A teenaged girl yesterday morning pleaded with a gunman not to kill her father - a traffic policeman - but unmoved by her desperate cries for mercy, the killer shot the cop to death.

The gunman had gained entry to Constable Pedro Swaby's home in Longville Park, Clarendon by climbing through a window that he smashed in about 3:30 yesterday morning.

The cop's wife, a family friend said yesterday, heard 'suspicious sounds' and made an alarm which woke up the 44-year-old policeman. Swaby, the source said, immediately went to investigate and confronted the intruder.

"They were struggling and then he shot Pedro in his neck. At this point his wife ran outside and started screaming for help," a close friend of the deceased told the Observer.

"His daughter woke up and started pleading with the gunman not to kill her father. But he took up the policeman's car keys and pumped another bullet into him, before escaping in the car," the family friend said.

While scores of people gathered outside the policeman's home, Swaby's distraught daughter was comforted by friends, while the cop's mother, Hermine Swaby, tried hard to maintain her composure.

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