WESTERN BUREAU – A detective constable was shot dead by a gunman in Montego Bay early yesterday morning, sparking outrage in the Police Federation which immediately said it was planning an islandwide meeting with its members “to declare an all-out war against the killing of police officers”.

Police said Detective Constable Levene Garnett, who was assigned to the Savanna-la-Mar CIB in Westmoreland, was sitting with a friend outside a popular night club on St James Street in the resort town at about 1:40 am when a lone gunman walked up to them and opened fire.

Both men were shot several times. Constable Garnet was hit in the head, neck and chest. The gunman grabbed the constable’s 9mm semi-automatic service pistol, serial number 245DY11658, before escaping.

Constable Garnet and his 52 year-old friend were taken to the nearby Corwall Regional Hospital where a doctor pronounced the cop dead, while his friend was admitted in serious condition.

The policeman is the fifth cop to be murdered this year.

Last Tuesday night, 37 year-old Everton Dennis, who was assigned to the Caymanas Police Station in St Catherine, was shot dead in the Meadowvale area of Portmore.

Last month, two policemen, Senior Superintendent Lloyd Mc Donald and Special Corporal Fearon Burke, were shot and killed in the space of five days.

Garnett, a member of the constabulary for more than 10 years, was earlier this year transferred from the St James police division to Westmoreland.

Yesterday, Sergeant David White, chairman of the Jamaica Police Federation, the union that represents rank and file cops, strongly condemned Garnett’s murder and pointed out that it was the second cop killing within a week.

“.this sustained attack against the police force is the final assault against law and order,” White said.

The federation, he said, was renewing its call for the national security minister to “declare an emergency against these cold-blooded police killers and to provide new initiatives to stem civilian murders”.

At the same time, the federation urged communities to spurn criminal activities and declare their own “emergency against criminality, particularly against cold blooded murders”.

According to White, the Police Federation will be meeting with Commissioner Francis Forbes on Tuesday to discuss its proposal for an “emergency plan against the culture of killing that has taken over the country”.

Yesterday, Opposition parliamentarian Clive Mullings expressed shock and disappointment at the slaying of the cop.

“Not only was he a good man, but a good cop who had dedicated much of his life to the preservation of law and order and the protection of citizens,” Mullings said.

He extended condolences to Garnett’s relatives, friends and colleagues and urged persons with information that could lead to the arrest of the killer to come forward.

John Morris, the superintendent in charge of crime for Area One, who also condemned the killing, suggested the possibility of a link between Garnett’s death and a shooting incident at the same venue earlier this year.

“Some time in January, while he (Garnett) was at the same location, a man pulled a gun at a patron and he was shot and killed and the gun recovered; so we are looking at that incident as a possibility for the killing,” Morris said.

He also urged persons with information on yesterday’s murder to give it to the police.