Po­lice are fear­ful that the mur­der of known drug deal­er Gary “Li­on” Mc Clarence will spark reprisal killings in the La Ro­maine dis­trict.

In­ves­ti­ga­tors say they are now putting sys­tems in place to stem the im­pend­ing blood­shed they be­lieve may come.

Mc Clarence was pur­sued by five men and shot over 15 times out­side Su­per­pharm in Gulf View on Thurs­day night.

Even as he lay dead on the ground in a pool of blood, peo­ple were al­ready call­ing the name of the per­son they sus­pect­ed had called the hit on the known crime boss.

Po­lice said Mc Clarence, 38, of Tem­ple Street, La Ro­maine, and his wife Jeanelle were sit­ting in their Toy­ota Pra­do in the car park of Piz­za Hut, Gulf View, when he left the van and walked over to Su­per­Pharm to make a pur­chase.

In­ves­ti­ga­tors be­lieve he was fol­lowed and while ex­it­ing the phar­ma­cy, his as­sailants un­leashed a hail of gun­fire which had by­standers scam­per­ing for safe­ty. Ter­ri­fied Su­per­Pharm staff shut the doors and called in the po­lice. Cus­tomers were pre­vent­ed from leav­ing un­til the po­lice ar­rived.

A source said the killers knew Mc Clarence was in­side the phar­ma­cy. They shot at a de­liv­ery truck which was out­side the phar­ma­cy and as the dri­ver sped off they be­gan shoot­ing at Mc Clarence. Luck­i­ly, no one else was caught in the cross­fire. The killers then jumped in­to a white Nis­san Ti­i­da and es­caped. The car was found aban­doned at the M2 Ring Road hours lat­er.

Mc Clarence’s body was viewed by Dis­trict Med­ical Of­fi­cer Dr Ramd­hin. More than 20 spent shells were re­cov­ered at the scene.

In 2016, Mc Clarence was shot in the leg and this sparked an in­crease in shoot­ings in La Ro­maine. The po­lice lat­er set up the La Ro­maine Po­lice post and ramped up ac­tiv­i­ties at the Po­lice Youth club to en­cour­age youths to stay away from crime.

In­ves­ti­ga­tors say they are now hop­ing that Mc Clarence’s killing will not un­rav­el some of the ef­forts they put in­to re­duc­ing crime be­tween the war­ring drug deal­ers.

Cpl Patrick of the Homi­cide Bu­reau is con­tin­u­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions.