KINGSTON, Jamaica – Irate taxi operators pulled their services in downtown Kingston on Thursday evening, leaving hundreds of commuters stranded as they protested the death of a colleague, Shawn Fennel.

Fennel died in hospital earlier Thursday after being shot during a confrontation with a police officer.

“A number of persons have been calling me in the last two hours in regards to withdrawing their service and I said to them , ‘you don’t have to withdraw your service for that”, but if it persists…I don’t know…they are mourning, Shawn is an outstanding taxi operator, we know him, I travel with him. I cannot hold out any longer, if they want to demonstrate, let them go ahead,” Egeton Newman, president of the Transport Operators Development Sustainable Services (TODSS), told Observer Online.

Newman said that he was not officially sanctioning any protest action. 

“I know they are grieving in downtown Kingston but I am not giving no go ahead for a demonstration,” Newman said.   

Fennel, who hails from Rumbo Lane in Kingston, reportedly operated the Harbour View to Kingston route.

Reports are that about 11:00 am, Fennel was travelling in the North Parade section of the commercial district when the police officer signalled him to stop.

The cabbie allegedly failed to obey the cop before attempting to use his vehicle to hit the officer. The lawman reportedly then opened fire hitting the driver and a female passenger, who were then rushed to hospital.

Fennel succumbed at the hospital. At press time, the condition of the female injured passenger was not known.

For years, there has existed an antagonistic relationship between taxi operators and the police. On January 22, 2020, a group of men travelling in a Toyota Wish motorcar with a public passenger vehicle (PPV) licence plate, mowed down a police officer in New Kingston. The cop was hit by a taxi operator he had signalled to stop at the intersection of Trafalgar Road and Worthington Avenue, The cop subsequently lost his leg. 

The taxi operator was arrested six months later in St Elizabeth.

In January 2020,  the killing of a taxi operator by a cop triggered a major protest by taxi operators along Spanish Town road. The taxi operator, 25-year-old Shawayne Armstrong was shot and killed after a policeman fired one round, allegedly through the windshield of his Toyota Probox motor car. Lawmen claimed that the driver tried to run over the cop.