The St. James police have reported that two of the parish’s top tier gangsters engaged them in a daring gun battle in the Catherine Hall area last Friday morning, minutes after one of them shot and killed a man in the community.
The two alleged gangsters were shot and injured during the exchange of gunfire and are now under police guard in hospital.
Twenty-four year-old Renor Anderson was the man killed by one of the two gangsters.
Reports are that at about 11:20 on Friday morning, Anderson was watching over his friend’s roadside vending stall when he was approached by one of the suspects who shot him several times to his head and upper body. The suspect then ran into a waiting Nissan Note motorcar, which sped off.
Members of the St. James Quick Response Team (QRT) were immediately deployed and a chase ensued. The occupants of the vehicle opened fire at the police team and eventually crashed into a parked vehicle. Four men alighted from the vehicle and continued firing at the police, before fleeing in separate directions.
The chase continued on foot and Toussaint Lewis, o/c ‘Dada’ along with Andre Reid, o/c ‘Lil Zulus’, were accosted suffering from gunshot wounds. Two illegal firearms suspected to have been used to commit the murder were recovered from both men.
Anderson was taken to the Cornwall Regional Hospital where he was pronounced dead later in the afternoon. The injured gangsters remain at a hospital in serious condition under police guard.
DETAINED UNDER SOPE
The police say Lewis and Reid were recently released from detention in the St. James State of Public Emergency (SOPE). They are currently before the courts for charges ranging from murder, illegal possession of firearms and other violent crimes. One of the two is a person of interest in a murder committed two weeks ago. Both are currently subject to conditions of bail requiring them to report to police stations in Hanover and St. James. Andre Reid is to reappear in the Western Regional Gun Court on October 2, 2020 to answer charges of illegal possession of firearm and ammunition.
In the past 18-months, four illegal firearms have been recovered by the police from one of the suspects on three separate occasions.