By John Myers, Jr., Staff Reporter 
Icilda Brown weeps on the train line in Ellerslie Pen after she received news that her son Omar Williams was shot and killed. Mr. Williams and an unidentified man died while seven others where taken to the Spanish town hospital after gunmen struck in the area yesterday. - Norman Grindley/ Deputy Chief Photographer
A CURFEW was imposed last night in the Spanish Town community of Ellerslie Pen in the aftermath of the shooting of nine persons, two fatally, in a brazen attack by a group of gunmen, reportedly, dressed like the police on Sunday morning.
Among those shot in the violence-plagued parish capital were two children, one nine and the other 13, and a Gleaner newspaper vendor. The police have so far identified one of the persons killed as 19-year-old Nackay Ferguson, while the mother of Omar Williams reported that he was also killed.
Yesterday the Spanish Town police was slow to arrive on the scene of the murder; but Superintendent Renford Robinson, head of the St. Catherine North Police Division, later told The Gleaner the shooting was linked to an on-going feud between the One Order Gang and opposing factions within the area. He said there was also a shooting incident at 13 Old Harbour Road earlier yesterday.
The Superintendent said despite the efforts of the police, who have been conducting regular searches and patrols in the area and have recovered a number of firearms and ammunition, the violence continues. The police yesterday recovered a Toyota motorcar which the gunmen drove to the scene.
Meanwhile, Olivia Grange, the member of parliament for the area, yesterday urged the Police High-Command in Spanish Town to increase their presence in the community. Ms. Grange, who toured the area following the shooting with newly-appointed Opposition leader, Dr. Ken Baugh, Senator Bruce Golding and other members of the Jamaica Labour Party's hierarchy, also met with leaders of Tawes Pen and Ellerslie Pen and promised to assist those affected.
"It's just the continual cycle of inner-city donmanship and fight for scarce benefits and spoils," commented Monsignor Richard Albert last night. "The life of the people is intense poverty; they're frustrated, they're angry and we are seeing a war going on between two factions of a JLP gang," Albert, who heads a community-based initiative against crime in Spanish Town, told The Gleaner.
Residents of the grief-stricken community told The Gleaner that a number of men armed with high-powered weapons and dressed in police uniform, bullet-proof vests and helmets, stormed the community some time after 11 a.m. and began shooting indiscriminately.
An elderly resident of the community, who witnessed the tragedy, said the community was caught off-guard when the gunmen invaded. Shocked when she saw the men dressed like policemen, the elderly woman said she asked frighteningly, "(expletives deleted) den a police a burst shot suh? A di fus from me born mi si shot burst suh!"
When The Gleaner's news team visited the community, which consisted of a close knit of board houses along a railway line, a trail of blood could be seen along the dirt track which led to the houses. On reaching a house in the cluster, the body of a teenager laid motionless in a doorway. The floor was saturated with a pool of blood and a glass top coffee table was smashed to pieces.
Gleaner correspondent, Rasbert Turner contributed to this story.
