THE loud crack of gunfire filled the air, startling mourners gathered at the wake for Johnny Morris, a respectable member of the ruling Jamaica Labour Party, who died of natural causes.

The illegal but common practice triggered fear among the mourners at the vigil in Belfield, St Mary early last month.

The culprits?

Five sets of young men — one of them a licensed firearm holder.

“Lick one ya now,” one said to his colleague in crime who brandished a handgun.

Close to a dimly-lit section of the community, another group of young men was engaged in a robust conversation, punctuated by laughter. Suddenly four shots were fired from within the group, eliciting another bout of laughter.

People on their way to the wake stopped in their tracks, waiting to see if the young men would move from the shadows into the lit area.

“Wait, a wha a gwaan dung dey so? Me no like fe walk inna dark when man a fire shot,” said one woman.

“But a wha do dem ya bwoy, eeh? How dem can just a have gun salute so?” a man remarked.

With broad chests and enlarged boasts, the offenders moved into the spotlight of public scrutiny with an air of impunity. Soon after, more shots followed, at other sections of the community, greeted with a mixture of cheers and fear from the crowd, who had different views about the purpose of the action.

“Hey, da one dey no sound like it a say nutten, man,” a teenaged boy said to members of his crew, minutes after a barrage of shots went off at another location.

“A clean it want fe clean,” another said in obvious reference to the firearm from which the shots were discharged.

Days after the gun salutes, the matter continued to be a talking point among people in the community.

“Bwoy, a hear say a just miss a shot Saturday night,” one joked to another.

“Why you think you would get shot?” the other asked.

“Then you no see how me head big, this couldn’t miss a shot,” he replied.

The community of nine square miles in size is fast gaining a reputation as a repository for guns.

It was in the same community that a member of the Jamaica Defence Force was entangled in a gun salute at a party, mere weeks before, and the same community in which 11 men from Spanish Town live in one house. They are not believed to be patron saints.

“I heard about it (gun salute) and the police went there to investigate, but as usual the people were tight-lipped. Nobody saw a thing,” said the police superintendent in charge of St Mary, Dudley Scott.

“That is not something that should be tolerated,” said Scott, who has long served as the top policeman in the parish, which has a history of having the lowest crime rate in Jamaica.

The practice of gun salutes started centuries ago as a symbolic gesture to mark historic occasions. It has remained part of Jamaican tradition and is still used on special occasions, such as visits by foreign leaders and at State funerals of prominent Jamaicans, including prime ministers.

Jamaica’s head of State, Queen Elizabeth II, was greeted with a 21-gun salute when she arrived in Jamaica on her sixth visit on February 18, 2002.

Tanzanian President Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete and first lady Salma Kikwete were received with a friendly, symbolic 21-gun salute by the Jamaica Defence Force last November 23 when they arrived here for a three-day State visit.

On July 18, 2004, late former Jamaica Prime Minister Hugh Lawson Shearer was honoured with a 19-gun salute, with one shot being fired at certain points during and at the end of his funeral procession to National Heroes’ Park, where his body was interred.

Montego Bay’s elevation to city status in 1981 was also marked by a gun salute.

However, over the past three decades, unauthorised gun salutes have slowly become commonplace in Jamaican society. And although police say they have little to go off statistically, to show that the practice is on the rise, Jamaicans often bemoan the wanton discharge of firearms which, many say, drives fear into the hearts of people, even as it gives others a rush.

Records show that police have made several arrests in the last year alone for unauthorised gun salutes, some of them done by cops who swore to protect, serve and reassure Jamaica’s 2.7 million inhabitants. Others include licensed owners and users of firearms, while a few have been holders of illegal firearms.

The police high command interdicted three of their lower-ranked personnel, two constables and a corporal, following a gun salute at the elaborate funeral of a member of the Spanish Town-based One Order gang.

The three are awaiting a ruling from the director of public prosecutions after they allegedly discharged their guns toward the end of the funeral of Patrick ‘Kingman’ McDonald Jnr, in Bunker’s Hill, Trelawny, late January.

McDonald was shot dead by a gunman while leaving the Black & White Affair party at the National Arena in Kingston on New Year’s Day.

In another case, a 33-year-old businessman, who is a licensed firearm holder, has been charged with inappropriately discharging his firearm within 40 yards of a crowd, while a 20-year-old Spanish Town man was held with an illegal gun, arising from the same incident.

There have been times, too, when gun salutes have turned deadly or have resulted in people being wounded.

Last month, a gun salute for Flanker resident Jermaine Spence, who was killed by the police on January 14, left a woman with a badly injured leg after she was hit by a utility pole felled by bullets.

One Kingston resident, who opted not to be named, gave a chilling account of being caught in the middle of a gun salute at a stage show more than 15 years ago.

“I remember it very well,” he said. “A friend and I were at Fort Clarence Beach at a stage show when some patrons started firing shots to demonstrate approval of the lyrics being chanted by a deejay.

“It was one of the scariest moments of my life because I couldn’t run, and with each explosion I wondered whether the persons firing the shots were pulling the trigger when their guns were pointing up or while they were on their way up,” he said, shuddering at the memory.

In addition to the possibility of people being shot, illegal gun salutes have, in the past, resulted in stampedes. At the funeral of well-known People’s National Party activist Winston ‘Burry Boy’ Blake, attended by former Prime Minister Michael Manley in the 1970s, police were caught off guard and they, along with hundreds of mourners, had to scamper for cover when close associates of the slain man let loose a barrage of shots at the end of the proceedings.

‘Burry Boy’ was killed by a gunman along Darling Street in West Kingston on March 14, 1975.

On March 15, 1992, a day after the 17th anniversary of ‘Burry Boy’s death, Manley — during a news conference in Kingston as he prepared to demit office for the second time as prime minister — expressed regret for having attended the funeral.

Deputy commissioner of police in charge of operations Glenmore Hinds said that the police continue to be vigilant in respect of gun salutes, but the absence of statistical proof made him non-committal on whether there is an increase in the practice.

“It is difficult to say if there has been an increase in gun salutes in recent times or if this is a growing trend, because I don’t have the statistics,” said Hinds. “However, there have been instances when we have arrested offenders. Our systems are always in place and we sometimes are proactive at funerals in particular, based upon the profile of the person being buried.”

Added Hinds: “We do not always get information about some persons being buried, but when we know, we act. We are concerned about the activity. It’s just another criminal act that we intend to stamp out.”

Under Jamaican law, a person caught firing a gun can be sentenced to a prison term of up to seven years and fined.

Section 23 of the Firearm Act states: “A person shall not discharge any firearm or ammunition on or within 40 yards of any public road or in any public place except:

(a) in the lawful protection of his person or property or of the person or property of some other person; or

(b) in the lawful shooting of a trespassing animal; or

(c) under the direction of some civil or military authority, authorised to give such direction; or

(d) with the permission of the minister.

Licensed firearm holders who discharge their firearms inappropriately could, according to Jamaican law, be charged with illegal possession of firearm, if the weapon was not used in a manner in keeping with the provisions of the law.

“A licensed firearm holder does not have a licence to use his firearm in any and every way,” said attorney Delano Franklyn, a partner in the Kingston-based law firm Wilson Franklyn Barnes. “If that licensed firearm holder uses his gun illegally, he can be punished with a sentence of up to seven years in prison.”