AN off-duty police constable moonlighting as a bag juice vendor, was shot and killed in an apparent mid-morning hit on a busy street in Sydenham near Spanish Town, St Catherine yesterday.

Police who theorised the brazen killing could have been a case of mistaken identity, named the dead cop as Dexter Wright, 42, of the Mobile Reserve. He became the sixth policeman to be killed since the start of this year.

Wright was gunned down as he sat in a blue and white Nissan van at the intersection of Federal Road and Central Avenue minutes before 11:00 am. He was delivering bag juice to business places in the area when two men approached him, pretending they wanted to purchase his product, and fired two shots in his direction, killing him on the spot. The men escaped on foot.

The Spanish Town homicide police who are investigating the latest cop killing, have ruled out robbery as a motive. Wright’s service revolver and several thousand dollars which he had in his possession, were not taken by his assassins.

Police have taken one man into custody for questioning in relation to the killing. The man, whose name has been withheld by the police, will be swabbed and his clothes tested for gunpowder residue as investigators work to catch the murderers.

A highly-placed police source at the Mobile Reserve informed the Sunday Observer that robbers held up the same vehicle with a different driver and robbed him of a quantity of cash last week.

“The van was robbed last week. We recovered a submachine gun and the money. Two men are now in custody as a result. Maybe he (Wright) was gunned down in light of the pending case,” the officer said.

An onlooker at the death scene told the newspaper that the other driver of the van was warned to stay off the road and Wright’s murder may have been a case of mistaken identity.

The fact that Wright was killed while he moonlighted, brought an outcry from the dead policeman’s colleagues.

“The man was killed while he worked to get extra money to support his family. Policeman’s pay too small and that is why some man have to try another job,” one of Wright’s colleagues said angrily.

Corporal Wright is survived by wife, Nancy and four children ages 21, 19, 11 and 9. He served 12 years as a police officer and his superintendent, Jonathan Morrison of the Mobile Reserve, described him as a family-oriented person.

“He was a dutiful father and husband, always talking good things about his family,” said a visibly shaken Morrison.

Wright’s widow, overcome by grief, wept uncontrollably inside the CIB office of the Spanish Town Police Station.

“Him was mi best friend. It shock me. Oh God, have mercy,” the bereaved woman wailed. The grieving widow was taken away from the station by Inspector Cupie Collier, peer counsellor at the Mobile Reserve, who attempted to console her.

In the last three years, the number of policemen to have succumbed to gunmen’s bullets has steadily climbed. Sixteen cops were killed last year, one more than the previous year. Eleven cops were killed in 2000.

Nancy Wright (left), whose husband, Constable Dexter Wright, was shot dead yesterday by gunmen in Sydenham, St Catherine, is comforted by Inspector Cupie Collier, peer counsellor at the Mobile Reserve.

(Photo: Bryan Cummings)