Glenroy Sinclair and Claude Mills, Senior Staff Reporters
A grieving relative rests her hand on one of the victims at a double murder scene on Maxfield Avenue in St. Andrew as attendants (partially hidden) from Madden's Funeral Home remove the body, recently. - RUDOLPH BROWN/CHIEF PHOTOGRAPHER
THE MONTH of September is shaping up to be one of the bloodiest on record with 12 persons being killed in a 24-hour period. At least 29 persons have been killed since Saturday, according to police reports.
Bloody turf wars. Reprisal killings. Staggering poverty. Spiralling inflation. Brutal gangs who commit daily atrocities against a cowering, frightened populace.
This is the portrait of a Jamaica which has become an incredibly dangerous country to live in. According to police records, someone is murdered in this country every six hours, and as the murder figures steamroll towards a record number this year, solutions are proving to be elusive.
"The murder rate is running away ... in east Kingston, murders have gone up 100 per cent. There is a substantial increase in north St. Andrew, and in rural parishes such as Hanover, St. Mary and in St. Elizabeth, there has been almost a 100 per cent increase. In the short term, we need to equip the police, tighten the ports, and get the guns off the street," said Derrick Smith, the Opposition spokesman on national security.
NOT JUST A GUN PROBLEM
"But it is a complex thing, this problem ... remember, it is not the gun per se, but the willingness to use the gun ... we need to produce individuals who don't crave a gun ... and we need to create more economic opportunities for our people."
These figures get even more frightening with the latest homicide figures from the Jamaica Constabulary (JCF) which show that 80 persons were killed in the month of August.
Since January 1,184 persons have been murdered in separate incidents islandwide, an increase of 200 when compared with the corresponding period last year. Overall, this represents a 20 per cent increase in a murder rate that has shown no sign of decelerating.
"I think we have let ourselves down. We have excelled in every area of living governance, whether as a team or individual, but in the whole area of governance it's been a failure of leadership. We should never be where we are," said Roman Catholic priest, Monsignor Richard Albert.
Monsignor Albert attributed the murder rate to the poverty and social conditions, which prevail in a number of communities. He suggested that the mushrooming murder rate provokes "a national sense of fear and shame".
The Government has attempted
several measures to tackle the escalating crime problem. Last October, a crack task force team - Operation Kingfish - began to target gangs, crime bosses, extortion rackets and the narcotics drug trade.
However, the police have made arrests in only 26 per cent of the murders committed this year, and the bloodletting in the form of gun-related murders continues in earnest. The violence has even spread to rural parts of the island with no tradition of gun violence.
In the meantime, it has been reported that the explosion of murders outside the Corporate Area is a result of migrating criminal gangs punching holes in the government's crime initiatives.
POLICEMAN, GIRLFRIEND SHOT
Yesterday, armed criminals shot a policeman and his girlfriend, before two of the gunmen were shot and killed by other policemen responding to the distress call of their colleague.
Reports are that at 1:30 a.m. Wednesday, the policeman's girlfriend, who is a businesswoman, drove home in the 5 West area of Greater Portmore, St. Catherine when three men held her up and demanded her 2000 Honda Integra motor car. She sounded an alarm and her boyfriend who was inside the house responded.
The three gunmen opened fire hitting the policeman and the woman. Other police personnel who lived in the area came to their assistance and a gun battle started during which two of the gunmen were hit and the other escaped on foot. The men are believed to be part of a car stealing ring in the Portmore area. On Tuesday, Aldo Brown, president of the Clarendon Chamber of Commerce proposed a three-pronged plan that includes the installation of surveillance cameras in May Pen, implementing social programmes throughout Clarendon, and decreasing the high rotation rate of key cops.
The proposal comes in the wake of the shooting deaths of Paul Howell, 36, and his wife Yanique, 30. The number of persons murdered in Clarendon since the start of 2005 stands at 61.
WEAPONS USED
Guns - 900
Knives - 128
Machetes - 35
Ice pick - 1
Others - 120
MOTIVES
Domestic violence - 47
Gang related - 299
Drugs - 22
Other criminal acts (robbery, rape, mob, disputes) - 491
Undetermined motives - 325.
Additional reporting by Rasbert Turner and Howard Campbell
