SPANISH TOWN, Jamaica (AP) ? Decked out in a white silk suit and white square-toed shoes, Dominic Bennett was carried by pallbearers in a glass casket as thousands of onlookers thronged his funeral.

Bennett received a hero?s funeral, but he was a gang leader ? admired by some, feared by many ? who helped fuel a rash of killings that has made Jamaica one of the world?s deadliest places.

As Jamaica was headed toward its record of 1,669 homicides in 2005, Bennett himself became a statistic when he was killed in a shootout with police at his home in Spanish Town, west of Kingston.

Jamaica, an island of 2.6 million best known for its white-sand beaches, reggae and gourmet Blue Mountain coffee, has a homicide rate ten times that of the United States.

Poorly equipped and understaffed, Police have been unable to stem the bloodshed, which occurs mostly in impoverished neighbourhoods around the capital Kingston, far from tourist hangouts.

The police have developed a reputation for slipshod investigations and for being too quick on the trigger. Rather than help the police, people in the Spanish Town slum sometimes run when officers approach.

?There has been a breakdown in trust on the streets. Some people are just as scared of the police,? Deputy Police Commissioner Mark Shields acknowledged in an interview with The Associated Press.

Shields, a veteran of England?s Scotland Yard, was hired last year to become Jamaica?s second-ranking policeman and help cope with the soaring homicide rate.

The violence has its roots in the 1970s, when political factions armed gangs to intimidate opponents ahead of the 1980 general elections. About 800 people were killed in election-related violence that year.

Twenty-six years later, the politicians have lost control of the gangs. Armed with AK-47s and other assault weapons, they are now fighting a bloody turf war for control of extortion rings that has provoked a cycle of seemingly endless revenge killings.

The slums have become patchwork battlefields, the ever-changing front lines between rival gangs marked by barricades of old refrigerators, junked cars and burning tires. Bennett?s gang is called the Clansmen, and it is at war with the One Order gang.

In a rare interview, the 27-year-old leader of One Order described how he decides life or death in the half of the slum controlled by his gang.

?If someone lives here I?m responsible. If someone dies I?m also responsible. This is the life that we live here,? Andrew (Bunman) Hope said as he sat in the back of a parked car outside his home. Gang gunmen kept a lookout for police or rival gang members from rooftops and intersections.

Police say Hope is an extortionist, but he denied it, insisting that the payments he receives from business owners are ?gifts?.

While the gangs do use strong-arm tactics, and even kill those who refuse to pay extortion, gang leaders, known as ?dons?, at times act as ad hoc civic leaders.

Bennett, whose nickname was Bulbie, extorted money from businesses and ordered scores of rivals killed. But when he would stride down Spanish Town?s pitted streets, lined with corrugated tin fences and small shops, merchants would walk out to talk to him and seek favours or loans.

Bennett was feared, but he might also pay the school fees for a promising neighbourhood child, help provide hook-ups to electricity or work with politicians to get roads paved.

Many poor Jamaicans, with few opportunities for advancement, have joined gangs to obtain material goods and respect. Some experts believe that gang power, and gang violence, will persist until the government throws a lifeline to those mired in poverty.

?If the government can?t provide basic service for the poor, if they can?t alleviate the poverty in Jamaica?s slums, the violence will never end,? said Monsignor Richard Albert, a New York native who has mediated between Jamaica?s police and gangs for more than 25 years.

Bennett?s death in October was followed by more bloodshed as a power struggle within the gang erupted and killings were carried out by rival gangs attempting to muscle in on the Clansmen?s turf. Within days, gunmen arrived one night at the home of a top Clansmen, took him from his bed and killed him.

Another was taken to old railroad tracks and shot in the head.

?Bulbie?s death was destabilising for Kingston,? said Shields, the deputy police commissioner. ?The killing of a top leader always creates a power vacuum, which usually means a period of intense violence as people look to take the leader?s place.?

To avenge a death, sometimes a gang will murder someone who merely lives in a neighbourhood controlled by a rival gang, and not specifically target a gang member.

Albert noted that young men who venture into a rival gang?s territory face being shot on sight.

?They grow up together, play football, go to school, but they can no longer cross the neighbourhood line dividing the Clansman and One Order,? he said. ?No male between 15 and 35 can cross that line.?