THE police were yesterday probing the possible involvement of the Spanish Town-based One Order gang into Monday night’s triple murder in Grove Road, Linstead.

The three – 46 year-old Calvin Kanhai, alias “Lego”, a farmer of 26 East Avenue; 19 year-old Damion Mitchel, alias “Star Check”, 19, also of East Avenue; and 38 year-old Donovan Rhooms, alias “Whylie” of Grove Road, all in Linstead, St Catherine – were cut down when two armed men opened fire on them.

Kanhai and Mitchel died a couple feet apart on Grove Road, while Rhooms died in the Linstead Public Hospital.

The Linstead police believe the murders were in retaliation to last Wednesday’s shooting by the police of Renaldo Sachel, who was said to be in his early 20s. Sachel was shot by cops along the train line near Grove Road during an alleged shoot-out.

A police spokesman said Sachel, who resided in the Waterloo area of Spanish Town, was believed to be a member of the One Order gang, which has been blamed for several killings in Spanish Town.

Inspector Michael Brooks of the Linstead Police Station told the Observer that there had been a number of armed robberies in the Grove Road area, which caused the police to increase patrols in the area. It was during a foot patrol late last week Wednesday night that Sachel allegedly engaged the police in the shoot-out and was killed. A gun was recovered, Brooks said.

Jacqueline Hyatt, the mother of Kanhai’s six children said that two of their sons lived with Kanhai, while their other four children lived with her at Grove Road. She heard gunshots on her way home from the shop, Monday night, but was not immediately aware that Kanhai had been shot.

“I stayed on Gillette Street and heard the gunshots. I was coming from shop and was walking down the road when a man said to me ‘Lego, Star Check and Whylie dead.’ I went up to my house and called Tasha my biggest daughter and we ran down to East Avenue where we saw a crowd and the police. We bore through the crowd where I saw Lego lying on his face and Star Check a little way off. All three of them were shot while they were stooping at the mouth of the lane,” Hyatt said.

Mitchel’s mother, Angella Kerr, lamented yesterday that her son, the eldest of her four children, paid little attention to her advice.

“If he had listened to me he would be alive now. Yesterday (Monday) when he got home from work, I said to him gwan home and don’t come back on the street. He was home playing dominoes after 10:00 pm when he got a phone call. He left the house and came to the mouth of the lane.”

Kerr said that she heard gunshots shortly after. “Somebody phoned me and told me to come as something happen to Damion,” Kerr said. It was then that she realised her son had been killed.

Inez Johnson, Rhooms’ mother, said that her son who worked as a handyman at a grocery shop in Linstead, was a Christian and a member of the United Pentecostal Church.

“He just finish cleaning up at the shop and cross the road and stoop down eating bun and cheese and Supligen when he got shot,” Johnson said.