KINGSTON, Jamaica, CMC – Prime Minister Andrew Holness Wednesday said that the Governor General, Patrick Allen, has declared a state of public emergency (SOE) in the entire parish of St. James, where two school boys were among several people shot and killed earlier this week.
Speaking at a news conference, Holness said that the Governor General had taken the decision “after careful consideration and review of the current crime situation in St. James.”
Prime Minister Andrew Holness speaking at a news conference on Wednesday (CMC Photo)
Holness said that the Parliament on Tuesday rose together “to condemn the brutal murder of innocent lives.
“Young children who had their entire future ahead of them and parents, it must be a consideration that it could have been your children.
“And so we take this moment as we declare our response to grieve with the families and to encircle them and surround them with our prayers for comfort at this time,” a somber-looking Holness told reporters, adding,” but we also give resolute assurance to the people of Jamaica that we will not wilt, we will not resile in the face of terror.”
Holness said that the circumstances of the crime involving the school children will be dealt with by the heads of the security agencies when they address the news conference, “but I want you to bear in mind that the response of the government has been first of all proportionate, restrain and we have been very strategic as well.”
He said the public will recall when his administration declared the use of Zones of Special Operations (ZOSP), the authorities were targeting the top 20 most violent communities, including the area where the murders were committed this week.
Holness said the initiative’s results were commendable, and ZOSP could be regarded as a model of transformation of communities.
“But it did not make the news, and we did not necessarily promote it either,” he told the news conference with Police Commissioner Major General Antony Anderson and National Security Minister Dr. Horace Chang in attendance.
He said crime in Salt Spring declined, and the government took the Zones of Special Operations into other hotspots using a different approach.
Holness said when the authorities realized that there was a resurgence of gang warfare in the area, “we used the tools of curfew, increased police presence, and regular police operations.
“But that did not seem to bring the …gang wars under control. The actual circumstance of this act of terror is that someone, obviously a citizen of Jamaica, a son of Jamaicans, a member of the community, someone who went to our schools, someone who may be a parent himself, obviously lay waiting for someone who is a target in a public passenger vehicle, in a taxi that any one of you here today, if you were in St. James ..in a public space,
“It’s a high-powered weapon. This is not an ordinary crime. This is the worst of the worst. The result is that another young Jamaican, I believe he was 26 years old, wanted by the police…but he felt he was at large and hid himself in public passenger transport that is known to carry children,” Holness said, adding that the result being two “innocent young children” being murdered.
Police said Justin Perry and his schoolmate Nacholive Smith of the Chetwood Primary School and an unidentified man were shot and killed by gunmen while traveling in a taxi on Monday evening in the Flower Hill community of the volatile Salt Spring area northwest of here.
The Salt Spring area is the site of an ongoing gang feud. Last Friday, gunmen shot and killed six-year-old Arianna Salmon, a grade one student of St Jude’s Primary, along with her grandmother Marie Salmon, 42, and Michael Smith, 34.
Chang told the news conference that in the past ten days, “we have seen an outbreak of ruthless violence’ in the Salt Springs area, describing Monday’s killings as “heart rendering.
“It touched the emotion of the entire nation,” he said, adding, “It is unfortunate that that kind of brutality had to shake us again…and I hope the entire nation would respond to the Prime Minister’s call for … tackling the brutal criminals….”.
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