KINGSTON, Jamaica — Masked men torched a police station and traded gunfire with security forces in a patchwork of barricaded slums Sunday, prompting the government to declare a state of emergency.
Sporadic gunshots rang out in gritty West Kingston, where defiant supporters of Christopher “Dudus” Coke, a “don” sought by the U.S. on drug- and arms-trafficking charges, turned his Tivoli Gardens neighborhood and other areas into a virtual fortress with trashed cars and barbed wire.
In barricaded Hannah Town, close to Tivoli Gardens, black smoke spiraled into the sky from a police station set aflame by molotov cocktails.
Officers fled the burning station. The Jamaica Constabulary Force reported one wounded person Sunday: a police officer hit in the hand by gunfire.
Police said the attacks by gangsters roaming the streets with high-powered guns and improvised weapons were unprovoked. It called for all “decent and law-abiding citizens” in the troubled areas to leave and said security forces would ferry them out safely.
The violence erupted after a week of rising tensions over the possible extradition of Coke to the United States.
After Prime Minister Bruce Golding reversed his long- standing refusal to extradite Coke, the alleged kingpin’s supporters prepared for a fight.
