reaching the right conclusions about the events," said the party's security spokesman, Derrick Smith.

 
The marks left on the building housing the Cross Roads Police Station and this car parked in front tell the story of the vicious attack by gunmen early yesterday. Here a police photographer and an investigator record the evidence. The gunmen, who were travelling in a grey Honda motor car licensed 5788 EK, killed District Constable Canute Brown during the attack.

Police say that the clear targetting of cops was partly in reprisal for their success in shutting down criminal gangs, but Lucius Thomas, the police commissioner, vowed:

"There will be no retreat and no surrender. Our strategies are going to make Jamaica safe."

At the same time, police groups, who branded the killings as an "assault against the state and a challenge to its stability," urged legislators to pass legislation to make it easier to fight racketeering.

 
This motor car, which the police believe was used to transport gunmen around Kingston on Tuesday night, was set on fire yesterday morning after its occupants got out of the vehicle. It was not clear yesterday if the car was stolen. (Photos: Bryan Cummings)
"In the face of these attacks and the obvious criminal network and dirty money financing these criminals, we are calling upon parliamentarians to immediately legislate a Racketeering Influence and Corrupt Organisation Act and to expedite the Proceeds of Crime Act in order to effectively cut off and eliminate the financial bases of these groups," the statement said. It was issued by the Police Officers Association, the Police Federation, the Island Special Constabulary Association, the ISCF Officers Association and the United District Constables Association.

It was, however, not only security officials who died in the carnage. Two gunmen who killed one of the cops in the initial attack the at intersection of Waterloo and West Kings House Roads in St Andrew were themselves cut down by other policemen, who apparently just happened on the scene.

One of the dead triggermen was identified as Christopher Coke, also called "Chris Royal" and "Royal Blend", whom police say is a son of late Tivoli Gardens enforcer, the notorious Lester Lloyd Coke, who was also better known as "Jim Brown".

That would make Coke, 23, also as Chris Royal and Royal Blend, a half brother of well-known Tivoli Gardens figure, with whom he shares the same Christian name. The older brother is also called Duddus.

While Thomas and his boss, the security minister, Peter Phillips, spotlighted the successes against organised crime for the marking of the police, the police chief suggested, too, that the overnight strikes against his men stemmed from the police killing last month of Tivoli Gardens "community leader", Donovan Griffiths, also called "Zion Train".

Thomas told reporters that in the aftermath of Griffith's death, in an alleged gunfight with cops, intelligence reports had indicated that the underworld wanted revenge.

"It was said the security forces would pay," he said.
The first of the assaults took place at around 9:30 Tuesday night.

Corporal Hewitt Chandler, who is a member of the police's Protective Services Division was sitting in a marked police car, waiting for the traffic lights to change at West Kings House and Waterloo Roads.

He did not make it through the lights. A black motorcycle rode up beside him with two men aboard.

The men pulled guns on Chandler and opened fire.
According to the police, two other policemen who were coincidentally on the same road in an unmarked car challenged the gunmen and when the shooting ended, Coke and the other motorcyclist, identified so far as "Jello", had been cut down.

The police say that a Glock pistol, bearing serial number FNP560, as well as a Browning 9mm pistol with serial number erased, was recovered at the scene. The police say they also took 105 rounds of ammunition and extra magazines from the bodies.

Several hours later, at about 5:30 am, came the attack on the Cross Roads station and the death of the second cop, District Constable Canute Brown outside the station.

A car sped by the station and gunmen opened fire from the vehicle, hitting Brown, who later died in hospital.

Several M16 assault rifle and 9mm cartridges were found outside the building.

Half-an-hour later, the third cop - Inspector Lascelles Wash, who worked at the Motorised Traffic Division - was cut down. Walsh, a popular voice providing traffic reports on Radio Jamaica, was riding his police traffic cop motorcycle along Port Royal Street in downtown Kingston. Gunmen drove up to him and opened fire, killing the 24-year police veteran on the spot.

"Walsh was one of the most loved officers in the force. This is a terrible sight," said Deputy Superintendent Cornwall 'Bigga" Ford of the Police Flying Squad as he and other investigators combed the crime scene for evidence.

As Ford and his colleagues collected clues, smoke billowed a few blocks away on Luke Lane - a grey Honda motorcar was on fire: apparently the same one from which the gunmen had fired at the Cross Roads' station.

"They are destroying the evidence," one cop said, shaking his head.

But this was not the end of the mayhem.

In between the Cross Roads shooting and Walsh's murder, Richard Adams, who worked for the private security company, Marksman Limited, was shot dead on Marcus Garvey Drive.

Adams, the police say, was travelling in a white Suzuki Jimny jeep along East Avenue near its intersection with Marcus Garvey Drive. Gunmen opened fire on the vehicle.

Adams ran from the vehicle in an attempt to escape, but was chased about 50 yards along Marcus Drive before he was caught and shot in front of the Wallenford Coffee Company. His body, clad in the black uniform of the Marksman company, lay near a drain. He had been shot more than a dozen times. The vehicle had several bullet holes.

"This is war," said a police man who was at the scene.
Not much earlier, a policeman stationed at the Hunts Bay station, further along Marcus Drive, had been shot in the leg when armed men pulled alongside his patrol car in North Avenue, Greenwich Town and opened fire. The policeman, whose name was withheld, was hospitalised.

Killed by gunmen:

. Inspector Lascelles Walsh of the Motorised Traffic Division;

. Corporal Hewitt Chandler of the Protective Services Division;

. District Constable Canute Brown of the Cross Roads Police Station.

. Richard Adams, a supervisor of Marksman Security Limited.


 

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