ST CATHERINE, Jamaica— Commissioner of Police Major General Antony Anderson says this morning’s assault on a police team, which left two dead and two others in critical condition, will not deter the police force from taking the fight to criminals.

“When these things happen it just brings us together. We will not step back on this challenge that we are having with criminals, gunmen, and people shooting our citizens and shooting us as well.

“This is not going to cause us to step back – we will step forward and we will continue to do what we do,” he told reporters this morning during a visit to the Horizon Park Community in St Catherine where the incident took place.

According to the commissioner, an 11-member team led by Superintendent Leon Clunis, acting on intelligence, went to a location and was conducting a search when the incident happened.

“We had information that there were some gunmen with high powered weapons at the residence and so the team responded. There was a fire fight and four of our members were shot, of which two succumbed to their injuries. My condolences go out to the families of those officers,” Anderson said.

He, however, refused to go into specifics, but said strong leads were being followed based on evidence gathered at the location.

“I am not going to give too many details about what happened here for a number of reasons; we are still in pursuit of some people and we still have some leads that we are following. It is a sad for the force and a sad day for Jamaica when this happens, but that is what we face and that is why we are police officers,” he said.

As to whether something went wrong in the approach of the officers that resulted in such a catastrophe, he said, “What went wrong is that we have criminals with high-powered weapons and rifles shooting at people; that is what went wrong. They were not caught off-guard; there is no indication of that. Whenever we go into an operation we have to take due care how we approach things – the people we confront have no such restrictions. So even if we get intelligence, we have to confirm things, we have to be very careful.

“It is not a good day for us, but this is the kind of thing we face everyday and we will continue undaunted to do what we need to do to protect Jamaican citizens and our members,” the commissioner said firmly.

When OBSERVER ONLINE visited the area vehicles belonging to police personnel lined the streets in the community. Several officers, male and female alike, cried openly. Others silently swept the scene with their eyes, fighting back their emotions, their reddened eyes telling a different tale.

Alicia Dunkley-Willis