By DAVID McFADDEN
Associated Press Writer
KINGSTON, Jamaica – Masked men defending a reputed drug lord sought by the United States torched a police station and traded gunfire with security forces in a patchwork of barricaded slums in Jamaica’s capital Sunday.
The government declared a state of emergency as sporadic gunshots rang out in gritty West Kingston, stronghold of Christopher “Dudus” Coke, a Jamaican “don” charged in the U.S. with drug and arms trafficking. His defiant supporters turned his Tivoli Gardens neighborhood and other areas into a virtual fortress with trashed cars and barbed wire.
A police station in Dehnam Town came under heavy fire from gangsters roaming the streets with high-powered guns. In barricaded Hannah Town, close to Tivoli Gardens, black smoke spiraled into the sky from a police station set aflame by molotov cocktails.