Cops gun down Laventille man

According to information reaching Newsday, Hamilton, 20, was near his aunt’s gateway at Fatima Extension, St Barbs home at 10 am when he was shot dead. The bullet to his head had come from a police gun.

"It was murder, simply murder! We want an investigation," cried an angry relative.

"Soup doh smoke, he doh drink. He is a living dead. All he likes to do is play guitar at church and with Desperadoes.

"We want the police who killed him brought to justice."

Police reports revealed that officers of the Inter-Agency Task Force responded to reports of gangland shooting in the area at 10 am. When they arrived on the scene, they were greeted by gunfire from two men under a tree.

They returned fire and when the dust had cleared, Hamilton was found dead. Police claimed they seized a 9.mm pistol with ten rounds of ammunition. When Newsday visited the scene, there were no blood stains of the shootout under the tree.

"Soup is no gang member, nor was there any gang shooting in the area.

The police just simply came out of nowhere, shouted ‘don’t move’ and when he did not stop because he did not realize they were speaking to him, they started shooting," an angry eyewitness told Newsday. "What is even worse is that after the shooting, instead of the normal procedure of a DMO visiting the scene along with crime scene officers, the officers who were on foot patrol dragged Soup 400 yards to the road, threw him in the back of a jeep picked up their spent shells and drove away. "Imagine the officer who did the shooting came and searched the body and when he found nothing he began to cry.

"Next thing we hear is that he shoot at the police, a gun with bullets was found on him and he is a gang member. Something smells and we want justice."

Soups’ grandmother Ursula Hamilton, 71, who was sitting nearby claimed she saw everything and accused the police of shooting her grandson in cold blood.

"I was sitting in my gallery watching Kenneth who was about to enter his aunt yard opposite, when I heard someone shout, ‘don’t move.’

Next I hear shooting, saw my grandson collapse and blood streaming down his head. Then I saw police run and search the body and minutes after drag him away.

"Next I heard he is dead. They killed him. He did nothing. He is a good boy. That is not right." An angry Norman Hamilton, the dead man’s uncle, promised to continue to protest until a proper investigations was launched into the death. After the killing, a number of residents blocked streets near the area with burning debris.

"If this was Westmoorings or Glencoe, the police would not have acted so but because it is a depressed area we are victimised harassed and made innocent victims. The killing must reach the highest order."

A leader of the gang of which Soup was an alleged member also denied that the dead man was a gang member or that there was a gang-shootout in the area.