THE six persons or so playing a game of poker at the little shop on Park Lane off Red Hills Road thought at first they were the police. Nine men and a woman, they say.

They were dressed in the blue denim worn by some police squads when on special operations. Five minutes into the new year, however, the police might have been on routine patrol.

But they asked no questions. They, instead, opened fire on the shop with M16 and AK rifles then went on a rampage, looting this and other shops in the area. They terrorised people.

They were not the police, but marauders.

Even the members of the constabulary who responded to the report of the shooting at first mistook the gunmen for their colleagues. But the real police came under such heavy fire that they had to retreat and call for reinforcements.

In the end, one man, Glen Maize, 32, was dead while another, identified only as Mack, a barber in the community, was injured and in hospital.

Mack, about 47, was among the poker players, a resident said yesterday. Maize was in an adjacent home in a bathroom, hiding with his girlfriend and two infant children after they heard the shots.

When he was dragged from the bathroom, he too, initially thought it was by policemen. His brother said that he bawled “murder, police”.

Maize was forced to accompany the gunmen as they “patrolled” Park Lane for a while.

“When they dragged him out he said, ‘Police, police a wha mi do’, and they shot him,” said one man yesterday.

People declined to give their names.

Said another man: “Six of us were gambling at about five past 12 when about 10 men dressed in full blue walked up and started shooting.”

Yesterday, residents of Park Lane claimed that the gunmen had come from nearby 100 Lane and were members of a gang called ‘Nah Live Fe Nutten, We Nuh Response’. Some of the gunmen, they also claimed, were imported by the 100 Lane gang from Ambrook Lane off Hagley Park Road.

The police requested anyone with information which could assist their investigations to contact the Constant Spring CIB at 924-1435, or Crime Stop at 1-888-991-4000, or 927-5000 or 119 or the nearest police station.

As Park Lane residents spoke about the incident to reporters yesterday afternoon, there was a loud explosion, which was believed to have been a Molotov cocktail. The crowd scampered but soon returned. It was not determined what caused the noise.

But 12 hours earlier, the terror was more gripping.

According to the residents, after shooting up the shop with the poker players, the gunmen helped themselves to liquor, Suppligen and money. They smashed a sound system, CDs and youth club trophies.

They went to two other shops on Park Lane and stole money. At one of the shops a bullet punctured a refrigerator.

A woman who asked not to be named said that she missed being shot when the bullet from a rifle, which one of the gunmen rested on the shoulder of a young boy as he took aim at her, lodged in a shoulder handbag she was carrying.

“Only the mercy of God why me never get shot after the man rest the gun pon the youth shoulder and fire after me,” she said.

By then, the magazines of some of the guns were empty, and, according to the Park Lane residents, the shooters were replenished by small children working with them.

It was at this point that they dragged Maize from his home.

A police car with two policemen which came to the entrance of the lane was fired on by the gunmen and hastily reversed and called for help.

The police said members of the Crime Management Unit (CMU) and 22 policemen from Central Police Station later carried out an operation in the area.

The Park Lane residents said that the gunmen retreated on foot in the area when the police operation began.

“We showed the police some of the gunmen when they were running away, but they thought they (the gunmen) were police,” said a young Park Lane resident.