THE 10 suspects - five men and five women - who were arrested during a five-hour operation in Grants Pen, Kingston, on Thursday were last night still being interrogated by detectives from the Flying Squad.

SHIELDS. the people held are from a criminal gang preying on motorists in the Constant Spring/Grants Pen area

Crime Chief Mark Shields said the suspects, whose names have been withheld, are members of a criminal gang who were arrested in an area of the inner-city community called "Vietnam", during a pre-dawn operation by more than 100 joint police/military personnel in which two illegal guns - a Ruger 9mm pistol and a .38 revolver - were seized and two men arrested for illegal possession of firearms.

Shields told the Observer yesterday that the police went into Grants Pen to search for wanted men and the killers of Jamaica Aids Support activist Steve Harvey, who was killed last November, and financial analyst Jamie Lue, who was killed last month.

A quantity of personal property including clothes, suitcases, jewellery, cell phones and watches were recovered by the police during the operation. Shields said some of the items were identified as the personal possession of the deceased men - Harvey and Lue.

"The people held are from a criminal gang who were preying on motorists in the Constant Spring/Grants Pen area, highjacking vehicles and abducting the occupants and stripping them of their personal possessions such as their bank cards, threatening them with firearms in order to obtain their ATM bank cards or their credit card number, while other members of the gang were going to ATM machines and withdrawing cash," Shields said.

In the meantime, the police's Bureau of Special Investigation has commenced an enquiry into the fatal shooting of 24-year-old Ricardo Morris during the Grants Pen operation. The Constabulary Communication Network (CCN), the constabulary's communication arm, said Morris was shot when he pointed a firearm at the lawmen.

"Members of the security team took evasive action and opened fire, hitting Morris. A Ruger 9mm pistol, registered 31263766 with a magazine containing 14 9-mm cartridges were taken from him," said the CCN.
Morris, the police said, was taken to the Kingston Public Hospital where he was pronounced dead.

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