POLICE have intensified their patrol in the troubled Common Sense area, off Red Hills Road, St. Andrew, following the shooting deaths of four persons and injuring of six others by gunmen Sunday morning.

Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) Reginald Grant said the police have been maintaining a special presence in the area and will continue to do so.

Despite an increased presence since Sunday, the police could not prevent men from setting fire to the house of a woman whose son, a man called 'Dinero', is the chief suspect in the shootings.

The fire, which started early Monday morning, destroyed the house on Donmair Close and spread to two other buildings. No arrests have been made.

Karl Samuda, the Member of Parliament for the area, dismissed police speculation which suggested that the shootings resulted from a rift among a group of JLP supporters. The police had said the shootings occurred because a $500,000 sum collected for the maintenance of a gully was not distributed properly.

Mr. Samuda said his investigations have led him to believe that there is no such contract and he has suggested there was some ulterior motive in the shootings.

"It is not clear as to precisely what has triggered this but we are struck by the fact that it happened just as everyone was preparing to go to conference," Mr Samuda said. "It raises in my mind certain major concerns as to who was the button presser. Who orchestrated it? Who planned it? It was carefully planned, carefully executed and with a purpose in mind."

Everton Simpson, his brother Anthony, Richard Francis and Ezra Patrick, were gunned down by men who entered the community and struck as persons were preparing to attend the JLP's 63rd annual conference.

Later in the evening, another man was gunned down in the Red Hills Road area in what has been suspected as a reprisal.