Tyrone Reid, Staff Reporter
PERCIVAL LATOUCHE, president of the Returning Residents Association, has blamed police tardiness for the growth in organised attacks, including murders, against returning residents.
Mr. LaTouche told The Gleaner this week that the police had failed to act on intelligence given to them.
In the same breath, Mr. LaTouche said the cracking on Saturday of a crime ring, said to be responsible for masterminding some of these attacks, was good but would not suffice.
"I commend the police for taking action at this stage, but if they had listened to me from day one, this would have been stemmed earlier," he stressed. "All these murders and robberies would not have taken place."
He said that, for years, returning residents had been killed because of "inside links at the airport."
The police have arrested three men, including a policeman, and a woman. Cash, jewellery, clothing and other articles were retrieved in the bust.
POLICE REFUSED TO ACT
Mr. LaTouche stressed that the police refused to act on the information he provided that personnel from the airport's loading ramp and the customs area were fingering the returning residents to the perpetrators.
Mr. LaTouche mentioned two specific cases, Danny Gayle, who was killed in 2001, just an hour and a half after getting off the plane; and Vidal Nelson, who was murdered in 2000, just four hours after returning to the island.
On Monday, Superintendent Cornwall 'Bigga' Ford, head of the Flying Squad, did not defend the police against Mr. LaTouche's verbal attack.
"We not fighting him on it ... thanks for the commendation, but (we are) asking him not to come down too hard because we still doing the work," he said.
