WEST Kingston residents have accused the police of hiding the real number of persons injured during Monday’s operation that left six persons, including a 13-year-old girl, dead.

At the time, the police reported that only two people were injured.

“At least five people get shot during the series of operations in West Kingston on Monday,” said Samantha, who was among a large group of residents from Charles Street who protested in the streets yesterday.

They residents made accusation as Opposition Leader Andrew Holness and West Kingston Member of Parliament Desmond McKenzie toured the area.

Police on Monday alleged that they went in the area in search of criminal elements when they were shot at by men at a premises on Charles Street.

They returned fire, and during the alleged shoot-out, six persons were killed — three of whom the police later said were wanted for various crimes, including murder.

However, among the dead were also two elderly men, George Edmonson and Wesley Simpson and teenager Niketa Cameron.

The shootings have sparked outcry, with rights group Jamaicans for Justice and the Independent Commission of Investigations as well as the Office of the Public Defender expressing alarm that more than 20 people were killed by the police between March 1 and 5.

The killings have since drawn the attention of Amnesty International, which called for the authorities to mount an effective investigation into recent and past police operations.

“The recent wave of police killings in Jamaica is shocking but unfortunately not unprecedented,” the group said in a release issued yesterday.

“The problem is that police continue to enter marginalised inner-city communities as if everyone there is a criminal suspect,” it added.

Yesterday, Errol Tracey — who appeared well in his 50s — said he, too, was injured in the incident. He claimed that the police were firing wildly in the area.

“I don’t know what the woman in the crowd said to the officer, same time the policeman just fired into the crowd and walked away,” said Tracey, noting that he bystanders rushed him to a hospital.

He said another woman was also shot and injured during the incident. Other residents concurred, some saying that the operation brought back memories of the May 2010 operation to apprehend then don Christopher ‘Dudus’ Coke in nearby Tivoli Gardens, which left more than 70 persons dead.

“At about midday, the police them run in a the yard with them guns blazing,” said Isabelle Stern, the sister of one of the men killed.

“Them say them kill me brother running, but how him fi a run when him foot break?” the woman asked.

Samantha Breaker, an 18-year-old who was left bedridden after she was also shot during the operation, said she was still in shock.

“I was sitting down in a section of the yard when I heard the shots and saw a police team running into the yard,” said Breaker.

Meanwhile, Beverly Kennedy, the mother of the 13-year-old dead girl, wept openly.

“There are more than 30 people living in the yard, and when the police them run in, them just start to fire shots wildly,” Kennedy alleged.

“When the police them run in the yard, me daughter was on the ground crying out; is more than five shot she get,” the woman wailed.

Yesterday, following the many complaints, Holness and McKenzie called on the Police High Command to carry out a thorough investigation.