Leonardo Blair, Enterprise Reporter
Dr. Andrew Wheatley, Mayor of Spanish Town. - NORMAN GRINDLEY/DEPUTY CHIEF PHOTOGRAPHER
LIKE SCATTERED rain, residents in Spanish Town and other areas of St. Catherine, protested rising consumer prices in pockets of rage, spilling piles of debris across busy roadways and prevented traffic for hours yesterday morning.
With the streets left deserted by motorists scared for their safety, residents of Central Village partitioned sections of the Mandela Highway creating multiple football fields. Others kept watch as a carnival of confusing rage and clueless intentions characterised macabre scenes. "I really don't care what is going on, because in the long run, the Government won't do nothing," said one bystander in Central Village. "No picture here. Nuh take no picture!" one football-playing youth warned a Gleaner photographer trying to capture the scene.
TRIBAL-LIKE FITS
A public theatre of women screamed that they could not pay their light bills or their gas bills or their bus fares. Others lashed out in tribal-like fits that they wanted work.
The roadblocks were many and the protestors expressed their rage in a fierce street collage. Old cars, rusting zinc, scrap metal, old stoves, tree trunks and burning tyres; just about everything they wanted to throw out. "This a fi wi voice," said one woman. "Mr. Patterson must hear wi."
Along Brunswick Avenue at the train crossing, residents in that section of Spanish Town, swarmed the streets even more after a police officer accused of beating on one protester was forced to fire several shots in the air to scare away the angry mob. But the people would not budge and kept a safe distance away from a police officer with a cocked gun.
BARRAGE OF INSULTS
But the protestors were not the only ones raging. Some motorists travelling yesterday were saved only through the efforts of the hardworking police who came under a barrage of insults from the protestors at times.
One frustrated motorist manoeuvring his way through several roadblocks being cleared by the police near the Old Iron Bridge in Spanish Town, simply shot back with some ammunition of his own when wild-running protestors tried to block his way after the police had cleared a roadblock.
Mayor of Spanish Town, Dr. Andrew Wheatley, was arrested along with Councillor for the Westchester Division in Portmore, Natalie Campbell-Rodriquez . They were both charged for disorderly conduct and later offered bail in the sum of $20,000 each.
