Barbed wire around a prison wall in Jamaica. Photo by Christina Xu on Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0. At about 2:00 p.m. on the afternoon of October 11, shots rang out in Elletson Flats, St. Andrew—a relatively quiet residential area on the outskirts of Kingston, Jamaica’s capital. During the encounter, according to the police account, they intercepted a car in which 35-year-old Christopher Linton, a reputed gang leader known as “Dog Paw,” was a passenger. When directed to exit the car, Linton did so and allegedly opened fire on the officers. He was shot in the exchange and later pronounced dead at hospital. Jamaica's Independent Commission of Investigations (INDECOM), which says that there have been 101 extrajudicial killings by security forces up to October 12, and a total of 115 in 2020, is now looking into the killing, about which there has been much public interest. Linton had been released from prison six months ago, after a 15-year sentence on firearm charges, imposed in 2013, was overturned by the Court of Appeal. A senior police officer reportedly said that Linton did not keep his promise to be a positive influence on his release: “He just continued on his criminal path.” As he sought to re-establish himself in the area, his criminal career faced challenges. Linton was injured in a shooting this past June, and one of his associates was shot dead by rivals in August. Upon his own death, further details began to emerge about Linton’s life and the ways in which it intersected with the privileged uptown milieu just a mile or two from where he grew up in Tavern, St. Andrew, close to the University of the West Indies campus. Some were already known, including Linton’s relationship with Leah Tavares-Finson, the daughter of a prominent politician and a former Miss World, with whom he fathered a child, now 10 years old. The socialite, who is involved in the music scene, and is believed to have had another child with a well-known dancehall deejay, posted on her Instagram page that she would miss “her Paw Paw Bear” Linton, leaving one commentator to observe dryly on Twitter: So this is proof that all societies of Jamaica mix and mingles in one way or their other. The Rich and the Famous, the Law and the Criminals#DogPaw — landolegend (@landolegend_) October 12, 2021 This connection with middle and upper-class Jamaica goes much further and deeper, however. After Linton's death, environmentalist and award-winning writer Diana McCaulay spoke about him in a radio interview. Her first novel, Dog-Heart published in 2010, chronicled the struggles of an impoverished young boy and his family, and the sincere efforts by some uptown women to rescue him from a life of crime. The inspiration for that character was “Dog Paw,” whom McCaulay met when he was just eight. She helped him and his three brothers attend a prestigious preparatory school in Kingston. One of his brothers was arrested and killed during a prison fight in 2005, which McCaulay suggested may have prompted Linton to “take a different path,” and led her to conclude that society—including herself—had failed him. Social media reaction to the radio interview was generally unsympathetic, with one Twitter user commenting that many Jamaicans from similar backgrounds had done better: Your excuse for Dog paw Linton being failed by society is naive and myopic. What about the many young men and women coming from the same socio back ground who made successes of their lives? No body owes us a living, me must take personal responsibility. — Norman Martin (@NormanM39798385) October 13, 2021 Another saw the interview as glamorising a criminal: @cliffnationwide I listened in awe yesterday as you did your feature on the infamous Dog Paw. I saw no benefit of that segment except to glorify a bad man, and badness. I can see others trying to do more “wikidness” to get a feature on @NationwideRadio when they are taken down. — ????Steve????Manning's Blueblood?? (@steveg_mcd) October 13, 2021 Others were more compassionate. What could Linton have become—and what went wrong in his life after he had been given the opportunity to make good? It's not about celebration imo, it's about reflection, could some intervention have changed the outcome, so he could have been someone else. There are some lovely boys out there now who may become the next dog paw. I hope we can save those boys by seeing what went wrong here. — adrian fenton (@adrianfenton5) October 13, 2021 One journalist questioned: How did a decent Christian young man evolve into ‘Dog Paw'? From early accounts Christopher Linton was a quiet, well-mannered, church-going young man (pre-teen), who was very obedient to his mother.