KINGSTON, Jamaica — Joan McCarthy's voice rises in anger as she describes a police and military raid: Officers searching for a fugitive gang boss grabbed her nephew and son-in-law and hustled them upstairs.
Once they disappeared from view, there was a crackle of gunfire, she says, and moments later, police dragged her son-in-law's body down the stairs, wrapped loosely in a sheet taken from her own bed. Her nephew's bloody body was carried down next, she and other slum dwellers allege.
Not a trace of either man has turned up in morgues or lockups since the May raid, they say.
"We had some bad men here, but these police are more cold-blooded than the illegal gunmen. Too cold-blooded!" the 63-year-old McCarthy said with a voice raw with emotion inside her bullet-scarred apartment in Tivoli Gardens, the former stronghold of alleged drug baron Christopher "Dudus" Coke.
Coke was captured and sent off to face charges in the United States after days of street battles that killed 73 civilians and three security officers.
The government anti-gang crackdown that followed is the toughest in the island's history. Soldiers with M-16s and rotating machine-guns patrol the streets. Major crimes, especially murders, are trending downward.
No comments:
Post a Comment