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Schools and businesses in a Jamaican city have been closed and taxis and buses stopped running after the police shooting of a powerful gang boss prompted a violent backlash.
Gunfire echoed throughout Spanish Town on Thursday and at least one business was burned hours after police shot dead Othneil “Thickman” Lobban, whom they described as a top leader of the One Order gang.
A curfew was imposed with immediate effect, restricting people from leaving their homes until late on Friday.
Jamaica’s constabulary force said it was “working diligently to ensure the safety and security of all citizens.
“We urge citizens to remain calm and to cooperate with the security forces as they work to maintain peace and stability in the area,” the force said in a statement.
Police and soldiers patrolled the streets of Spanish Town on Thursday, though they remained largely empty as schools, businesses and government agencies closed as a precaution.
Bus and taxi companies withdrew their services from the affected areas.
Police noted that as they pursued Lobban, residents in one community organized a protest, blocked roads and damaged several official vehicles.
The pursuit comes after the government ordered a crackdown on gangs following recent mass shootings.
Footage filmed on Tuesday and shared on social media showed police officers firing warning shots as a crowd of locals jeered and threw stones and bottles at them.
On the same day, police declared a state of public emergency in four areas around Spanish Town, following a “significant increase in violent criminal activities within these areas”.
Jamaica has one of the world’s highest homicide rates, and many worry the fatal shooting will lead to additional killings.
Jamaica also has one of the highest rates of police killings in the Americas, according to Amnesty International, which said many of those killings appear to be extrajudicial executions.
The One Order gang is based in Spanish Town and has been operating for more than two decades, according to a report from the UN Refugee Agency.
Local media have reported that the gang is accused of extortion, murder and drug dealing, and that its fierce rivalry with the Klansman gang has resulted in the deaths of hundreds of people.
The One Order gang has long been considered an ally of the Jamaica Labor party, and it is believed to be one of the more powerful gangs on an island where about 250 gangs operate.
According to a recent report by the United Nations office on drugs and crime, Jamaica has seen an escalation in violence over the past 20 years, driven in part by the splintering of older more-established crime factions.
The situation worsened after the arrest of Christopher “Dudus” Coke in 2010, the former head of Shower Posse, then Jamaica’s most powerful cocaine and trafficking network, which also had branches in the US and Canada, the report said.
“Since Dudus’s arrest, no other traffickers appear to have managed to secure dominant control of drug-trafficking routes. Rather, there are large numbers of smaller gangs lacking similar hierarchical organization that leverage their regional networks to traffic drugs,” the report said.
The Associated Press contributed reporting
