Two arrests for gang shooting

(CNS): Two teenagers have been arrested in connection with the first of a series of what the police suspected were gang related killings last year. The men, aged 17 and 18, have been arrested and are currently detained in police custody on suspicion of conspiracy to commit murder in connection with the shooting death of 28-year-old Robert Mackford Bush (left) in West Bay on 13 September 2011. Police say the arrests took place during a large scale police operation in the West Bay earlier today, Thursday 23 February, in which a number of houses were searched and a quantity of ammunition was seized. In addition another man was arrested for threatening violence and a woman for possession of Ganja.

At the time of the murder, police said that Bush had been shot in the head while sitting in a blue Honda civic at around 11:20pm at the junction of Capt Joe and Osbert Road in the Birch Tree Hill area, in what was the first fatal shooting in twelve months. He had received at least one wound to the head and had died at the scene.

Emergency services, including the Uniform Support Group, were on the scene within five minutes of the call being received from a woman who was with Bush in the car when the victim was shot, and specially trained firearms dogs were deployed at the scene. The police said that the woman was treated in hospital for injuries sustained at the same time, but could not say if she had been shot as well.

Bush had been arrested and charged in July 2011 for an assault in connection with an incident that took place at a bar in Hell, West Bay, for which the victim had been bailed. His death triggered a spate of gun violence in what was thought to be tit-for-tat gang shootings. Within 8 days five young men were dead and a sixth seriously injured.

After Bush was gunned down Andrew Baptist and Preston Rivers were both shot and killed two and four days later respectively, also in West Bay. Jason Christian was shot dead as he sat in a white van in Cranbrook Drive just off Crewe Road just two days after that. Keith Montague received multiple gunshot wounds but survived his injuries after flagging down a nearby police vehicle.

Then, in the early morning hours of Thursday, 22 Septemebr, police on patrol in East End found the slain body of Asher McGaw on John Mclean Drive. Police Commissioner David Baines said that athough this was probably a gang killing it was not directly connected to the West Bay feud between the Birch Tree Hill and Logswood gangs.

Police enquiries into Robert Bush’s murder are ongoing, an RCIPS spokesperson said.