The tension was electric yesterday even after police intervention quelled violent eruptions in downtown Kingston where five persons were shot and injured.
Matthews Lane don Donald "Zeeks" Phipps, in the face of rumours to the contrary, confirmed that he was not among the wounded.
One man, Ricardo Frater of Matthews Lane, was arrested for arson, caught, the police say, setting fire to stalls in the vicinity of the Coronation market.
Several others were detained during police raids in West Kingston and were still being "processed" last night.
Rumours that Phipps was among those either killed or hurt had helped to fuel tension in the old section of the Jamaican capital where several stores closed early and street vendors pulled down stalls and fled in the face of the mid-morning shootings.
Phipps told the Observer that he was not in the area where the shooting - reported to be between his community and nearby Tivoli Gradens - broke out, and had only heard of the violence.
"Me just hear say people get shot," he said in an interview via a mobile phone. "That's all me know. Me never deh which part things take place."
Added the Matthews Lane strong man: "You hear say Zeeks get shot, too. Nothing no do me. Me cool."
Phipps also appealed for peace between the Matthews Lane area, where people vote mostly for the ruling People's National Party (PNP), and Tivoli Gardens, which is fiercely loyal to the Opposition Jamaica Labour Party.
"We (have to) find some way to make the peace work - some way," Phipps said, while suggesting that the troubled western section of the city was not getting sufficient attention in peace efforts.
Apparently referring to a series of recent peace marches in violence-riddled Spanish Town, he said: "Them all say them a do peace march and peace this. Nobody never come round here yet and say, 'Make we see if we can start it from here so'. You need (to) start it from here so, 'cause them (community residents) need (to) know it from the ground level. Them no need to know it from nowhere else."
Police said of the five injured in yesterday's violence, two remained in hospital, listed as serious and critical, while the other three, who had superficial wounds, were treated and released.
According to the police and witnesses, the shooting broke out at about 9:30 am, allegedly with men from Tivoli Gardens and Matthews Lane trading bullets with high-powered rifles.
"The police were informed that men, heavily armed, were seen in the North Street and other sections of downtown Kingston," said Superintendent Gary Griffiths, who has responsibility for the Kingston Western Police Division. "They were exchanging shots. When the police went in, of course they dispersed."
In the wake of the shooting, several stores and other businesses along West Street, West Queen's Street, Charles Street and Orange Street pulled down their shutters and closed for the day.
Several street vendors were unassuaged by the police's promise to keep the area secure and opted to leave the city.
"Although we tried to assure them that we would be inside (the business district) and that we could guarantee them some protection there, they chose to move out," Griffiths said.
Those store owners and street vendors who chanced it, remained wary - their eyes peeled and ears cocked for disturbance.
"We hear shot fire but we don't really know where it a come from," said one street vendor who asked that her name not be used. "It was like watching the news on Palestine. You hear 'bum bum, bum'. Even police officer run."
She expected that downtown would remain tense for the rest of the week.
"We just looking and waiting to see what's going on for the moment," said a manager of a downtown drug store that remained open - her eyes combing the street as she spoke.
Yesterday's violence was believed to have been just the latest round in the ongoing saga between Tivoli Gardens and Matthews Lane that included a reported threat in July that Phipps leave his community base or face death.
That threat is said to have come from one of Phipps' former lieutenants who was said to have "defected" to Tivoli Gardens after he had been disciplined and chased from the community. Others were also believed to have been run out of Matthews Lane in the same internal imbroglio, whose specific cause remains cloudy.
As tension remains high and the former peace between the two West Kingston communities seems threadbare, one man was chopped and stabbed to death towards the end of last month. The rumour was that he had strayed too far from Matthews Lane and was caught in enemy territory.
In an earlier incident, bad men went to a morgue and decapitated the body of a murdered man. The head was impaled on a staff in downtown, apparently as a warning to Phipps of his potential fate.
Phipps, however, appeared to shrug off these concerns yesterday, instead emphasising the need for peace.
The police, meantime, said they were attempting to keep a lid on the violence.
"Police carried out a number of raids in Princess Street, Charles Street, Rose Street," Griffiths said. "A number of houses and premises were raided (and) persons were picked up."
