KINGSTON, Jamaica — Members of the public were forced to scamper for cover after a gunman opened fire at another man metres in front of the main gate of the Kingston Public Hospital yesterday.

The gunman spotted his intended victim, eyewitnesses said, and calmly pulled what appeared to be a 9mm pistol from his waist and squeezed off four shots. From then on it was pandemonium.

The victim, identified only as ‘Keeno’ from a Hannah Town address, was shot twice in the chest and twice in the abdomen.

He fell to the asphalt from the impact of the bullets, which hit at close range.

“Him crawl on him elbow and knees go inside the hospital as the gunman run go down Luke Lane and escape,” one person, who claimed to have witnessed the incident, told the Jamaica Observer.

Police were quick on the scene and the Keeno was assisted inside the health facility, where he was rushed to the Accident and Emergency Unit.

Last night his condition was listed as serious but stable.

One woman, who claimed to have witnessed the mad rush for cover by innocent bystanders, said she was surprised to know that a man who was on crutches could have moved so swiftly.

“Them say when trouble take you pickney (a child’s) shirt fit you. I never know seh a man on two crutch coulda run so fast. The man move like lightening when the gunshot start burst,” the woman said.

Another man said he was so frightened that he froze.

“I couldn’t even move. It was like I was outside my body looking at myself. It come in like it was a movie. Everyone running left right and centre but my foot dem come in like dem did paste down pan di ground,” the still shaken man said.

Police report that ‘Keeno’ was the latest victim in an ongoing gang feud that has erupted in Hannah Town recently.

He was reportedly out on bail and was on his way to report to the police at Admiral Town as a condition of his bail.

For more than two decades the members of the ‘Upsetters’ and ‘Super Star’ gangs have been at loggerheads and the result has been death, injury and untold suffering on both sides of the conflict.

Police sources said the bloody battle has been passed down over three generations with even the grandchildren of murder victims exacting revenge on the relatives of those who have been fingered in the deaths of their loved ones.