INFAMOUS DUDUS COKE Son Shot: West Kingston shooting sparks high tension

BY HG HELPS Editor-at-Large helpsh@jamaicaobserver.com  Saturday, November 12, 2016     

A shooting incident in West Kingston left the volatile area tense yesterday, in the midst of a Nomination Day exercise for the upcoming local government elections.

Police said that Michael Coke, son of the infamous former Tivoli Gardens gangster, Christopher ‘Dudus’ Coke, now a convict serving prison time in the United States, was shot around 2:00 pm as rival gangs traded bullets while supporters of the Jamaica Labour Party revelled in front of Justin’s Plaza along Spanish Town Road.

Official reports also confirmed that Michael Coke’s aunt, Sandy Coke, got hurt after she was hit by glass splinters, while incumbent candidate for the Tivoli Gardens Division of the Kingston & St Andrew Corporation Donovan Samuels dislocated his shoulder following a stampede, as supporters dashed for cover.

Residents of West Kingston converge on the Kingston
Public Hospital after the shooting yesterday.
(Photo: Michael Gordon)

“Bway, we dey ya a drink an all of a sudden a pure gunshot. Everybody jus a run ina all direction,” one eyewitness told the Jamaica Observer. “A dem bway ya (Denham Town gangsters) a fight wid dem from over so (Tivoli Gardens). An you know say on a day like this them bway naa left them gun,” the eyewitness said.

The sounds of gunshots could be heard as far away as the Greenwich All-Age School ,which was the nomination centre for candidates in the St Andrew South West constituency. At the time, Opposition Leader Portia Simpson Miller was with her People’s National Party candidates at the centre.

Police at the Kingston Public Hospital
 discuss strategies after a shooting earlier
 in the day in West Kingston.
(Photo: Michael Gordon)

It emerged that police who were nearby also fired shots to cool things between the gangsters.

A large crowd gathered at the nearby Kingston Public Hospital, where the injured were being treated, but police at the location offered little information and medical personnel contacted appeared ignorant of what had transpired.

Back at the crime scene at the intersection of Regent Street and Spanish Town Road, police cordoned off the area, while soldiers lent support. Workers at nearby businesses were allowed to leave early. more