The shooting of a man by the police at the corner of Slipe Pen and Paisley roads on the outskirts of Jones Town sparked an angry demonstration yesterday afternoon which cops used tear gas to break up.

Persons claiming to be eyewitnesses told the Observer that Derek Watson, who lived at Gordon Road, was shot by the police in cold blood after they stopped the motorcycle on which he was riding with another man at about 2:00 pm.

“Dem no ask dem anything,” said an onlooker. “Put gun to him head an’ shot him.”

Up to eight o’clock last night, the police had not issued any information on the shooting.

“We are still waiting on the information from the Kingston West CIB,” a spokeswoman at the Constabulary Communication Network told the Observer. The newspaper was also unable to find out Watson’s condition.

According to the persons claiming to be eyewitnesses, Watson was shot by police who were travelling in an unmarked vehicle. He was then placed in a police vehicle with two other young people identified only as “Tia” and “Robert”.

The other man on the motorcycle, they said, was held, then released. Some onlookers speculated that the shooting was a case of mistaken identity.

Angered by the shooting, residents blocked some sections of Slipe Pen Road. But police and soldiers fired shots in the air and teargas into the crowd to break up the protest.

“Dem throw two tear gas pon de house,” said Kerine Perrier, a member of the community. She said her roof caught fire and she had to evacuate the small children and her blind grandfather before her family could douse the blaze.

Some of the canisters landed in the front yard of Advent Deliverance Basic School, which has students between three and six years of age, while classes were in session.

This reporter saw a spent canister on the ground between the play equipment.

“They have no regard for these babies,” said Claudette Godfrey, a teacher at the school. She said that some of the children were asthmatic. The teachers had to rush the children to the bathrooms and wet their faces because of the gas. Some of the children vomited and urinated on themselves.

Godfrey also said that a soldier threatened her with a gun from across the street.

Lola Winter, a cook at the school, said her face and neck were sore from the tear gas. “Smoke up di whole place here,” she said. “Me wonder if dis ah de example dem a set fi di children.”

After the police and soldiers had left, one little girl in her blue school uniform was overheard warning a classmate playing on a seesaw to “Come before dem shoot yuh”.