Claudine Housen/Staff Photographer
Superintendent Dezeita Taylor, commanding officer for the Westmoreland Police Division.

Nagra Plunkett, Staff Reporter

WESTERN BUREAU:

Commanding officer for Westmoreland, Superintendent Dezeita Taylor, has called for a marine post to be re-established in Savanna-la-Mar, to police branded drugs transshipment coastal areas of Little London and Bluefields.

"We are still having problems with drug running. The sea makes it easy for anything to come up by boats. Westmoreland on a whole is a parish for drugs," commented the superintendent.

"Even though there is a post in Negril, with seven miles of beach down there to police, it is difficult to withdraw resources into 'Sav'. But if we are able to put up a post, we could look at (the) Little London and Bluefields areas and be able to control the waters better," she added.

The officer was speaking at a Gleaner Editors' Forum to discuss crime in Area One, which includes Trelawny, St. James, Hanover and Westmoreland, on Thursday.

The Government in September handed over 10 of 40 boats to the Jamaica Constabulary Force to dent the activities of narco-criminals. It is not known whether any of the boats were allocated to Westmoreland.

That same month, Senior Superintendent Carlton Wilson commented that the Narcotics Unit would be intensifying its eradication programme, to curtail the increase in ganja production, which is being used to offset the fallout from the cocaine trade.

Jamaica was recently blacklisted by the United States as one of the major drug-producing countries, but according to SSP Wilson, assistance from their overseas counterparts has led to a significant decline in cocaine seizures.

GANG ACTIVITIES

Supt. Taylor also said that Westmoreland was facing the challenge of gang activities, especially in the inner-city community of Russia in Savanna-la-Mar.

Fifty-two persons have been murdered in the parish since January, 12 more than for the comparative period last year.

The other crime hotspots are Grange Hill, Whithorn, Frome and Negril.

"The proximity to St. James is a factor to our crime situation, because when the police pressure comes on in Montego Bay, criminals are flushed into Westmoreland," Supt. Taylor admitted. "We have to be doing road policing to include border blocks to try and stem the flow of itinerant criminals."