DURING the decade of the 1980s when the economy was rocked by crippling austerity measures, and structural adjustment policies had hit the impoverished areas of Jamaica, a new breed of criminality evolved.

Communities in the lower section of St Andrew such as Waterhouse, Olympic Gardens, Tower Hill and Riverton City were all shelters for vicious hoodlums. Life was unbearable for law-abiding citizens who had no choice but to live under the lawless rule of armed gangs and political thugs, who laid waste to those areas by filling the void left by a poorly equipped and hapless police force. Many times these gangs would kill, rape and terrorise residents with impunity.

The actions of the police at the time, which included batterings and wholesale arrests, further compounded their fight against crime and alienated them from the communities that were under the gun.

Out of this quagmire rose one of the nation's most notorious gangsters. His name was Wayne Smith, known more popularly as 'Sandokhan'.

At the time of Sandokhan's short-term life of crime, residents of the area claimed they were in- between the rock of police brutality and the hard place of plunder by the armed gangs, which ran amok in their communities.

"We couldn't take how the badman dem was a gwaan. Dem rape the woman dem and rob poor people - not to mention the whole heap a people them kill. But the police sometimes not better, as when them pass through them nuh care who them kick up and bruk batten pan. Them kill hole heap a innocent youths and plant gun pan dem to," one woman who lived in Waterhouse said.

According to these residents, Sandokhan's emergence could not have come too soon.

"Him bring order to the area and run whey the man dem who was going on with the wrongs. Him and him gang set the law because him never careless with him power, and treat old people and children with kindness," the woman said.

But while other notorious bad men had shown a penchant for brutality from a tender age, those who knew Sandokhan say while he was a known ganja dealer, he was not one to murder and steal.

"Him start out selling weed and get crucial when a certain policeman try take over the weed business. Them try arrest him one day, but him escape and them lock up him woman," one resident said.

Sandhokan was reportedly riding a motorcycle, with his wife as a pillion passenger when police officers signalled him to stop. Smith managed to wriggle out of the policemen's grasp and managed to escape, but the cops reportedly arrested the woman.

The incident happened on November 19, 1986.

Residents say Sandokhan's foray into murder and *lo**-letting had its genesis in that narrow escape with the law. Reports began to surface in the community that Mrs Smith, who was married to Sandhokan at the age of 15 in 1985, was being 'boxed up' by the police at the Olympic Gardens Police Station. The news infuriated the man, who would grow to become the nation's most wanted fugitive and instilled in him a hatred for law enforcement.

The following night, Sandokhan and his gang undertook what has been the most brazen attack at law enforcement and society since independence from colonial rule.

The brazen gunmen stormed the porous, poorly staffed police station through the roof, and murdered three officers before stealing several weapons, including high-powered assault rifles, from the station armoury.

Another policeman reportedly escaped with his life after he lay on the ground and played possum.

The attack took place hours before dawn, and drew the condemnation of society and was dubbed a 'guerilla style attack' by local media.

The attackers had studied the habits of the cops at the station and knew that about that time the staff complement had dwindled and that those who were rostered to work were most likely asleep.

From that dreadful morning, the capture and castration of Sandokhan and his gang became priority number one for law enforcers.

Among those reported by police as being an accomplice of Smith was Nathaniel 'Natty' Morgan, who would take over the infamous title of most wanted after his former gang leader's demise.

One week after the bare-faced invasion of the police station, the gangster, who managed to get past local Customs officials, was held aboard a departing flight at the Sangster International Airport. A popular artiste at the time had his passport seized and was barred from entering the United States and the United Kingdom after local police accused him of assisting the fugitive in his flight from justice. The ban was lifted several years later after the artiste's work created a huge demand for his performances overseas.

Sandokhan was then dragged before the court after being charged with the triple murder of the cops. However, before he could be sentenced he managed to escape.

At the time, popular talk on the street was that he had powerful backers linked to the drug trade who had managed to corrupt prison warders and police officers, who had aided in his escape.

Sandokhan was recaptured and sentenced in the court to hang for his crimes. But on June 15, 1988, he managed to escape from the St Catherine District Prison (now called the St Catherine Adult Correctional Centre), and went back into the community of Waterhouse and its environs where he was shielded by the residents who welcomed his presence in their midst.

The policeman who had beaten Sandokhan's wife, was identified in a letter by the fugitive to Monsignor Richard Albert as 'D C Colt'.

"Father, Tuesday the police curfew Waterhouse and held my wife, and the same D C Colt boxed up my wife and beat her up and I want some action to take against the policeman soon. If no action don't take against that policeman he is going to go on to do the same. And father, I promise you I will never molest the police but if the police continue doing things to my wife they will get me doing things to them....if no action is taken against that policeman he is going to make things worse on other policeman," the letter read in part.

The Catholic priest had met with the most wanted man a number of times as he reportedly tried to persuade the fugitive to turn himself in, and came under fire from various sections of society when he likened the most wanted fugitive to Robin Hood.