TWO of approximately six armed men who held up a passenger bus were shot dead yesterday morning by a licensed firearm holder in Kingston, Jamaica’s capital city.

Frightened passengers on the bus, operated by the National Transport Co-operative Society (NTCS), were forced to duck for cover as gunshots rang out during the botched robbery along Slipe Road, an area of the city where buses are frequently held up.

The dead men were identified as 22-year-old Kashka Clarke of Franklyn Town in Kingston and Damion Williams, alias ‘Omar’, of Slipe Road.

Police said the men, shortly after boarding the bus at Torrington Bridge about 9:00, brandished guns and knives and proceeded to rob the passengers and conductor.

The robbers were, however, surprised by the licensed firearm holder who opened fire, hitting Clarke and Richard, according to the Constabulary Communication Network, the police’s information arm. The bloody Clarke, the police said, attempted to escape but collapsed and died on Slipe Road, while Williams succumbed to his injuries inside the public passenger vehicle. The other hold-up men escaped on foot in the area.

The passengers escaped unhurt, but eyewitnesses said some of them jumped through the windows of the Toyota Coaster bus during the ordeal.

Yesterday, as Scene of Crime detectives examined the death scene, Elaine Scott, Clarke’s mother, wept uncontrollably as she viewed his lifeless body sprawled on the hot asphalt.

According to the grieving woman, her son had left home for work and “was in the wrong place at the wrong time”.

“I don’t know what else to say; Kashka leave out to go to work this morning. Is janitor work him do at a guest house near King’s House. I don’t know how he managed to end up here this morning,” said Scott, as a teary-eyed male relative consoled her.

“If him guilty God will deal with it and if it is innocent blood that was shed, God will deal with it, I just have to leave it up to God,” cried the woman, before her shaky voice broke into a solemn gospel hymn.

But while Scott and a handful of Clarke’s relatives wept, dozens of onlookers who gathered at a nearby gas station, gloated over the men’s demise.

“Is regular them come rob the bus them on the road, I don’t sorry for none of them. Is poor people travel on bus and is the same poor people them robbing, I wouldn’t mind if everyday two of them dead just like these two,” said a male onlooker.