By Glenroy Sinclair, Staff ReporterA WAVE of gun violence yesterday in the Rhoden Cresent-Bay Farm Road area of Olympic Gardens, west-central St. Andrew, left one man dead and a woman who is eight months pregnant, nursing gunshot wounds.
The dead man has been identified as Elvis White, nicknamed "Spratt Head" and "Jigsy", 28, a security guard of Rhoden Cresent. The name of the pregnant woman was withheld for security reasons, the police said.
Since January 1 more than 511 persons have been murdered in Jamaica and more than 372 shot and wounded by criminals in separate incidents.
Police reports said that Mr. White was shot in back of the neck. He was found lying face down in a pool of blood on Bay Farm Road, in front a dry-cleaning outlet. The incident occurred less than a 100 metres from the Olympic Gardens Police Station.
Residents believed that Mr. White's slaying was planned by his killers. Allegations are that he was asleep and somebody was sent to wake him up and call him out of his house.
He was immediately shot by men who then walked away from the scene.
Less than 30 minutes later, about five gunmen stormed an area known as "Compound" in the community and began firing wildly. The pregnant woman was running to safety when she was shot in the lower back.
"The injured pregnant woman is in a stable condition," Woman Constable Jean McDonald of the Constabulary Communication Network, told The Gleaner yesterday morning.
Allegations are that yesterday's shooting could be a reprisal for a double murder in which Damion Martin, 25, a taxi operator and Simone Richards, 19, a student, were killed in a drive-by shooting.
Police say a man alighted from a vehicle and opened fire, hitting both persons several times. They died at the scene. It is believed that Martin was their target.
The Gleaner was told that the shootings are a spillover from a gang feud which started in the United States and that a contract was given out to kill Martin.
