Cops, health department to fumigate lock-up
WESTERN BUREAU: SENIOR SUPERINTENDENT of Police Marlon Nesbeth, the commanding officer for the St James Police Division, says that the police are prepared to respond to the St James Health Department’s request to temporarily close the Freeport police lock-up so that health personnel can restore the facility to a healthy state.
“The issue has to do with the need for fumigation and some issues surrounding leakage, in that when it rains heavily, the place is affected,” said Nesbeth in an interview with The Gleaner. “So we took the decision that we would, at a particular juncture, seek to effect repairs and remedy the situation in tandem with the health department because they are the ones assisting us with the fumigation effort.
“The prisoners will be moved momentarily to other locations, even as far as Kingston, and that will be done in short order,” Nesbeth added. “I do not expect this to be any major issue re any closure of any entity.”
SECURING SAFE TRANSFER
With regard to the measures to ensure the safe transfer of the prisoners, Nesbeth said that the matter would be treated as a major priority.
“The custody of the prisoners is certainly our priority at this time. We see the challenges, where we would have had escape of prisoners, but we do not expect anything like that to happen (in this situation),” said Nesbeth. “So we are managing the process very professionally.
“We also have guaranteed that we will do our transportation of prisoners to court early and on time. We gave that commitment to the court only this Monday (January 9), and that certainly will be our priority,” Nesbeth added.
The call for temporarily closing down the Freeport lock-up and the relocation of its inmates to other facilities was made by the Public Health Department following investigations at several lock-ups across St James in November last year.