A civilian who was quicker on the draw shot dead a policeman at a party Sunday night, leaving questions about motive and a love quarrel.
Dead is 30-year-old police constable Shane Francis, who was assigned to the Divisional Intelligence Unit (DIU) in St. Ann’s Bay, St Ann.
The shooting death took place less than a mile from where a cop shot and killed his colleague a year ago at White River St Ann. In that incident at a club in White River just outside Ocho Rios, the cop doing the shooting was constable Audually Smith, 30, who then killed himself in the back of a vehicle taking his mortally wounded colleague 20-year-old constable Keemo Walsh to hospital.
The shooting death of Francis took place at a birthday party, at a popular location near the river. Francis, who is originally from Breadnut Hill, St Ann, resided in Tower Isles, St Mary.
Party goers said sometime earlier the two men saw each other and Francis who has known the other man for a long time said ‘Since you get gun you just hype, eeh.” That’s a reference to the recent acquisition of a gun licence by the man who is a salesman. The two had been friends but that relationship soured after Francis was allegedly involved in the shooting of the man’s friend.
The shooting did not occur then but a little later, around 11:30 when the men argued, it is said, over a woman. Francis, it is reported, pulled his Beretta firearm and the other man did the same, drawing his Glock pistol and firing twice, hitting Francis in the chest and hip.
The shooter drove to the nearby police station at Prospect where he reported the incident and was taken into custody.
Police officers at the party took Francis to St Ann’s Bay hospital where he was pronounced dead.
