Nagra Plunkett, Staff Reporter
SEIVWRIGHT
WESTERN BUREAU:
PRESIDENT OF the Trelawny Chamber of Commerce, Dennis Seivwright, sent a clear message yesterday that he is ready to die in working with the police to stem the scourge of crime in his home parish.
"I am not afraid. Call me already dead but I pick my side, I am on the side of the police ... I am ready to die," Mr. Seivwright declared at the Trelawny Crime Prevention, Community Safety and Security Forum at the Falmouth Town Hall. "If you keep quiet and say nothing you are on the other side. Now you must get up and speak out as a people, as a community and as individuals, and decide which side you are on."
The parish of Trelawny in the past two years has seen an increase in gun violence, linked to the insurgence of criminal groupings, whose hostilities have spilled over into several schools in the parish.
"We cannot sit by and allow criminals to kill our families, while we hide ourselves in a corner and be afraid," the chamber president stressed. "It is not worthwhile to let your families die at the hands of the gunmen. I prefer to die in honour, I prefer to die in pride and I invite you to be on the side of the police."
COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT
Police Commissioner Lucius Thomas, who gave the main presentation at the forum, also highlighted the importance of community involvement and participation in the fight against crime.
"I have also said on many occasions that 'hard policing' can do so much and no more in solving the problems of crime and violence in Jamaica because it is existing social and economic conditions that give rise to criminality," the police chief stated. "Whatever it takes to bring Trelawny back to sanity, the Trelawny that I knew then when I was here in the 1970s and '80s, I am going to do that as commissioner."
