When Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) Warren Clarke addressed a recent press conference, at the Holiday Inn Sun Spree Resort, Rose Hall in Montego Bay, he had c hilling statistics for the crime scene in St James and western parishes falling under Area One Police.
The review for 2013 showed murders at 166, the highest ever for the parish. Shootings were also up though overall serious crimes decreased according to the ACP.
The ACP said there is still fertile ground for improved relations between police and community and this will be considered in the reviewed plan for this year.
According to the ACP there has been a 7.4% decrease in serious crimes across Area One but serious crime remains unacceptably high. Murders and shootings in particular increased and this saw St James and Westmoreland accounting for 166 and 89 respectively of the 315 reported murders in Area One for 2013. Hanover accounted for 34 murders while Trelawny recorder 26.
Shootings also rose.
St James recorded a total of 166 murders, 15 more than that recorded in the previous year. This included the record breaking month of October, when 24 persons were murdered making it the bloodiest month ever for St James. In that month 15 persons were killed in just one week.
MULTIPLE MURDERS
The parish saw three persons being killed at a supermarket in Spring Mount and six others being shot in connection with an incident in North Gully and Norwood. Four of those killed were pronounced dead on the spot, with the remaining two succumbing to their injuries at hospital. The parish also registered over fifteen double murders in Granville, Retirement, Cambridge, Barnett Lane, Irwin main road Spring Mount. The most gruesome is a mother and daughter who were butchered at the end of the year and their bodies dumped on the grounds of the National Water Commission pumping station along Irwin main road. No one has been charged for that double murder.
The most gruesome single murder is considered to be the stabbing death and mutilation of the body of an Anchovy High School student allegedly by a schoolmate and the incident placed on face book.
The year 2013 also saw a record in the number of unidentified bodies which were discovered and the large number of ammunition rounds used by gunmen.
POLICE ARRESTED
Twenty-five members of the police force were arrested on charges in Area One and twenty of these officers have so far been charged with corruption. Of the number of corrupt cops charged, more that fifteen are attached to the St James Division and with a record breaking number of eleven officers from the Freeport Station been arrested in one week. The ACP indicated at the press conference that this clearly shows that there has been an increase in Departmental charges.
The city of Montego Bay also saw a hike in daylight murders with incidents occurring along the tourist hip-strip of Gloucester Avenue with the shooting death of a JUTA Tour bus operator, the murder of a shopper in a department store in downtown Montego Bay, the brazen mid-morning shooting of the Flagstaff bakery manager along Barnett Street, a popular hairdresser shot to death in her shop located in the said area and the execution of a youth at the North Gully traffic light.
The police said they reaped success in the demolishing of the Alma Gang, killing or putting away 13 gang members including Torneal Haughton, leader of the Alma Gang and his henchman Jermaine Brown.
