STUDENTS and teachers, as well as parents who had gone to pick up their children, were terrified yesterday afternoon as a policeman shot a man said to be of unsound mind on the compound of the Ardenne High School in Kingston.

Eyewitnesses claimed that even after an 11-year-old girl was allegedly hit by a stray bullet, the policeman chased the man across the school compound and shot him in full view of teachers inside the staff room.

The little girl, who attends the Covenant Christian Academy, was shot in the face as she sat in a school bus which was about to leave the compound about 2:30. She was taken to hospital and admitted in stable condition.

Yesterday, Ardenne principal Esther Tyson said the action of the policeman was totally unwarranted. “I consider it really distressing that this should take place. It is not acceptable as the man was unarmed,” Tyson told reporters.

The incident was also immediately condemned by the Jamaica Teachers’ Association.

“This is going to take the highest level of investigation. Just taking him off front-line duty is not enough,” said Hopeton Henry, president of the association.

The incident happened just as the bell sounded, signalling the end of the school day and was also witnessed by members of the Ardenne alumni who were attending a homecoming function at the school.

An Ardenne staff member, who asked that her name not be used, told the Observer that the man was throwing stones at another man on a bicycle when police in a passing patrol car ordered him to stop. According to the staff member, instead of obeying the policemen’s instruction the man flung a stone and hit one of the cops, then ran onto the school compound.

“The policeman started to chase him and fired four shots,” said the staff member. “One of the bullets hit the girl in her face and hit out some of her teeth. Blood was gushing out of her face. It was a terrible sight.”

But the action did not end there as the cop, gun in hand and with dozens of students in tow, chased the man inside the staff room and shot him in his thigh, while teachers huddled in corners and under desks, watching in fear.

One teacher said the police were unprofessional and uncaring.

“After the man was shot they kicked and beat him. He lay there bleeding for a long time and none of them seemed like they wanted to take him to hospital,” said the teacher. “It was obvious that he is a mad man because he tried to take off his clothes and was talking all kinds of incoherent things.”

The man, too, was taken to hospital and was also admitted in stable condition.

One teacher, who witnessed the second shooting, was taken to hospital yesterday. Tyson said the teacher was traumatised by the incident.

Added the school guidance counselor Rosalee Bogle: “Most of the students who were here are traumatised. We plan to get in counsellors to counsel these students.”

One student who was among a group playing basketball following the shooting was overheard saying, “That policeman look like him madder than the madman. You can fire shot in a school?”