Another member of Coke family goes by the gun
TUESDAY night’s shooting death of Christopher ‘Chris Royal’ Coke makes him the fourth family member to meet a violent end. The other members are Coke’s father, Lester Lloyd “Jim Brown” Coke, Mark “Jah T” Coke and a female sibling who is known only as “Mumpi”.
e elder Coke was a former area leader and head of the notorious Shower Posse that wreaked havoc in Jamaica, The United States and Britain during the gang’s heydays in the 1980s.
Coke became the leader of the streets of Western Kingston after the demise of his predecessor Claudius Massop who was cut down in a hail of police bullets in 1978.
In September, 1988, a federal grand jury indicted 34 members of the Shower Posse, including Lester Lloyd Coke, and Vivian Blake, the leader of the Shower Posse in the United States.
He was arrested and detained and was awaiting extradition when a fire broke out in his cell at the General Penitentiary in downtown Kingston. Before it could be extinguished Lester Coke succumbed to the effects of smoke inhalation.
Coke died the same day his eldest son Mark “Jah T” Coke was to be buried. “Jah T” was shot off his bike a few weeks earlier at the intersection of Maxfield Avenue and Spanish Town Road.
“Mumpi” died in the downtown Kingston area a few months before Mark Coke’s demise. She was also a victim of the gun.
