RESIDENTS streamed out of the 100 Lane area of Red Hills Road, St Andrew yesterday in the aftermath of the early morning massacre of seven persons, including women and children, in what appeared to be a co-ordinated attack in the community by up to 50 gunmen.

The victims included Doreen James, 33, a housewife and her two daughters, Tanisha Wilson, 13, and Shakera Malcolm, seven.

Homes were also shot-up and burned and animals killed in the shooting frenzy.

“People are afraid,” said a young man, who declined to give his name, as he helped to load a mattress onto the back of a pick-up truck. “They have to leave.”

Last night the national security minister, Peter Phillips, said that the security forces would re-establish a command post in the area as part of an effort to restore calm to the Red Hills Road communities.

It is expected, too, that the command post would help to provide an effective buffer between 100 Lane and rival Park Lane for it is believed that yesterday’s killings were in reprisal for a New Year’s Eve military-style attack on Park Lane by gunmen — dressed in police-type denim — that left one man dead and another injured.

“The security forces are very active in the area,” Phillips said in a statement. “They intend to re-establish a command post in that general area and take other measures to bring a level of calm to these affected communities.”

A post was originally established early in 2001 after a round of violence between gangs in the communities, but it was shut down and the men re-deployed in the face of the West Kingston violence last July.

And a curfew on sections of the troubled area at 6:00 yesterday evening is expected to be lifted at 9:00 this morning.

The ordeal for the people of 100 Lane and 64C Whitehall Avenue began just after 12:00 yesterday morning, when, according to residents between 30 and 50 armed men entered their community from different directions in what seemed to be a strategic and well-planned attack.

In some respects, it mirrored what happened in the New Year’s attack on Park Lane.

“They had on police clothes and bullet-proof vests and gloves,” one woman, who declined to give her name, told the Observer.

Some kicked in doors and fired at householders while elsewhere others torched two houses and shot at cars.

By the time the shooting had ended, the murderers had retreated, fires still smouldered and the death count was seven.

* James and her daughters;

* Gerald Wilson, 34, a delivery man and newspaper vendor;

* Oneil Samuels, 24;

* Edlesha Montgomery,18; and

* Andrea Simmonds, 33, of 64 Whitehall Avenue.

Samuels’ father, Lynford Simmonds, kept a herd of 21 goats in his yard. Nineteen were burnt to death. Only two kids survived.

“We believe that specific areas were targeted,” said Deputy Superintendent Claude Samuels, the Constant Spring-based head of the North St Andrew Police Division.

Added a householder: “They were well-organised. They divided up themselves and while some were shooting, some had the gas.”

Despite the organisation and tactics employed by the criminals, residents complained yesterday that they were allowed to operate with impunity because of the slow response to their calls by the police, some of whom allegedly sat in cars at a service station on Red Hills Road, opposite to 100 Lane, while the shooting was taking place.

“Dem say dem can’t help for too much darkness,” claimed one woman.

However, Samuels said that when the police arrived they found the roads blocked and the area in darkness. Street lights and a transformer had been shot-out by the gunmen. It made operating difficult for the lawmen.

It was in this environment that one group of gunmen headed for two premises on 100 Lane where six persons were killed.

At one home near the community centre James and her daughters — Tanisha, a Grade 6 student of the Swallowfield All-Age School and Shakera, who attended the St Richards Primary School — were cut down. The police say they had multiple gunshot wounds.

An adjacent large house, where several of James’ relatives lived was torched.

At the far end of 100 Lane the killers burnt another house and murdered Samuels and Edlesha Montgomery. It was here that the goats were also burnt to death.

Edlesha’s charred remains, which also had bullet wounds, was found in the burnt-out house. Neighbours said she had recently come to Kingston to live with an aunt and worked at the Dollar King store on Constant Spring Road.

Samuels seemed to have been cut down in the yard.

“I wasn’t here when it happened but I helped to carry his body to the vehicle,” his father said.

On the opposite side of the road to the burnt-out shell, another family had a narrow escape. The terrorists had poured petrol on a bed and were about to light it when they were called away by their colleagues. They left an empty red plastic bottle behind.

At 64C Whitehall Avenue, which runs parallel to 100 Lane, Simmonds was murdered in her home. A neighbour who lived in an adjoining house with her boyfriend said that they were awakened by gunshots.

A friend heard the gunmen asking Simmonds: “A who and you in deh?”

Simmonds replied: “Me and my son.”

Said the friend: “I heard one man say, ‘shot the gal’ and after they shot her there was silence.”

The gunmen next attempted to bring their terror to the friend’s home, attempting to kick off the neighbour’s door.

“After they kicked the door three times another one called out, ‘come we go down deh so’. They then left,” she said.

Across the road a family of four — husband, wife and two sons — had a similarly narrow escape.

According to the wife, they heard gunshots and a man shouting: “A who live in a dis rrr…. house. Whe de lighter de?”

But then she hear someone call: “Oonu come nuh.”

“We came out when the shooting died down,” the wife said.

They found a grilled gate to a section of their house, occupied by a tenant, shot off. A bullet was lodged in a speaker inside.