NINETEEN people have been murdered In the first two weeks of the year, the police reported yesterday.

Two others were killed by the police in alleged shoot-outs.

At the same time, the police have recovered 19 firearms and 279 rounds of ammunition over the same period. Of that amount, eighty 7.62 calibre rounds for high-powered rifles, were handed over to the Kingston Central police by residents yesterday.

The 19 guns — one sub-machine gun, two shotguns, seven pistols, three revolvers and six home-made weapons — were seized by the police in raids and searches.

Thirty-three year old Decordova Taylor of Old Harbour Road in Spanish Town was the first to be killed in the new year. His life was snuffed out by assailants who attacked him in the vicinity of 35 Lane in Spanish Town shortly before midnight on New Year’s Eve. Taylor was found suffering from a gunshot wound to the ear. The wounded man was taken to the Spanish Town Hospital, where he died from his injuries.

Also listed among the murder victims is Special District Constable Horace McKnight, 42, of St Johns Heights, St Catherine. McKnight was cut down along Cumberland Avenue in Spanish Town as he stopped to buy plantains last Wednesday evening.

Others killed in the first two weeks of 2003 were:

* Duval Duckworth, 29, also known as ‘Shawn’ of Three Oaks Gardens in Kingston;

* Barrington Kern, 28, of Ferry District in St Catherine;

* Boswell Beckford,49, of Camperdown Terrace, Kingston.

* Kemar Martin, also known as ‘Bun Up’ of Jones Town, Kingston;

* Gladstone Allen, 60, a bus driver of Westmoreland;

* Earl Hilton, 59, of Bog Walk, St Catherine.

* Donavan Edmundson, 45, of Tavern Crescent, Kingston 6.

* Alvin Cannigal, 29, of Kingston 7;

* Bruce Carter, 26, of Palmers Cross, Clarendon;

* Peter Cox of Grants Pen Road, Kingston;

* Lorraine Henry of Grants Pen Avenue. Kingston;

* Althea Brown-Powell, a 36 year-old New York resident;

* Joel Laylor, also known as ‘Ducoman’ of Newlands, St Catherine;

* Courtney Douglas, 32, of Spanish Town St Catherine;

* Bryan Thompson, alias ‘Killa’, of Mountain View Avenue, Kingston, and an unidentified man of Kingston.