JAMAICA – A Jamaican police sergeant was shot dead by gunmen at the Spanish Village Plaza, only a few hundred metres from the Twickenham Park Police Academy in St. Catherine, Tuesday.
The sergeant, 47-year-old Donald Burke who was attached to the Central Village Police Station, is the 11th policeman to be killed since this year, reports the Jamaica Gleaner.
Reports are that about 1pm Tuesday, Burke went into a store in the Spanish Village Plaza, where he was attacked by two men as he was about to enter his motor vehicle.
The attackers drew handguns and shot Mr. Burke several times in the lower body. The men then escaped on foot. The sergeant was taken to the Spanish Town Hospital where he later died.
As news of Burke’s death spread throughout the area, police personnel converged on the scene where he was shot, and also came to express their commiseration at the hospital.
In an interview yesterday, Assistant Commissioner of Police, Arthur ‘Stitch’ Martin, who is in charge of Area Five, said he knew the late policeman very well and called him a “gentleman”.
“He was a very hard worker, a quiet and dedicated policeman who was loyal to the job. You could depend on him to do anything at a moment’s notice and I’m really sad to see the way he was killed,” he said.
ACP Martin added that Mr. Burke also served the Mobile Reserve division, and had been completing special duty at the Central Village Police Station.
The shooting of Burke is the second police fatality to have taken place in the Old Capital since January. Earlier this year, Sergeant Everette Kildere was shot and killed in a bar along Burke Road in Spanish Town.
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