THE police last night maintained a curfew in large swathes of Spanish Town after yesterday’s killing of three persons and the injuring of six others in Ellerslie Pen, the results, cops claim, of on-going feud in the notorious One Order Gang.

However, community residents told reporters that the gun battles also involved members of One Order’s bitter rivals, the Clansman Gang.

Both gangs are nominally aligned to the two major political parties – One Order to the Opposition Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) and Clansman to the ruling People’s National Party (PNP). They have in the past fought each other for control over the extortion racket in Spanish Town.

Shortly after the incident, police who rushed to the area traded gunfire with men who apparently attempted a get away in a car. The gunmen, the police said, abandoned the champagne-coloured Toyota Corolla, which was seized by the cops.

The car contained a number of AK-47 spent shells and traces of blood, said Steve McGreggor, the acting operations officer at the Spanish Town Police station.

Yesterday, officials of the JLP, including Central St Catherine MP Olvia “Babsy” Grange and the party’s leader-in-waiting Bruce Golding, toured the communities of Tawes Pen, a JLP bastion, and Ellerslie Pen which, in the past, have skirmished.

But Golding ruled out divisions between the communities for yesterday’s “terrible incident”.

“There is no real tension between the communities,” he said. “It is individuals in the community that have disputes.”

Last night the police had not yet identified two males who were killed in the Ellerslie Pen shooting, but named the third victim as Nackay Ferguson, 19, from Ellerslie Pen.

The injured included two girls, aged nine and 13.

According to the police, the shooting started at about 11:45 in the morning when several armed men, some in a car and others on foot, went into Ellerslie Pen, spoiling for a battle.

“They reportedly engaged gang members of that community in a shoot-out, which resulted in the nine persons being shot,” said an official police report.

Residents who declined to give their names, but claimed to be eyewitnesses, said some of the “invaders” wore police helmets and vests with identification numbers. They were, however, not fooled that these were police, having recognised some of the men as gang members.

The police are investigating whether the gangsters were in genuine police gear.

“That is why the Bureau of Special Investigations (BSI) and other departments were there on the scene to investigate the matter,” said McGreggor, the Spanish Town police officer.

While members of One Order and Clansman have fought each other over operational territory and spoils and long forgotten reasons, there have also been several causes of tension between One Order itself.

One Order, apparently was an outgrowth of the determined effort of one gang leader Oliver “Bubba” Smith to pull all pro-JLP gangs in the Spanish Town area under a single umbrella – one order.

Gangs and communities which resisted paid a price in violence, which in 2002 and 2003 led to several inter- and intra-gang fights and deaths.

Last July, Smith himself was shot dead in Kingston, believed to have been killed by his own gang members who were dissatisfied with their share of the take from robberies and other operations.

But despite the police’s claim, some Ellerslie Pen residents were adamant that One Order was not responsible for yesterday’s shootings.

“None of them was One Order gunman,” said one woman who asked not to be named.