RESIDENTS of Jobs Lane, Spanish Town, St Catherine, yesterday mounted a number of fiery roadblocks in the community to protest against the fatal shooting of Everette Laing, 23, allegedly by the police.

The Spanish Town Police said that at about 11:15 am yesterday Laing engaged a group of cops in a shoot-out. The police said the man was shot dead during the exchange of fire at his place of business – a bar – at the intersection of Jobs Lane and St John’s Road in Spanish Town.

The police also said that they recovered a A .38 Smith and Wesson revolver along with four live rounds and four spent shells from the scene.

But angry residents yesterday disputed the police’s version of the incident, and used debris, logs, old zinc sheets and tyres to block at least four sections of the roadway, demanding ‘justice’. They then set the tyres ablaze.

However, firefighters from the Old Harbour Fire Station later extinguished the fire, and a bulldozer was used to clear the blockage.

Laing’s sister, Stacey-Ann Laing, told the Observer that she and her brother were at his bar (upstairs the Texaco gas station) when two cops entered and allegedly asked for the owner. She said her brother identified himself, and one of the cops allegedly shot him twice.

“He was playing the poker box inna de bar when de police dem enter and ask fi de owner. So him seh a mi a di owner. Then mi just see when one of de policeman shot him, and when him drop him shot him again,” Laing said.

She told the Observer that her brother was not a criminal, and that he had opened the pub three weeks ago. Stacey-Ann also alleged that the cops told her to lay on the floor, pulled her hair and then kicked her several times, before verbally assaulting her. She said they then ordered her to go downstairs.

She said that after the officer took her downstairs, she heard a few more shots, and then the cops pulled her brother’s body outside, put it in a jeep and drove to the hospital.

Yesterday, the protestors vowed to continue blocking the road until they got justice for the Laings, whom they said were “Christian people”.