Blood trail links Cressa Lane, Portmore with 77 Lane, St Andrew
Published:Saturday | June 2, 2018 | 12:00 AMErica Virtue & Ainsley Walters
Police investigators across two divisions are following a trail of blood which is believed to link the four men killed in an alleged shoot-out with a group of cops in Old Braeton, St Catherine, last Friday, to the fatal shooting of two persons getting ready for a funeral in 77 Lane in the Corporate Area last Sunday.
Clive Blair, senior superintendent in charge of St Catherine South, yesterday told The Sunday Gleaner that sleuths from his division have been working with their St Andrew Central counterparts on intelligence that the four men, and an accomplice who was wounded, were not from the Braeton area.
That was confirmed yesterday by residents in the Reid's Pen area of Old Braeton known as 'Back Land' when our news team visited Cressa Lane where Friday's fatal shooting took place.
"Dem man deh who dead don't come from roun yah," said one resident who added that the police were most likely alerted to the presence of the "strange men" by a single explosion in the later afternoon.
"I don't know if is accident, or the man dem was arguing, but a single gunshot go off and it look like somebody call de police and after that we hear rata tata, rata tata, rata tata. It just a go on suh," added the resident.
'Cooling out'
According to residents, the occupant of the house is a "duco man", who was at work during the shooting. They said he was a "hustler" not involved in any wrongdoings and the dead men were not his friends.
The residents theorise that two persons, who are believed to have escaped the police dragnet, were the ones who took their cronies into the area and had them "cooling out" at the back of a yard they knew would be empty during the days.
Yesterday, as persons milled around the scene of Friday's shooting, they pointed out that while the entrance is on Cressa Lane, the back allows access to another lane, and that provided an escape opportunity for the men who knew the area.
As they looked at the many bullet holes, blood-soaked earth and bloodstained surfaces in the yard, the residents were adamant that there would be no demand for justice on their part over the fatal shooting of the men.
Up to late yesterday, the police had not released the identities of the dead men, but an identification card was found on the scene with the name of a resident of Cassava Piece Road in St Andrew. Other documents found on the scene indicated that he was reporting to the Constant Spring police as a condition of bail.
Sunday Gleaner sources also indicated that two of the other victims are believed to be known in the criminal underworld as 'Big 10' and 'God'.
The sources say the men had fled the Waltham Park area after they were identified as suspects in the fatal shooting of the driver of a hearse and a teenager in 77 Lane last Sunday.
When The Sunday Gleaner visited 77 Lane yesterday, residents said they had also heard that two of those killed by the police in Braeton were among those who went on the rampage in the area, but this had not been confirmed.