Two cops slain
TWO policemen were yesterday shot and killed within a 12-hour time span, leaving members of the constabulary in mourning and bringing back memories to May 2005 when three cops, including a senior superintendent, were killed within hours apart.
Constable Valentino Chambers, 33, who worked at the Hannah Town Police Station, was ambushed and peppered with bullets as he drove his private motor vehicle to work along Slipe Pen Road in Kingston hours before dawn yesterday. His service pistol was stolen by his attackers.
Twelve hours later, about 1:30 in the afternoon, the relative calm of Irish Town in St Andrew was shattered when Assistant Commissioner Gilbert Kameka was attacked and slain at a premises in the rural St Andrew community. Kameka, 48, was the highest ranked police officer to be killed in Jamaica.
The murder of the two cops pushed to 18 the number of police officers who have been killed this year. Five of the 18 were murdered in November.
Last night, Acting Police Commissioner Jevene Bent said the police high command would be offering a reward of $1 million each for information leading to the arrest and charge of persons responsible for the killing of the policemen.
“Today has been a very tragic one for the Jamaica Constabulary Force. At the moment we have very little details to give you. We are appealing to anyone who has any information about these two killings, to come forward. Our hearts go out to the families,” Deputy Police Commissioner Mark Shields told reporters at the scene of Kameka’s murder.
Chambers was pounced upon by a group of men armed with high-powered assault rifles and handguns along Bowrey Street in Kingston.
The policeman, in a bid to escape, returned the fire and turned onto Slipe Pen Road, in the vicinity of the Blood Bank, but was chased by the gunmen who continued firing at the vehicle.
Chambers lost control of the car, which ran off the road and crashed into a nearby wall.
Yesterday Deputy Superintendent Hugh Bish of the Kingston West Police Division, described the slain constable as “one of the best to have served the force”.
Constable Chambers is survived by his six-year-old daughter and two sons, both four years old.
The murder of the two policemen was immediately condemned by the security minister, Derrick Smith.
“These acts of violence have become far too frequent in an effort to undermine the confidence of the security forces in their relentless fight against crime and violence,” the minister said.
At the same time, the opposition spokesman on security, Peter Phillips, said the shooting of ACP Kameka in Irish Town was a dark day in the country’s history.
He said the killing was the most vicious attack yet on the institution of law enforcement and Jamaica as an emerging democratic country.
Chairman of the Independent Jamaican Council for Human Rights, Arlene Harrison-Henry, also expressed outrage at the murder of the two cops.
“The council’s gravest concern is in relation to what appears to be an emerging epidemic of criminal violence, particularly murder in recent months,” Harrison-Henry said in a statement.
Although the police were tight-lipped about the incident, a man at the murder scene in Irish Town, told the Observer that Kameka was killed by a man who held a woman at gunpoint and led her into a house where the senior policeman was visiting. The gunman then killed Kameka before escaping in a station wagon motorcar, he said.
Kameka’s Toyota Rav 4 sports utility vehicle was parked some distance away from the entrance to the premises where he was killed.
The woman was not harmed and was last night in protective custody, a police source said.
A resident of Irish Town, who was among a group of persons gathered at the murder scene, was concerned yesterday about a possible outbreak of crime in the community.
“I used to boast about Irish Town, this is the first time that anything like this has happened here. We soon won’t be able to come out of our houses,” the resident said.