POLICE have stepped up patrols in the northern St Andrew community known as Ackee Walk and several neighbouring communities amid suggestions of possible reprisals for the shooting of eight people, three fatally, Tuesday night.

Minutes after the shooting, which occurred about 8:15 pm Tuesday, police teams were seen in the near by community of Maverly ordering businesses closed and telling residents to leave the streets, amid claims that the gunmen who carried out the attack were from that area.

There has been a more than year-long feud involving gangsters from Maverly and others from Ackee Walk. One theory being probed by the police is that this attack was an escalation of what has so far been a bloody conflict.

Another theory is that it was part of a fight by rival gangs over control of the multimillion-dollar extortion racket which takes place at the near by bus terminus on Chancery Street.

A high-level probe has been launched by the police’s Major Investigation Division as the cops try to determine the cause of the latest shooting. But up to late yesterday the investigators had failed to make any significant breakthrough.

The victims were identified as 33-year-old Omar Morris, 45-year-old bus driver Evroy Hibbert, and 18-year-old Adonis Hibbert, all of Kingston 19.

According to the official police report, the eight men were standing on Molynes Road in Kingston 19 when they were pounced on by armed men travelling in two motor cars who opened gunfire, hitting them.

The police were alerted and the injured men taken to hospital where Morris, Evroy, and Hibbert were pronounced dead and the other five men admitted.

Police sources said the bus driver, Evroy Hibbert, had just stopped to buy food at a popular restaurant and bar close to the entrance of Ackee Walk, and a few metres from the upscale Queensbourgh Gardens, when he was caught up in the attack.

According to police sources, one of the men, fatally shot, had been on their radar for some time, as he was believed to be involved in several criminal activities.