IT has become all too familiar.

Two people are dead; gunned down, neighbours say, by the security forces who were in their community to protect them.

The police have launched an investigation with acting Assistant Commissioner of Police and head of the Bureau of Special Investigations Granville Gause ordered to supply daily progress reports to Deputy Commissioner of Police in charge of crime Lucius Thomas.

Gause has been asked to find out what really happened in August Town, Kingston 7, at about 9:15 Sunday night. The shooting, which sparked a protest in the community yesterday, left 45 year-old Sandra Sewell and Gion “Neil” Halcott, 19, dead.

They were both from August Town.

Residents of the Jungle 12 and Angola areas of the tough inner-city community who took to the streets yesterday claimed that Sewell and Halcott were gunned down by Jamaica Defence Force soldiers. The soldiers, along with cops, had been patrolling the community during a curfew imposed shortly after Hurricane Ivan and the looting that ensued.

According to the official police report, members of a joint police/military team were patrolling the Jungle 12 area when they came upon a group of persons, including one man who had a ganja cigar. The man was accosted by a member of the patrol team.

“It is clear that shots were fired and later it was discovered that Halcott and Sewell had received gunshot wounds,” said the Constabulary Communication Network.

Both were taken to hospital where they were pronounced dead.

The police say they are taking steps to find out the origin of a Mack II submachine gun which was allegedly recovered at the scene.

Yesterday, scores of angry August Town residents converged on the police station. They feel safer, they said, without the security forces who had been sent to protect them.

“We don’t want no soldier in our community,” activist Kenneth Wilson’s voice boomed through a bullhorn. “All soldiers must leave around here.”

Through tears of grief and anger, community members accused the security forces of cold-blooded murder and brutality. No gun was recovered, they said, and Sewell was killed as she crouched to escape the gunfire that barked from the patrol team’s guns.

She was popular, well known for her community work and seen as an area leader for Jungle 12. Hours before she died, she was reportedly involved in the handing out of hurricane relief supplies in the area. She, along with Halcott, was on the way to a birthnight party at Jungle 12 when the soldiers swooped down on the area and started roughing up residents, the protesters alleged.

“Me see one soldier shot Neil in him belly and him spin out a him shoes,” said one irate man. “Him try run off but the soldier go down pan him knee and shot him some more. Him drop pan him back and sit up before him drop down and start gap.”

Sewell, the residents claimed, was killed as she tried to call out to the soldiers.

“The soldier shot after her and she duck and ask, ‘a wha’? And him just pump shot in her and kill her on the spot,” a woman reported.

The residents, some who bore placards with the words “Woman Killer”, also claimed that the soldiers dragged Sewell by her hair and threw her bleeding body in a van while a dying Halcott convulsed violently on the roadway.

In recent weeks, August Town has been a hotbed of violence after a gang feud broke out between rivals from the Jungle 12 and Judgment Yard areas. Police report that three persons have been murdered in the area and a number of other people shot and injured.

Sunday’s killings were just the latest in a long, bloody trail of death.

Sewell is survived by three sons and her 15-year-old daughter Sue-Ann Trench. Yesterday, the teenage girl seemed to be losing the battle to come to grips with the reality that her mother had been slaughtered.

In between bouts of crying, she managed to smile with relatives and friends but most of the time the pain was etched on her face.

“She say she soon come,” were the only words the child could muster before bursting into another round of crying.

In another corner, Sewell’s cousin, known only as “Veniesha”, cried uncontrollably.

Sewell’s 72 year-old grandfather Samuel Mathews was furious and rode his bicycle in circles on the road near the entrance of the police station.

The elderly man swore and gesticulated threateningly at the security officers who were present, and constantly demanded an explanation for his grandchild’s death.

“Dem not giving no good argument. Kill off de pickney like life no have no value,” Mathews told the Observer.

The human rights group Jamaicans For Justice condemned the killings, saying the incident was an example of the “dangers inherent” in the state of public emergency effected in the wake of looting and other unlawful acts during the passage of Hurricane Ivan.

Yesterday, head of the Peace Management Initiative Bishop Herro Blair begged the residents to stay calm.

“It is hard to understand why things like these happen, but we must remain calm,” Blair said during a meeting called on the grounds of the August Town Primary School.