A Tech-Nine sub-machine gun (right) and a High-Point rifle which were found during an Organised Crime Division operation in August Town, St. Andrew, yesterday. The police unit was carrying out a routine operation in the community of Goldsmith Villa. - RICARDO MAKYN/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
WESTERN BUREAU:
AN ALLEGED gunman was fatally shot and one of his cronies captured by the police following a robbery and shoot-out in Montego Bay yesterday morning.
The deceased, who has been identified only as 'Indian', is of a Catherine Mount address in the Second City. He succumbed to his injuries in a business place along Church Street where he sought refuge during the gun battle.
Two illegal firearms, a .380 revolver and a modified handgun, were seized.
The police also recovered a quantity of phone cards and three cheese tins filled with money, mostly coins.
"The dead man was pointed out at the morgue by two persons as one of four armed men who held up the Strand Wholesale about 11:00 a.m. and demanded money," said Corporal Camille Tracey, Constabulary Commu-nication Network (CCN) officer for St. James.
PANIC BUTTON ACTIVATED
Reports are that the proprietor activated a security panic button and the robbers were confronted by security guards as they exited the building.
A gun battle ensued and the men ran on to Church Lane, then St. James Street, two of the city's main thoroughfares, where police on patrol challenged them.
The second man, said to be a 26-year-old resident of Peddlars Lane, also in Mount Salem, was wounded in the left arm. He was accosted by the police in a haberdashery along Orange Street.
An angry mob gathered on the scene, urging the police to turn him over to them. The man was quickly whisked away by the lawmen.
One woman who witnessed the mêlée said she was grazed in the left arm by a bullet.
At press time, investigators were still questioning the wounded man.
GUNS SEIZED
Meanwhile, the police seized a Tech-Nine sub-machine gun and a High-Point rifle in August Town yesterday, during an operation in the St. Andrew community.
According to Senior Superin-tendent of Police Devon Watkins, the Organised Crime Division (OCD) carried out a routine operation in the community of Goldsmith Villa where the guns were found.
"This find today is part of an ongoing investigation and we will be conducting forensic analysis, to ascertain if these guns have been used in previous crimes in the area," he said.
SSP Watkins added that no one has been arrested in connection with the find.
This is the second gun find by the OCD in August Town this year. In January, an AK-47 and a shotgun were also seized during an operation there.
