MANCHESTER, Jamaica – Crime chief in Manchester, Deputy Superintendent Hempford Wade, has confirmed that two men were shot dead in the parish this morning.

The deceased men are 25-year-old Andre Rose and Shane Johnson, who is also 25. Both men are from Manchester.

According to police reports, the two were part of two separate groups and in two different cars coming from possibly the same party in St Elizabeth, some time after 2:00 am.

The black Caldina motor car, in which Rose was an occupant, reportedly stopped at a nightclub in Down’s, on the border of Manchester and St Elizabeth, and men from Johnson’s motor vehicle, a white Tiida, opened gunfire.

In the process, Rose was reportedly shot and injured and the three other persons from the vehicle that he was in proceeded to take him to the Mandeville Regional Hospital. He was pronounced dead.

Police say the Tiida occupants followed the motor vehicle.

The Alligator Pond police reportedly alerted the Mandeville police to what was happening and provided the relevant details.

When the Tiida arrived in Mandeville, efforts to apprehend the men reportedly resulted in a chase, which ended in the community of Georges Valley, where the driver lost control of the vehicle and crashed.

Johnson was reportedly shot in an exchange of gunfire with the police and a submachine gun allegedly taken from him.

He is said to have succumbed to his injures in hospital and three other men from the crashed Tiida reportedly escaped in bushes.

The crime chief said that the occupants who survived the attack on the Caldina were questioned and are to be released.

He said Rose is believed to have been the target and lottery scamming the reason for the shooting.

Deputy Superintendent Wade said Rose has been on the police’s record for his involvement in lottery scamming and Johnson was recently bailed for illegal possession of a firearm.

Alicia Sutherland