Santa Cruz, St Elizabeth – As is so often the case, the stories from the police and the residents are diametrically opposed.

What is not in dispute is that all hell broke loose at Four Roads, in Slipe, south west St Elizabeth yesterday after Roger Banton, 23, was shot dead by police in a pre-dawn raid at his house.

When the dust settled following clashes between police and rioting residents, at least seven other people had been injured, including a woman nursing bullet wounds, a television cameraman who was mobbed and beaten by residents and five policemen – hit by stones.

Police say when they knocked on the door of the room in which Banton was staying in an unfinished house at about 5:00 am, he opened the door and pointed a gun at them. They opened fire hitting him. The police say they took a Larcin pistol and magazine with three live rounds from Banton who was wanted for a murder in the neighbouring district of Vineyard in June last year.

Angry, grieving residents who concede that some among them threw stones at the police, rejected the police version, saying Banton, who was alone at home at the time, never owned a gun and had never been seen with one.

Hours of mayhem followed the shooting, which Banton’s neighbours say happened at about 4:30 am – half-an hour earlier than the time given by the police. Eyewitnesses say people threw stones at the police after discovering that Banton was dead and the police fired tear gas canisters and gunshots. Twenty-five year-old mother of four, Barbara Barrett – apparently the victim of a stray bullet – was shot in the right breast and right arm.

Santa Cruz-based TVJ cameraman, Rodney Longmore – accused of assisting the police after being early on the scene – was mobbed, beaten and slashed by angry residents, his camera destroyed and the windshield of his motor car smashed. Up to late yesterday he was being treated at hospital for a cut to the forehead, a slash to the back and a badly swollen ankle.

The police say five of their colleagues had to be treated at hospital after being hit by stones. The chief of police in the parish, Superintendent Fitzgerald Barrett, who visited the scene late morning, was also reportedly hit by a stone. Three police cars were damaged by the stone-throwing rioters and the police say at least one car appeared to have been hit by a bullet.

In the face of the residents’ anger, police say they had to beat a hasty retreat without being able to take Banton to hospital.

Banton’s relatives and neighbours, who say the body was not moved until early afternoon by funeral home personnel, dispute the police version, saying the lawmen left the young man to die.

“Dem shoot the man from 4:30 in the morning, is only police out there at that time. All di people dem lock up in dem house. The people never come out until day light out, so what was to stop them (police) from tek ‘im to hospital?” asked shopkeeper and a neighbour of Banton, Carl Pennicook.

The police also made arrests. A young man from Portmore, who the cops say was wanted for murder in St Catherine, was taken into custody. His name was not released.

Another man, 25 year-old Keith Hutchinson, was charged with illegal possession of a firearm, resulting from what the police say was a long-standing report.

When the Observer visited Slipe – known for shrimp and located at the edge of the Black River Morass, two miles south of Lacovia down horrendously potholed roads – in the early afternoon yesterday, cops from the Bureau of Special Investigations were on hand interviewing residents and inspecting the scene.

The door of the room in which Banton died had been taken off its hinges. The door had three bullet holes and residents showed journalists bullet marks in the door jamb, the bedroom wall and the refrigerator. The oven of the stove had been unhinged and the room ransacked with sparse furnishings piled on the bed.

“Jesus would have to come and tell me that this man own gun . the only thing I ever see ‘im do is smoke little weed,” said Pennicook of Banton.

Banton’s uncle and nearest neighbour, Enoch Banton, told of how he was kicked just above the thigh by a police officer when he tried to get to the scene where his nephew was shot.

The deceased’s grandmother, Hyacinth Banton, choking with tears, rejected any suggestion that her grandson could have owned a gun. “You can ask anybody,” she told the Observer.

“Nobody know him in the district as a bad person, nobody ever hear of him doing anything wrong,” she added.

Amidst the grief, at least one family felt they had reason to be thankful. Half-a-mile down the road from the Bantons, Yvonne Dunkley, mother of Barbara Barrett, was relieved her daughter’s life had been spared. “Wi nuh feel too good but at least we have to give God thanks that she is still alive and the injury is not life-threatening,” she said.

Last night, JLP caretaker for south west St Elizabeth, Chris Tufton, called for an “independent investigation” of the whole incident, in light of what he said was the very different stories told by the police and the residents.

– myersg@jamaicaobserver.com