Tag: Jamaican Gangsters

Former Police Chief Testifies That Shower Posse Stockpiled Weapons & Explosives

duke ellingtonFormer police chief yesterday revealed that in the last decade, the west Kingston-based ‘Shower Posse’, or ‘Presidential Click’ gang – under the direction of Christopher ‘Dudus’ Coke – “invested” in a stockpile of firepower that made it a significant threat to the State.

Ellington said police intelligence shows that the gang made significant investments in an arsenal of weapons that included 50-calibre rifles, shoulder-mounted weapons, as well as explosives after a deadly firefight in 2001 between members of the security forces and thugs loyal to Coke in the west Kingston community of Tivoli Gardens.

“This represented a shift away from stand-off single-target weapons to group-target weapons, which was new and significant in terms of how criminals were arming themselves in Jamaica,” said Ellington, who was giving evidence before the West Kingston Commission of Enquiry.

He said that the level of investment, coupled with the high level of organisation displayed by the ‘Presidential Click’, made it a “non-traditional, insurgency level” threat to the authority of the State way beyond the capabilities of any other criminal gang operating across the island.

“None [of them] were on the scale of the Tivoli Gardens gang. The Clans [Clansman] and One Order gangs would be the two in the wings that would pose a significant threat, but they were not as organised as the Tivoli Gardens gang,” Ellington told the three-member panel.

“They didn’t make the kind of social investment in communities as the Tivoli Gardens gang did – buying loyalties and actually appearing to operate like a state within a state,” he underscored.

Jamaica Observer

Former Commissioner Testifies That Illegal Guns Arrived In Jamaica Ahead Of Tivoli Operation To Apprehend Dudus Coke

ShowerPoseguns
Jamaica’s former Commissioner of Police says a stockpile of illegal guns and other weapons landed in Kingston days prior to the Tivoli raids.

Former commissioner of police Owen Ellington testified that the police got intelligence that an aeroplane with illegal weapons landed at the airstrip in Vernamfield, Clarendon, days before the May 24, 2010 operation to apprehend Christopher ‘Dudus’ Coke.

He testified that the cargo of guns landed on May 20. Ellington, who was being questioned by Peter Champagnie, said the guns did not belong to the police.

The former top cop said he was not immediately made aware of the report of the illegal shipment. He testified also that it had been reported by the police, who were by the Kingston Harbour, that 15 row boats with heavily armed men were heading toward Portmore in St Catherine.

The former commissioner also testified that gangs affiliated with Coke had planned to create disturbances across the island to stretch the resources of the police.

Edited by Paul Henry

Former Prime Minister Of Jamaica Claims He Never Told US Authorities That Women Were Raped During The Tivoli Raids

brucegoldingFormer Prime Minister Bruce Golding on Thursday denied that he told US Charge d’affaires Isaiah Parnell that non-combatants were being “summarily” killed and women raped during the security forces’ operation to apprehend former don Christopher ‘Dudus’ Coke.

Golding made the denial while being questioned by Lord Anthony Gifford, QC, during the Tivoli Gardens enquiry.

Gifford had questioned Golding about the content of an e-mail sent in May 2010 by Isaiah Parnell, the US charge d’affaires in Jamaica, to a colleague after meeting with Golding a day after the May 24 operation to apprehend Coke started.

Parnell had told his colleague that Golding had told him that women were being raped and non-combatants were being “summarily shot”, but that “our military assets could not confirm this”.

Asked if what Parnell said to his colleague, that Golding could not trust the reporting from the Jamaica Defence Force, and sent Bishop Herro Blair, then public defender and then head of the Red Cross Dr Jaslin Stewart into Tivoli was indeed his position, Golding said he sent the men into Tivoli Gardens because of conflicting reports, and he was in search of truth.

Jamaica Observer