“If Mr Clunis had gone there with one police officer and the man opened fire at them and they fired back and get the man and get the same gun you see on display, everybody would say he was a hero,” Campbell said yesterday.
The former deputy superintendent faced public backlash in 2009 after he directed a police team he was leading to stand back as warring gangsters traded bullets in the gritty St Andrew community known as One Hundred Lane.
The Jamaica Police Federation, which represents cops up to the rank of inspector, is also aware of the whispers about Friday’s deadly early-morning operation.
“I was moving around the space with the police commissioner, talking to senior officers, including the head of St Catherine North [Police Division], and nobody gave that account.”
Hamilton was killed later that same day in another police operation in Cooreville Gardens, St Andrew.