MONTEGO BAY — Dalton James, the prime suspect in Monday’s fatal shooting of Detective Inspector Rupert Gardner, turned himself over to authorities yesterday morning and is to face an identification parade later this week, police said.

Up to late yesterday, the 30 year-old St James man, whose name and physical description were all over the media hours after the shooting, was still being questioned but no charges had been laid against him.

Meanwhile, police were, up to last night, still searching for the second suspect in the case, even as the police worked feverishly at enhancing a surveillance tape that captured the brazen mid-afternoon murder which took place in a cambio at the Westgate Shopping Plaza in Montego Bay.

“We have some material on tape which we are trying to upgrade to a level where we can involve the public,” Senior Superintendent in charge of St James, Owen Ellington, told the Observer yesterday morning.

A copy of the tape was taken to Kingston and it is expected that there will be some results from the enhancement process by today.

But a preliminary report indicates that James fired the fatal shot, police said yesterday.

“From what (those who have seen the tape) are saying, James is the one who did the shooting,” said St James’ crime chief, Deputy Superintendent Roy Boyd.

A team of about 40 cops combed sections of Montego Bay for several hours Monday after the killing of their colleague, breaking briefly early yesterday morning and then going back out at about 7:00 am. But about four hours later, James, accompanied by his attorney, turned himself in at the police’s St James Divisional Headquarters in Freeport.

According to a police source, James has denied any involvement in the shooting and a woman who identified herself as his sister called the Perkins On Line radio talk show yesterday claiming that James had been asleep at home at the time of the shooting. She also said that she was physically assaulted by a policeman investigating the case.

The police are now banking on eyewitnesses coming forward and the images on the surveillance tape to make their case.

“Witnesses saw the two men running from the scene, so we expect them (the suspects) to face an identification parade,” explained Constabulary Communication Network liaison officer for St James, Lancelot Tyrell.

Ironically, police said it was a lack of witnesses that had forced the slain cop to release James from custody last Thursday. He was being held in connection with the May 25 slaying of a Mount Salem businessman.

Detective Inspector Gardner was shot in the back of his head while in the cambio where he had gone on personal business.

Police said that two men entered the establishment behind the cop, one greeted him and then he was shot. The killers took his service pistol and wallet and then fled into nearby bushes.

Gardner was taken to the Cornwall Regional Hospital where he died while undergoing treatment. He was the second cop to be killed in the line of duty in less than a week and the sixth since the beginning of the year.