Police Constable Lynden Barrett Shot Dead By Gunman Wearing Mask — Eyewitness Says :Observer:

THE Jamaica Observer has been giv­en crit­i­cal infor­ma­tion that one of three men who were stand­ing along Wellington Street in Denham Town, West Kingston shot and killed Police Constable Lynden Barrett last Tuesday night.

An impec­ca­ble source, who revealed that he was at the scene, also brushed aside claims by peo­ple of the area that the police­man was shot by his col­leagues. Constable Barrett is known to fre­quent the area and is well known by res­i­dents, many of whom he had devel­oped close rela­tions with. “Indian (as Constable Barrett is known) was in the area to drop off a pack­age to a woman when he saw three men stand­ing on a cor­ner. He knew all three of them, and from a short dis­tance away he saw a bulge in the side of one of them … the one that was wear­ing a mask,” the eye­wit­ness said, beseech­ing the Sunday Observer that his iden­ti­ty be kept confidential.

“Indian walked up to the man with the bulge, lift­ed his shirt and said: A wa you a do wid this ya gun ina you side.…”

The cop, accord­ing to the eye­wit­ness, tried to dis­arm the gun­men and a strug­gle devel­oped, result­ing in Constable Barrett being shot in the upper body and head. “The gun­man and the two oth­er men run off same time,” the eye­wit­ness said. “Indian stum­bled towards his car and col­lapsed. At the same time, a police team that was on patrol heard the shot and rushed to the area fast, fast, fast, so that’s how some of the peo­ple in the com­mu­ni­ty say that its the police who shoot him, but its not police who shoot him … is the boy wear­ing the mask,” the eye­wit­ness said. The Police High Command main­tained that the killing was done by gun­men, with Commissioner Dr Carl Williams, under fire for rat­ing him­self high­ly in the fight to reduce crime, insist­ing that Constable Barrett was not killed by friend­ly fire. “I know for sure that the crim­i­nals are respon­si­ble for it,” Dr Williams said last week.

“We are going to find them and bring them to jus­tice. We checked it out and they (killers) were not police. I know for sure that the crim­i­nals are respon­si­ble,” he said. Yesterday, head of the Criminal Investigation Branch, Assistant Commissioner of Police Ealan Powell told the Sunday Observer that the police had received sim­i­lar infor­ma­tion to that giv­en to this tabloid. “That’s the infor­ma­tion that we received too that three men were involved, and we have even got three names,” Powell stat­ed. “He had gone into Denham Town to check some­body and had the alter­ca­tion with the three men, so this talk by the res­i­dents that he was killed by police is non­sense. There was a police team in Denham Town at the time that had stopped near to a lot­to shop and heard the gun­shots. They rushed to the scene and found him on the ground, alive and bleed­ing. It was when they took him to the hos­pi­tal (Kingston Public) that he was pro­nounced dead,” Powell said, empha­sis­ing that law enforcers were con­tin­u­ing their search for the three men.

Barrett’s fam­i­ly and oth­er mem­bers of the con­stab­u­lary force were com­fort­ed by the Acting Minister of National Security Phillip Paulwell and Member of Parliament for Western Kingston Desmond McKenzie, as they gath­ered last Wednesday at the Denham Town Police Station fol­low­ing the incident.

The death of Constable Barrett fol­lowed that of anoth­er Constable, Crystal Thomas, who, like Barrett was based at the Denham Town Police Station.

She was mur­dered a week before after she was tak­en from a Toyota Coaster minibus by gun­men, who hijacked the vehi­cle and shot her sev­er­al times. Members of the police force joined hands in prayer at the sta­tion last week fol­low­ing the dou­ble tragedy. The sta­tion has over the years lost sev­er­al mem­bers of its staff to vio­lent action by gun­men. It is in the police record books that the sta­tion has been shot up by gun­men on many occa­sions, even while then Commissioner of Police Trevor MacMillan, now deceased, went on a tour there in 1994. Police sources said at the time that Macmillan was forced to hide under a desk for sev­er­al hours, as men with high-pow­ered weapons, believed to be from the near­by Tivoli Gardens, pelt­ed the build­ing with bul­lets. Read more here:Police Constable Lynden Barrett shot dead by gun­man wear­ing mask — eye­wit­ness says