The coun­try woke up to news that a se­nior at­tor­ney at the crim­i­nal bar was gunned down this morn­ing, in what po­lice have de­scribed as a "pro­fes­sion­al" hit.

Po­lice said Dana See­ta­hal was shot dead at about 12.05am as she was dri­ving­north along Hamil­ton-Hold­er Street, Wood­brook when two ve­hi­cles pulled along­side her caus­ing her to come to a stop nearthe Wood­brook Youth Club.

One of the ve­hi­cles, a Nis­san Wingroad, then drove ahead a short dis­tance and pulled across the road, block­ing it. The oth­er ve­hi­cle, which was de­scribed as a pan­el van, pulled along­side and the oc­cu­pants of that ve­hi­cle pulled out their firearms and opened fire on the SUV, po­lice said.

The two ve­hi­cles then sped off.Res­i­dents of the area, on hear­ing sev­er­al loud ex­plo­sions, con­tact­ed the po­lice and emer­gency health ser­vices, whoar­rived to find the se­nior coun­sel dead,slumped over in the dri­ver seat.

ACP Wayne Dick, Se­nior Su­per­in­ten­dent Ish­mael David, Act­ing ASP Williams, In­spec­tor Thomas, In­spec­tor Veronique,In­spec­tor Lawrence, and In­spec­tor Ram­per­sad, among oth­ers, vis­it­ed the scene.Po­lice are con­tin­u­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions. No mo­tive has emerged at this time.

The high-pro­file as­sas­ssi­na­tion is not with­out prece­dent.In 1995, for­mer at­tor­ney gen­er­alSel­wyn Richard­son wasas­sas­si­nat­ed by un­known as­sailantsas he was en­ter­ing his dri­ve­way at the end of his work­ing day.