KINGSTON, Jamaica, Jul 22, CMC – Police are searching for one person, suspected to be the leader of a gang, following a shootout with law enforcement officers that left five people dead on Monday.
The Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF) in a statement on Monday night, said that acting on intelligence, a team from the Counter-Terrorism and Organised Crime Investigation Branch (C-TOC) travelled to premises in the upscale St Andrew community where they came under heavy gunfire.
The police said they returned the fire with eyewitnesses describing the scene as a running gun battle ensued.
“When the shootings subsided, five men were seen with gunshot wounds. They were taken to hospital where they were pronounced dead,” the JCF said in the statement.
The JCF said that four firearms — a shotgun, an M16 rifle, a Glock pistol, and a Taurus pistol — had been seized following the gunfight.
The JCF said no member of the C-TOC team was injured during the clash but a sixth man, escaped and that the police were conducting operations in a number of Corporate Area communities in search of the un-named gang leader.
The police did not name any of the dead men, or the man who is believed to have escaped, but the JCF asked alleged gang leader Courtney Ashley, otherwise called Bloodstain, to report to C-TOC.
Ashley, also called Alien, has been on the most wanted list of the St Andrew South Police Division since 2022. He is wanted in connection with six murders, shooting, wounding with intent, and other crimes.
The Independent Commission of Investigations (INDECOM), is probing the shootings, and Assistant Commissioner said that investigations were ongoing and interviews with the cops involved will be conducted as part of the process to determine what exactly happened.
“We can confirm five people have been shot and killed…at that address in Jack’s Hill, the guns have been recovered, but in terms of the actual circumstances of how the shooting occurred, why it occurred, and everything else is yet to be determined,” added Campbell.
Since the start of this year, an estimated 184 people have died as a result of fatal police shootings as compared with 83 over the same period last year. There have been 22 shootings this month.
Meanwhile. The JCF is reporting that for the period January 1 to July 19, this year, there have been 381 murders as compared with 653 for the same period last year.
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