Popular dancehall figure, Andrew Smith, also called ‘Ice’, was gunned down in a bar on Newark Avenue, off Waltham Park Road in Kingston, early yesterday morning.
Smith, 36, a member of the Black Roses Crew based on Lincoln Road in Kingston, was shot in the head and other parts of his upper body by the gunmen who escaped in his rented Mitsubishi Lancer motor vehicle, police said.
The cops have not determined a motive for his murder but said that they are questioning a female in connection with the incident.
According to onlookers who gathered in front of the ill-fated ‘Pon Di Banks’ bar, Smith may have been purchasing cigarettes at the establishment when he was accosted by the gunmen.
“The bar was not even open for business. It look like him see the lady over there cleaning up the place and stop to buy some cigarettes. Is that time them come in and kill him,” said a male resident of the nearby Mandela Town community who claimed he was a good friend of the dancer.
“Is about four shots fire; the first three were not so loud, but you could hear the other one clearly,” added the man.
Ice’s body was later found sprawled on its back inside the shop with its head hanging outside the bar’s entrance. A pool of blood seeped on the bar steps from a bullet wound to its face.
Yesterday, Smith’s sister, identified by onlookers only as ‘Pinkie’, was a picture of grief as she viewed her brother’s body.
The woman, after collapsing repeatedly on the murder scene, shook uncontrollably as relatives fed her a glass of sugar and water.
She chain-smoked about six cigarettes while sleuths from the Major Investigation Task Force combed the scene for clues.
“Me can’t believe him really gone,” cried another woman, who identified herself only as Nickie and who was said to have been a very close friend of Smith’s.
Clutching Smith’s 12-year-old son Jordan closely, the woman fought to hold back tears, even as two members of the popular dance group, ‘Cadillac Crew’ tried to console her.
“He don’t deserve this,” whispered the woman.
Smith, who is renowned for his invention of the popular ‘Gully Creeper’ dance, is the third prominent member of Black Roses to be murdered.
He was being touted for leadership of the crew after the murder of popular dancer Gerald ‘Bogle’ Levy in January 2005. Bogle and four other persons were sitting in his Ford F-150 truck purchasing gasoline at a service station in Half-Way-Tree when two armed men on a grey Honda F4 motorbike rode up and sprayed the vehicle with bullets.
Bogle had ascended to the leadership of the Black Roses Crew after William ‘Willie Haggart’ Moore was gunned down gangland style by three gunmen in front of his business place at Lincoln Road on the outskirts of Arnett Gardens four years earlier. Two other men, Albert ‘Blacka Douche’ Bonner and Lowel Hinds, were also slain during that attack.
In 2005, Smith was arrested in connection with murder, several counts of shooting and arson committed in the Kingston West police division.
Source: JamaicaObserver
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