A gunman was yesterday morning shot dead after he and his crony were overpowered by a female householder during a botched robbery attempt in the upscale community of Beverley Hills in St Andrew.

The woman, who was shot in the leg during the struggle, was admitted to hospital, while the dead man’s accomplice was held by the police following the assistance of alert neighbours.

The dead man was last night identified only as ‘Cookie’, who made his living on the tough streets of Kingston. He was said to be among young men and boys who wiped car windscreens and begged motorists on Hagley Park Road in the Half-Way-Tree area.

According to the police, the woman was in her home at Lombard Close when the two men broke in about 3:00 am.

“A struggle ensued and explosions were heard. The woman then fled the house; it was then discovered that one of the men had been shot in his belly and his accomplice fled,” Deputy Superintendent McArthur Sutherland, crime chief for the St Andrew Central Police Division, told the Observer.

The other man was held in the community after residents alerted the police. He is now being interrogated by detectives and is to undergo an identification parade next week.

Police were, in the meanwhile, searching sections of Beverley Hills in an attempt to find a firearm which the men reportedly used to shoot the woman.

Yesterday, the community of Beverley Hills was quiet and there was no indication that a shooting had taken place there just hours earlier.

Police say they were watching Cookie as their intelligence suggested that he was actively involved in car-jacking, robbery and other crimes.