Commish defends gun-recovery efforts
WITH THE number of recorded gun and ammunition seizures during the states of emergency (SOEs) falling below those of the previous years when no such enhanced security measures was imposed, Police Commissioner Major General Antony Anderson has rejected assertions that the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF) is not doing enough to recover illegal firearms.
“When you have a state of emergency, it’s largely an operation that reduces violence, and it does it in a number of ways. One of the consequences of states of emergency is that we find a lot of guns buried, so people are not walking around with the guns. Also, a number of people leave, and number of people are held who are involved in the business of violence,” Anderson said, citing that lack of information has thwarted their efforts to recover illegal firearms.
In 2018, the police seized 720 guns and 11,227 rounds of ammunition compared to the 862 guns and 22,158 rounds of ammunition seized in 2017, according to official police statistics.
The police commissioner, however, said that the JCF’s gunrecovery efforts were bearing fruit.
“If you notice, as the SOEs progressed, we started to find caches because we’d get information and we’d start going for that. What’s happening now is we are recovering guns nearly daily in St James because of the security forces running into the guys carrying their guns,” he said.
“That is why the murders have gone up because a number of the murders are targets of opportunity that because they have their guns on them, they can go and kill somebody and run off. With the state of emergency, that doesn’t happen in that way, and you see less guns.”
SOEs were declared i n St James on January 18, 2017, in St Catherine North on March 18, 2018, and in parts of the Corporate Area on September 23, 2018. They all came to an end in January this year.
THE PROPOSED construction of the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF) headquarters is set to save the Government nearly $400 million per year, according to National Security Minister Dr Horace Chang.
“It’s not only a matter of getting teams together as the leadership of the force would like to have, ... , but from a purely financial point of view, we spend some US$3 million per year now on rental. That alone, in fact, can finance the update process. And we will have a property that is purpose-built, and, therefore, serve the purposes of the police force more effectively,” Chang said.
The minister was yesterday responding to questions at the post-sectoral press briefing held at Jamaica House in St Andrew.
In his presentation on Tuesday, Chang announced that the first built-for-purpose police headquarters would be constructed on 40 acres of land in an area of south St Andrew commonly referred to as No Man’s Land, replacing the current headquarters located on Old Hope Road in St Andrew. No Man’s Land is located near Rema, Denham Town, and Tivoli Gardens, which are considered volatile areas.
Also responding to questions, Commissioner of Police Major General Antony Anderson said that the move to an area close to downtown Kingston would help bolster the JCF’s crime-fighting efforts in the area.
“It seems to be that us as police officers need to be – and locate ourselves – where our problems are. [There’s] no point in staying on Old Hope Road and deploying somewhere else to deal with the problem. I think if we situated ourselves in the middle of where the problems are, then we’ll have a better effect,” the police commissioner said.
HOPE FOR REDEVELOPMENT
He is hoping that the increased presence of the police in the area will help in the redevelopment of the area once plagued by gang violence.
“Now, the cumulative effect of having 2,000-plus officers in the middle of six communities that have suffered for a very long time from crime, violence, and just urban blight is significant. It means that if you go down the road there, every second person you meet will be a police officer. Down in the market, there will be police officers. Police officers will be around just going about their normal business,” Anderson said.
He added: “That has a calming and securing and safety effect on surrounding communities and on some of the issues that are happening there. It also brings significant investment to an area that has been somewhat ‘uninvestible’ over a long period of time.”