Howard Campbell, Gleaner WriterSEVERAL MEN with the tag 'Most Wanted' beside their names have been killed by the police this year. Significantly, all were cut down without the publication of a Most Wanted list.
The Most Wanted bulletin is seemingly a thing of the past for the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF). Indeed, it has been four years since one has been released. The last one published was in August 2002, and included Gideon Warriors leader Joel Andem, and Donovan 'Bulbie' Bennett, former head of the Klansman Gang in Spanish Town.
NAME CRIMINALS
Assistant Commissioner of Police, Denver Frater, told The Sunday Gleaner that early this year Police Commissioner Lucius Thomas instructed the heads of the 19 police divisions to name their most wanted criminals, rather than issue a national list.
Commissioner Thomas also ordered division superiors to call on the citizenry for help in tracking these persons. ACP Frater says this move has helped net many criminals, and has been so successful, that the complexion of the national Most Wanted card changes regularly.
"The level of support we have been getting has been extremely successful, so successful that each time we are prepared to release the list, it has to be changed," said ACP Frater. The senior cop says some of the Most Wanted criminals who have eluded the law are either inactive or have fled the country.
STONECRUSHER LEADER KILLED
Michael 'Lassie' Forbes, reputed leader of the Stonecrusher gang from St. James, was the latest Most Wanted to die at the hands of the police. He was killed on Wednesday in St. Mary. ACP Frater said Forbes, a deportee, was top of the national Most Wanted chart. He ran the Stonecrusher gang which police say has been involved in several bloody incidents in St. James, including last Tuesday's murder of five persons in the district of Norwood.
While he did not give names of others on the national list, ACP Frater said some are from crime-ridden areas in August Town, west Kingston and the St. Andrew South Police Division.
Other Most Wanted criminals who have been killed by police this year include two of Forbes' colleagues in the Stonecrusher gang, Garfield Sawyers and a man identified only as 'Spiffy'. They were gunned down in
St. James in April and May, respectively.
Three men, who the police say terrorised east Kingston for months, were also killed by police. Royon Richards, Donovan Clarke and Delano 'Delly Bap' Waite were cut down within the first three months of this year. Waite was considered the most violent. The police linked him to a seven-hour shooting spree in Franklyn Town in February that resulted in the deaths of five persons.
