Police investigating rumors of criminal gang's plans to kill four cops

Police Commissioner Dr Carl Williams says he is aware of a report that a Corporate Area criminal gang has ordered the death of four police personnel as payback for the killing of its leader.

The admission came yesterday after Williams and other high-ranking members of the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF) visited the Denham Town Police Station, in west Kingston, where police personnel were grieving for the second straight week.

Constable Lynden Barrett was reportedly shot and killed by gunmen while on duty along Wellington Street, in west Kingston.

His death came exactly one week after his former colleague, Woman Constable Crystal Thomas, was shot three times while trying to foil a robbery on a passenger bus along Spanish Town Road, in Kingston.

Williams says the threat to kill four members of the JCF as revenge for the shooting of the gang leader was one of several stories that have come to his attention.

He says the police are seriously looking into the assertions.

His crime chief, Assistant Commissioner Ealan Powell, also acknowledged being aware of the threat, but said so far investigators have found nothing to connect it to the death of the two constables.

Powell, who heads the JCF’s Criminal Investigations Branch says all that is clear is that the cops were killed because they were police.

However, he declined to divulge the name of the gang or its leader.

The reported threat comes in contrast with assertions by some residents of Denham Town that Barrett was killed by other members of the police force.

The police commissioner has denied the claim.