Yet another protest by citizens against police shootings was mounted yesterday, following the wounding of a 10-year-old girl as police chased an alleged wanted man in the Clarendon district of New Longsville near May Pen, the capital.

Last week, St Thomas and St James came ablaze with demonstrations over the shooting deaths of two citizens for which police was being blamed, triggering an investigation by the Bureau of Special Investigations.

Yesterday, police moved swiftly to quell an angry protest by residents inveighing against the shooting of a man and a child, in New Longsville in the mid-island parish.

Ten-year-old, Saroya Ellis and Wayne Hibbert, 25, were shot when cops fired at the alleged wanted man on a premises in the community.

The child was shot in the right knee and the man above his right ankle.

Commanding officer, Superintendent Radcliffe Lewis, said that shortly after 10:00 am, a police party was carrying out surveillance in the community when they spotted Martin ‘Froggy’ Shand, a suspect in the murder earlier this year of Newton Chambers.

When the police approached, Shand allegedly reached into his waistband and a handgun was seen, according to Lewis. The suspect ran and during the ensuing chase, police opened fire at him.

It was later discovered that Ellis and Hibbert were shot.

Lewis defended the police’s action, saying: “They are only humans and these things will happen at times.”

“If the police’s life is being threatened, meaning if a gun is pulled or seen, the police will fire,” he said.

In his account of the incident, the wounded Hibbert said that Ellis was on her way to church, when she stopped at his home and asked for ice. Minutes after, several police officers alighted from an unmarked, Toyota motorcar and immediately started firing in their direction.

“Me tell her that she should go ask my sister and me stand up and watch her because she was afraid of the dog. All of a sudden me just see the car drive up and pure gunshot start fire,” Hibbert told the Observer.

He said that it was only after one of the cops asked if he had been shot that he realised they were police officers.

During the demonstration, residents blocked a section of the New Longsville main road.