Local media has reported that three people were killed, but investigators were putting the fatalities at two late Monday morning.
Two men were killed and six others were wounded when gunfire broke out at a rally of Jamaica's main opposition party during the opening of this year's campaign season, island police said today.
The Jamaica Constabulary Force has not released a motive but said there was no sign that the violence at the crowded rally in the northern city of Montego Bay was politically motivated. No shots were fired at a podium where Jamaica Labor Party leader Andrew Holness was speaking at the time.
"Based on our investigations so far, there is no evidence to suggest that the incident was politically motivated. The shooting resulted from a dispute among known persons who were in attendance at the public meeting," said Police Commissioner Carl Williams.
One of the dead men was identified by police as a gang member from Flankers, a troubled community near the resort town's international airport.
When the gunshots rang out, Holness was hustled off the stage in a city square as many of those who attended the late Sunday rally scattered in a panic. Jamaica is awash in illegal guns and has long been ranked as among the most violent countries in the world.
Local media has reported that three people were killed, but investigators were putting the fatalities at two late Monday morning.
Jamaica will hold early general elections on February 25. The contest will pit the ruling People's National Party of Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller against the faction led by Holness, who led Jamaica for just over two months before his party lost 2011 elections by a 2-1 margin.
The Jamaica Labor Party said Holness saw the violence as a "barefaced and heartless attack on the democratic process." The party leader sent his sympathies to the victims' families.
When Simpson Miller called elections late last month she said her team was committed to a "peaceful campaign." She is currently seeking a second consecutive term but she became Jamaica's first female leader during a year-and-a-half stint in office that ended in 2007.
The majority of killings in Jamaica are blamed on gangs, including those involved in lucrative lottery scam rings that last year have helped to drive the Caribbean island's homicide rate to the highest level in five years.
Jamaica had at least 1,192 slayings in 2015, a roughly 20 percent increase from the previous year. By comparison, Chicago, which has roughly the same population as Jamaica at 2.7 million, had 468 killings in 2015.