Crime is ripping up St Ann now… and it’s not just murder.
This newspaper reported, six weeks ago, that there had been a debilitating spate of break-ins and robberies in the Runaway Bay, Discovery Bay to Dumbarton triangle involving numerous houses. Further, a month before that, almost everyday people in the Alexandria and Cave Valley area, south of Brown’s Town were reporting robberies and break ins. The police know about them but the few detectives available are overwhelmed by the mountain of work they have.
In the last few weeks, there have been some instances of robbery and shooting that have come to the attention of this newspaper, no thanks to the police.
Two of the more recent have been mentioned in this issue, including the shooting and wounding of Standford Reid, operator of Save a Dollar in Runaway Bay. Perhaps the responses to the incidents involving Mr Reid (known to many as Mr King) have been as intense as they are because of who he is — a calm, unassuming man of faith who works hard, opens his business earlier and later than anyone in the area. The fact that he comes from a well known, hard working and respected family in the area may have led to the outpouring of condemnation of the incident and calls for the police to do something about crime generally.
People have said it was cruel that they attacked him and that the attackers must be people from the area who clearly knew the set up of the house and household. Others say it’s just the out of control criminality.
From talks we have had and continue to have with police on the ground, there is a high level of frustration among them, and it’s not all to do with lack of resources. Some of it is with favouritism and bad leadership, but that’s for another time. We know St Ann and Area 2 have new leadership in Gary Francis and ACP Fitz Bailey so we expect better policing, management and more results.
Resources are woefully lacking.
Runaway Bay with its huge number of districts and with four large hotels has one police vehicle. “The criminals can watch the movement and know when it’s not going to be able to get to a certain area under one hour and they can do their thing,” said an officer with close contacts with the station.
The lack of vehicles is said to be common across the parish.
The number of police is a major issue, even if they could get mobility. In one week, one detective may have as many as ten cases some of them serious, almost ensuring he can’t get the statements on time and can’t make any headway in cases. That’s plus his court, hospital and other duties. “We need to be able to prevent crime not just detect. Now we are doing neither,” a detective in St Ann told The Times.
Runaway Bay is now said to be the station with most crime in the parish, after Ocho Rios, yet it has only two detectives assigned there. There are just not enough to go around.
We can give details, but that would further compromise security.
It is ironic that Runaway Bay that has four large resorts, with more than 4000 rooms, plus villas and guests houses is unable to attract adequate personnel and physical resources to keep the small town and surrounding districts safe That’s even while the hotels and other businesses do what they can to improve the conditions at the small, under resourced station.
Forty five people have been murdered in St Ann since the start of the year. There is no comfort in that number even when it is compared to St James, which has many times the population of St Ann. We know the Chamber of Commerce has expressed its concern about crime but we believe more pressure must be brought on the Police High Command in Kingston to provide additional vehicles and personnel. We cannot wait until the criminals become more emboldened or drive fear into more people before we raise the cry. Nor can we wait on and allow the murder and maiming of more productive members of our society. We can’t wait for St Ann to slip into the bloodletting we have observed in other parishes.
