SERGEANT Donald Burke of the Mobile Reserve was yesterday shot dead by gunmen, just after stepping outside of a restaurant at Spanish Village Plaza in Twickenham Park, Spanish Town. His private firearm was not taken by his killers.

His death brings to 11 the number of policemen gunned down this year.

Burke, 48, who lived in Zephyrton in Linstead, St Catherine was assigned to the Special Operations Squad operating out of the Police Area 5 Headquarters, Constant Spring, St Andrew. However, he worked out of the Central Village Police Station, where some members of the special squad were assigned.

According to Superintendent Neville Salmon, the crime chief for Area 5, at about 12:30 pm yesterday Burke, who was driving his private Toyota Corolla motor car, registered 5600 DN, to work at Central Village Police Station, stopped at the Spanish Village Plaza to purchase a patty meal. He said two men who had followed him inside the restaurant, also followed him to his car after he purchased his meal.

The men, Salmon said, held onto the cop when a struggle developed and he was shot in the hip by the gunmen. The injured cop was taken to the hospital by a passing motorist. He died while being treated.

As scores of police officers, headed by the deputy crime chief, Assistant Commissioner George Williams converged on the scene, traffic backed up for more than an hour on the Twickenham Park main road as police collected samples from the blood splattered in the car park where Burke struggled with his killers.

Shoppers at the plaza who apparently witnessed the incident refused to speak.

A Toyota motor car parked near to Burke’s car was shot up. Three bullet holes, two to the rear windscreen and one to the right rear door bore witness of the gunmen’s bullets.

A grief-stricken Lazil Burke,59, of Byndloss Linstead, elder brother of the deceased cop, stood in amazement as he viewed the body of his brother. “I was driving my truck along the River Road (Bog Walk Gorge) and a policeman stopped me and begin to cry and say dem shot me brother and him dead. I could not move how I was frightened because is only yesterday (Monday) I saw him and we talked. I can’t tell you how terrible I feel now,” he said faintly.

Supt Salmon remembered Burke as a quiet, hard worker who was dedicated to what ever he does. “He will be sorely missed,” he said.

Detective Inspector Michael Champagnie of the Spanish Town CIB said Burke was a vegetarian. “He does not eat meat and perhaps he stopped here to buy veggie patties because he should be on duty at 1:00 pm. He was a fair and hardworking policeman. His team is based at Central Village and he was the driver of the armoured unit. Boy… we will miss him badly,” he said.

Yesterday, the Jamaica Police Federation expressed “outrage and anger at the brutal killing” and called on Jamaicans to rally with the security forces and take back our country from the thugs who continue to wreak havoc on the society.

The Federation said that miscreants in the society who target police officers and other citizens must be made to pay, and safe haven for them must be a thing of the past.

It said the police would not be intimidated and promised that no stone would be left unturned to hunt cop killers, and that the full weight of the law would be meted out to them.

Sergeant Burke, a 28-year veteran of the constabulary, is survived by mother Mina Burke, father Constantine, four children, two sisters and four brothers.

– whytetk@jamaicaobserver.com