Vivian Blake | Jamaican gangster, 54

Vivian Blake, 54, a former top leader of the Jamaican Shower Posse, which U.S. prosecutors said was responsible for 1,400 drug-related killings in this country in the 1980s, died last Sunday in Kingston, Jamaica.

He had been taken to the University Hospital of the West Indies complaining of breathing problems, said Ruel Rainford, the senior director of administration and operations.

Dominique Blake said her father had been suffering from kidney failure and diabetes.

Since his release from prison in the United States 14 months ago, he had been living in Jamaica.

He grew up in poverty in West Kingston and earned a scholarship to St. George's College, a private high school. He first traveled to New York as part of a cricket team in 1973 and stayed there, establishing the American affiliate of the Shower Posse in Brooklyn.

There are differing accounts of how the gang got its name. Some believe it derived from a phrase used by Edward Seaga of the Jamaican Labor Party, with which the gang allegedly was allied. Another version contends the name came from the way the gang would spray its victims with bullets.

In the United States, Mr. Blake developed a marijuana- and cocaine-distribution network that spanned Miami, New York, Los Angeles, and other major cities and reached as far as Anchorage, Alaska.

In 1999, he was extradited to Miami. As part of a deal to avoid trial, he pleaded guilty to racketeering, criminal conspiracy, and drug possession while admitting his leadership role in the gang.

- N.Y. Times News Service