WESTERN BUREAU — Police last night maintained a heavy presence in the shanty settlement of Canterbury in Montego Bay after yesterday’s day-long firefight with gunmen in which three of the hardcases were killed and three cops shot and injured.

In the late evening, after the shooting had quieted, assistant police commissioner Arthur Martin said his men would stay in the community of narrow, winding alleys and mostly shacks and lean-tos until all the gunmen “have been flushed out and firearm recovered”.

Up to last night the police could identify the dead men only by aliases — Mad Dog, who was about 20; Redman, whom they estimated to be about 25; and Chef, believed to be of similar age. All lived in the Canterbury area, which is about two miles east of the Montego Bay city centre. Its houses are set in a narrow valley and an over-looking hillside.

By nightfall 19 men and one woman from the community, aged between 19 and 35, had been taken into custody and police said that they had recovered more than 50 .38 cartridges.

Recently, Canterbury has not only been considered a hotbed of criminal activity but also a haven for criminals after they commit crimes elsewhere in the parish of St James, whose murder count has gone more than 80 so far this year.

In response to this crime wave the police have mounted a series of operations in the parish, attempting to flush out the criminals. It is this initiative which partly provides the context for yesterday’s battle, which lasted for more than nine hours and at times raged with great intensity.

It started at about six o’clock in the morning when Superintendent Donald Pusey led members of his Special Anti-Crime Task Force and officers from the St James Division into Canterbury, hoping to nab criminals and recover guns and ammunition.

Martin told reporters that Pusey and his men came under heavy gunfire, which they returned, and the police claimed that if they had not had a larger-than-usual contingent for such raids, they would have been overwhelmed.

“We usually have about 25 men at our disposal,” said Superintendent Newton Amos, who is in charge of the St James Division. “This morning we went in with 80 men. If we had gone in with the usual 25, all of us would have to run out of there.”

During the first assault, the three policemen were shot and at least two service vehicles damaged.

The injured cops are Constable Franklin Hunter and Corporal Wilbert Jones who work in St James, and Constable Lori Nelson, who is assigned to the Special Anti-Crime Task Force. The St James cops were treated and sent home but Nelson remained in hospital in serious condition.

The gunmen, the police said, with command of high ground, fired AK47 and M16 assault rifles and initially pinned down the team of lawmen.

Some of the drama was broadcast live across Jamaica on morning radio just before 8:00 am when St James police spokesman Peter Salkey spoke by mobile phone to the hosts of the HOT 102 morning programme, The Breakfast Club.

At times, the heavy rat tat tat bursts of heavy-calibre weapon fire drowned out Salkey’s voice and he told listeners that a Jamaica Defence Force helicopter that hovered above the scene had to fly high because it was coming under gunfire. This fire, Salkey said, was coming from the gunmen, initially estimated at eight.

A Canterbury resident interviewed on the programme said that some of the heavy bursts sounded like they were coming from “a rocket launcher” and that he had heard similar gunfire in the area in recent weeks as though the users were testing a new weapon.

At about 8:30 am there was a lull in the gunfire and several persons were seen leaving the area. Some residents, however, were afraid to leave, wary of being caught in the cross-fire if the shooting re-started.

Two elderly women wept openly at a shop on the periphery of Canterbury.

One was on her way home from work when she came upon the shooting.

“Lord have mercy,” she wailed. “Me never see anything like this before.”

She had lived in Canterbury for more than 25 years.

At about 10′ clock the calm, or quiet, ended. More bursts of gunfire from the Canterbury hillside and deep in the community.

Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. Brrrrrrrrrrr. A bar at Upper King Street, in an area close to Canterbury, appeared to be the deliberate target.

Reporters and police got flat. They stayed on the floor for more than 10 minutes, as gunshots ricocheted off the building.

By mid-day, scores of other policemen and JDF soldiers, who were airlifted to Montego Bay, had cordoned off the entire community. By now a second JDF helicopter arrived to help provide cover. But the gunmen still appeared to have the upper hand.

On the ground, many of the policemen were clearly becoming frustrated and angry with the state of affairs.

Shortly after 3:00 pm, with more than 300 police in the area, the lawmen closed in on the community. There was a new round of gunfire. Heavy barrages coming from either side.

When the shooting subsided, three of the gunmen were found to be nursing injuries. They were taken to the Cornwall Regional Hospital where they were pronounced dead.

Martin told the Observer that police had not been able to take control of Canterbury earlier because of the closeness of the houses to each other, the firepower of the gunmen and the terrain of the community.

“The police were surprised by the attack from a number of gunmen in the area, so they had to manoeuver themselves in order for them not be seriously injured or even killed,” he said.

Martin’s boss, police commissioner Francis Forbes praised the effectiveness of his men on the ground, after they were initially pinned down.

“Because of the training these men received they were able to fend off the attack,” Forbes said.

Staff reporter Karyl Walker also contributed to this story