DETECTIVE Corporal Erro Dave Bell yesterday became the third cop to be murdered by gunmen within a fortnight, prompting national security minister Peter Phillips to declare that members of the constabulary were being singled out by criminals.

At the same time, the police commissioner, Francis Forbes, immediately announced a $1- million reward for information leading to the arrest of Bell’s killers — the third time he has felt compelled to do this in less than two weeks.

“This latest in a line of brutal killings is clear evidence that the criminal elements have targeted police officers who are the country’s last line of defence,” Phillips said in a statement on Bell’s murder in downtown Kingston.

According to the police, Bell, who was assigned to the Criminal Record Office (CRO) at CIB Headquarters in Kingston, was shot in the head at about two o’clock yesterday afternoon as he attempted to purchase pastry from the Honey Bun Bakery at 85 East Street. He had been accosted by two gunmen who asked for money.

The gunmen, who apparently knew Bell was a policeman and carried a gun, took his private Taurus pistol before escaping in a waiting white hatchback Nissan motor car. The registration of the car is 9988 DE.

Bell was apparently a regular at the Honey Bun outlet and people who claimed to have witnessed the incident told the Observer that the two gunmen were inside the bakery when Bell arrived there at approximately 2:00 pm.

According to the official police version of the incident, the gunmen demanded money from Bell, and when he refused a struggle developed.

“He went to do business at Honey Bun Bakery along East Street and he was approached by two men who demanded money from him. He refused. A struggle developed between the men.

“They pulled guns, opened fire at him,” the head of police information, Superintendent James Forbes told the Observer at the Kingston Public Hospital where Bell was pronounced dead. “He was shot in the head.”

Bell, who was in the force for eight years, is survived by a wife and three children.

Bell’s death brought to seven the number of lawmen killed since the start of the year, one shy of the total killed for all of 2001, and came exactly a week after the slaying in Montego Bay of Inspector Rupert Gardner while he conducted business at a cambio.

It also happened only two days after the funeral of Sergeant Edmond Brown who was shot dead in St Catherine while he tried to stop car thieves. At Brown’s funeral, angry cops, warned the killers of their colleagues that they would be brought to justice.

There was a similar warning yesterday by Bell’s supervisor, DSP Cynthia Cole-Thompson, the commanding officer in charge of the technical services unit, comprising the finger print bureau where Bell worked.

“We are all in mourning. We are grieving bitterly, especially to know that he went to purchase food when he was brutally gunned down by lawless citizens of Jamaica,” Cole-Thompson said.

But, added Cole-Thompson: “We will not block the road. We will be working hard to catch these thugs that have snuffed out the life of one who decided that he would serve his country faithfully and well.”

She described Bell, who had worked at the bureau for four years and a month, as a “nice, loving and hard- working” detective corporal.

Other colleagues at the fingerprint bureau sat teary-eyed at their desks several hours after his death. They looked stunned.

“He was very outspoken, kind and humorous,” recalled friend and colleague, Detective Corporal Carol Chisholm.

Chisholm gave a reporter a photograph of Bell that he had himself hung on the wall.

“He used to say that when he dies, people will not have to go searching around for a picture of him,” Chisholm recalled Bell as joking.

Meanwhile, Police Commissioner Francis Forbes called on Jamaicans with information to come forward.

“Citizens must not allow their communities to be safe havens for these malcontents who are hell-bent on destroying themselves and the society in the process,” the police chief said.

Opposition spokesman on national security, Derrick Smith also condemned the killing.