THREE men were killed and a 75-year-old woman injured after gunmen invaded the community of Newlands in Portmore, St Catherine early yesterday morning in what has been linked to an ongoing turf war in the area.

Twenty-year-old Kevon ‘Warlord’ Carty, Lindon ‘Tatty’ Wring, 27, and 25-year-old Omar ‘Brains’ McKoy were all shot dead, while McCoy’s 75-year-old grandmother was critically injured during the attack, which was said to be carried out by at least seven hoodlums minutes before 2:00 am.

According to the residents in the area, the gunmen went to Carter’s house along Miles Crescent where they pried open the door to his room, and pumped several bullets into him as he stood naked and in shock.

The gunmen, the residents said, then went to Wring’s home where they shot and killed him before travelling to 12A Power Avenue where they kicked open the door to McKoy’s home, dragged him to the verandah and shot him in front of eight of his family members.

McKoy’s 75-year-old grandmother, it is said, tried to intervene by pulling him away from the gunmen but was knocked over and shot.

The gunmen then left the area on foot.

McKoy’s grandmother, the Observer was told, has since been taken to hospital where she remained in critical condition up until press time last night.

“You see the old woman that them (the gunmen) shoot, them a go feel it for her. God not sleeping and him not going to let this just go so,” an angry resident said yesterday.

Fearful for their lives, the remaining family members have since fled the area.

Meanwhile, the attack has left Carter’s mother, Carlene Beckford, in a daze. Yesterday she struggled to understand the reasons behind her son’s killing.

“Him (Carter) don’t go out on the road because him don’t keep friends, so I don’t know is what,” she told the Observer while taking periodic puffs on a cigarette on her verandah.

Carty’s room, which was a little way across from his mother’s house, remained a bloody mess up to late yesterday morning with bloodstains splattered on its doorway and walls.

Yesterday, Spanish Town mayor Dr Andrew Wheatley, who visited the crime scene, said he did not believe the attacks were politically motivated.

“This is not a political thing. Most of the people who live in this area I don’t even know which party they support. Just look at him (Carter). he has JLP (Jamaica Labour Party) painted on his door and his mother, that lives in the same yard, has a Team Portia wristband,” Wheatley told the Observer, adding that information he received indicated that the killings were linked to a a gang feud in the area.

This was echoed by Deputy Superintendent Carl Malcolm of the St Catherine South Division, who said preliminary investigations had linked the shootings to “an escalating feud between rival gangs” operating in various sections of the community.

“Information we are picking up on the ground is telling us that it was gang-related,” he said yesterday.