By Glenroy Sinclair, Staff ReporterA 30-MINUTE search in the Jacques Road environs of Mountain View Avenue yesterday by a joint military/police party unearthed a Bushmaster rifle with 11 extra rounds and a fully loaded magazine.
This has pushed the number of illegal guns seized since January to 513. More than 15 persons were detained in yesterday's operation and up to press time last night they were being processed at the Elletson Road CIB in connection with several crimes committed in the area.
Superintendent Donald Pusey found the Bushmaster rifle wrapped in a piece of cloth and concealed in a rubber tube in a yard on a dirt track near 63 Mountain View Avenue. The lawmen also found several M-16 spent shells along the dirt track.
A team of police and soldiers, led by Assistant Commissioner Arthur "Stitch" Martin, Senior Superintendents Bingy White and Granville Gause and Superintendent Pusey of the Crime Management Unit (CMU), swooped down on the community before a curfew came into effect yesterday afternoon.
This followed reports of several shootings in the area between Sunday night and yesterday afternoon. According to the police, a 71-year-old woodworker, Lloyd Ross, of Garvey Lane, off Jacques Road, was the victim of Sunday night's shootings. His death brings to five, the number of persons killed in the community since gun violence erupted again two weeks ago.
The police also reported that two other persons were shot and injured in the First Avenue area, near Jacques Road, yesterday afternoon.
Superintendent Pusey said both persons were shot 10 minutes apart in separate incidents. Reports are that gunmen opened fire at a tinted Toyota Corolla station wagon. A bystander was shot and injured. A delivery truck was also shot at and one person was wounded.
Police and soldiers were deployed from the McGregor Command Post to the Mountain View Avenue area.
