Two men shot dead while sitting in vehicle downtown
TWO men were yesterday shot dead by gunmen on Pechon Street, in downtown Kingston, while the police killed one man and recovered a gun, after an exchange of gunfire during the evening peak hour in Half-Way-Tree.
At about 1:25 yesterday afternoon, Ian Crawford, a mechanic at the Police Transport and Repair Division and Howard Clarke, a mechanic of Campbell’s Boulevard in Kingston, were killed in a Land Rover pick-up, licensed 9883 DP, in which they were sitting.
Crawford was shot in the left side of his face and the bullet exited from the right side of his neck. Clarke was shot once in the back of the head.
It appeared that Clarke had tried to escape his killers or was about to leave the vehicle as his left foot dangled lifelessly through a half-opened door of the vehicle. Crawford’s body was slumped over the steering wheel of the vehicle and a dried-up drop of blood hung from his nose.
The Constabulary Communication Network (CCN), the constabulary’s information arm, said the police had not established a motive for the shooting of the two men in downtown Kingston.
The police also say that despite their arrival on the scene about seven minutes after the shooting took place, the killers had enough time to pick up the spent shells before leaving.
Pechon Street is a busy part of the downtown area and despite the many persons who use that area to sell and purchase goods, people at the scene told the police that they knew nothing about the shooting, frustrating police officers.
“Everytime incidents like these happen people are there who see, and if it is not a family member, no one say anything,” said an obviously upset Inspector Victor Henry, of the CCN.
“People are a bit cagey. They are fearful for their lives and the killer might be in the crowd standing, but we have to take a stand,” added Henry.
Meanwhile, at about 5:00 in the afternoon, a gunman was killed on the premises of the Ministry of Water and Housing after he robbed a Shell gas station on Half-Way-Tree Road. The police said they recovered a .357 magnum revolver and two live rounds from the body of the man, who had earlier held up and robbed a gas station attendant and walked away with an undetermined sum of money. He was eventually challenged by the police and responded by engaging them in a running gunbattle in Half-Way-Tree.
The gunman is reported to have climbed on top of buildings in the area as he tried to escape. He was, however, cut down after he leapt from the roof of a building and landed between a wall and a fence separating the Water and Housing Ministry from TVJ. His body was taken from the small space with a piece of rope.