Residents of Wood Grove converge on the house where Eldon Calvert and three others, including a woman, were held during a pre-dawn operation led by Operation Kingfish yesterday. (Photo: Horace Hines)

WOOD GROVE, St James - Eldon Calvert, the alleged leader of the notorious Stone Crusher Gang, and who was at the top of the police's most wanted list, was yesterday captured by the police in a pre-dawn raid led by Operation Kingfish in this rustic rural community.

A police source said the alleged gangster, who was wanted on numerous murder charges, wept when he was held by detectives and begged the police not to kill him.
Two other men and a woman, who were holed up in the six-bedroom one-storey house with Calvert, were also held in the special police operation.

Calvert, 25, who was wanted on several counts of murder and shootings in the Meghie Top and other St James communities in 2005 and 2006, had a $1-million bounty placed on his head last year.

Operation Kingfish, in a press statement yesterday, said Calvert was the main target of the recent operation in Tivoli Gardens by the security forces in which five men, who allegedly engaged police and soldiers in a shoot-out in the tough West Kingston community, were fatally shot. Two members of the security forces were shot and injured during that raid.

Yesterday, residents of the quiet farming community - located near Wait-a-Bit in the neighbouring parish of Trelawny, said they were surprised that a man wanted by the police was living in the community.

"Me don't even know say wanted man inna we backyard," a male resident commented.

"You a talk 'bout backyard; him inna me house, me bedroom, and me don't even know him," countered a family member of the owners of the house in which Calvert
was staying.

The man said Calvert came and went to the house, occupied by his niece and his nephew who were among those taken into custody yesterday.

But it was clear yesterday that the Wood Grove residents, who were apparently fearful of giving their names, were happy that the man on the police's most wanted list had been removed from their community.

"The police and soldiers did a good job. We don't want no wanted man here," said one of the residents.
Operation Kingfish, in its statement yesterday, said that in September 2006 Calvert allegedly shot and killed Cansie Jarrett, Eldon Ledgister, Rupert Green and Horace Daley in his hometown of Meghie Top, Salt Spring, St James.

One month later, he was also implicated in another triple murder in the same community.

The police also alleged that in the following month, Calvert and other men attacked a police car in Salt Spring. Three police officers were injured in that incident.

Calvert is also a suspect in the double murder of taxi operator Errol Dixon, and shopkeeper Ramer Reid at Buck Toe Lane, Salt Spring in December 2006.

According to Operation Kingfish, the alleged Stone Crusher leader and his accomplices last year shot and killed Ewan Cole, Devron Harris, Lloyd Ishmael, Lestin Morris and Ransford McFarlane in Flower Hill near Salt Spring. Harris was beheaded and his head dumped nine miles away from the scene of the murders. That attack was said to be a reprisal for the murder of Calvert's brother the previous January.

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