The minibus which was shot up by the police yesterday.
SIX PEOPLE, including two students, were shot and injured on a public passenger bus in St. Andrew yesterday afternoon as the police fired on the vehicle to stop the driver.
One of the injured students is from Excelsior and the other from University of Technology (UTech).
The injured were identified as Vilma Hamilton, a 53-year-old fashion designer of a Kingston 20 address. She was shot in the right foot and grazed on the buttocks. Donovan Daley of Central Village, St. Catherine, is the most critical. He was shot on the right hand and according to the police it appears as if he may have lost three of his fingers.
Denton Mullings was shot in the upper back; Sherene Reckford, 15, (Excelsior student) was also grazed; Arthur Lewis, 24, of Lucky Glades, Spanish Town, was shot in right thigh and Shane Williams, 21, (UTech student) was shot in the right foot. They were treated at the Kingston Public Hospital (KPH).
It is reported that at about 1:40 p.m. the police received information that a group of gunmen were on a bus which ply the Spanish Town/Half-Way Tree route. The lawmen signalled the bus to stop, but the driver ignored the orders and continued driving.
This resulted in a dramatic chase which took them through the lanes and side roads of the Half-Way Tree area, ending at the Three Miles Round About, at which time shots were fired on the bus.
Following the shooting, all the passengers were searched but neither guns nor contraband was found in their possession. The driver of the bus has been detained and is being interrogated by the police.
Eyewitnesses told the The Gleaner that the bus driver sped away from the police because his documents were not up to date and the police gave chase, not knowing what was the problem.
According to Sergeant Gladys Brown-Campbell of the Con-stabulary Communication Net-work (CCN), Commissioner of Police Francis Forbes has since removed the policemen involved in the shooting from front-line duties, pending further investigation by the Bureau of Special Investigations.
"The guns they were carrying at the time of the incident have also been seized for ballistics testing," said Sergeant Brown-Campbell.
