THREE persons were shot dead in Portmore yesterday, pushing the murder tally in the South St Catherine police division to 65 since the beginning of the year.

Dead are:

* Mark “Eyeball” Riley, 25, of Portsmouth;

* Hawkeye Security supervisor, Desmond Hooke, 39, of 2 North, Greater Portmore;

* and 50 year-old Clement McPherson of Lesser Portmore.

Riley was chased about 15 metres by armed men who finally caught up with him and pumped a number of shots into his body. The killers, who had approached Riley as he sat on the sidewalk in the Swaby Lane area of Waterford, Portmore, left the scene on foot, the police said.

Yesterday, residents refused to comment on the brazen daylight attack. A small group of persons sat on a sidewalk, staring blankly at a pool of Riley’s curdled blood that had been partially covered with dirt.

“Them killing deh a gang war ting, Nobody nah go know nothing,” whispered a source.

Riley’s death has left his five day-old daughter without a father.

Meanwhile three children — aged 16, eight and four — have been left to mourn the death of their father, Hooke, the second Hawkeye Security team member to be killed in the Greater Portmore area in the last 12 days. On September 30, Hawkeye’s Andrew Blackstock was gunned down about 10 yards from his home in 2 East, Greater Portmore and his Glock 9mm pistol stolen.

Hooke was killed at about 5:45 am yesterday as he was preparing to leave home for work. Police said the security guard was shot by a gunman as he attempted to close the padlock on his burglar bars.

The killer did not manage to take Hooke’s semi-automatic pistol, although he managed to escape with the guard’s loaded magazine, cops said.

The 39 year-old man was shot twice, in the neck and chest.

His wife, Yvette, was severely traumatised by the incident and had to receive medical assistance.

“She can’t manage it, they had to take her to the doctor for treatment,” a relative of the slain man told the Observer at the scene.

Hooke’s sister was devastated.

“Why them have to do him so? Why them have to do mi bredda so?” the woman wailed as tears streamed from her bloodshot eyes.

Up to press time, the Portmore police had no motive for the killing, but a source at Hawkeye claimed that Hooke was involved in foiling a robbery in Southdale Plaza in 1991. One of the robbers was captured by the police and Hooke may have been killed because of his role in the incident, the source theorised.

And there was also no official word, yesterday, about the motive for the slaying of the third man killed in Portmore yesterday. McPherson, a church deacon and prison warder, was killed by a single shot to the head in the Lesser Portmore area.

According to police reports, the Hamilton Gardens resident was walking with another man — whom cops have identified as the pastor for the church — when he was confronted by a group of men.

The pastor, cops said, was not hurt during the attack.