Tommy Lee sympathises with innocent ZOSO residents - manager says artiste wants peace

Following the decision by the Jamaican Government to declare Mount Salem, St James, a Zone of Special Operations in an attempt to dismantle gangs affiliated with the area, the management of dancehall artiste Tommy Lee Sparta, who hails from the parish, said the deejay wants peace in the parish.

Tommy Lee's manager Tanya Thelwell told THE STAR that "Any type of curfew is bad, even though the intentions are good. This is because good people lose their freedom because others are misbehaving. It is like you are an adult, but you are under your parents rule because you can't move about as you like. The sad thing is that the good has to suffer for the bad because they are being held to the same rules."

She also said that the Spartan Solider deejay has been using his live performances as a medium to denounce violence.

"Tommy recently performed at Margaritaville and he cut his set to speak to the youth to let them know that MoBay is a good place and a tourist destination, and they should build it instead of destroying it. He also denounced the killing of women and children, telling the youth that killing those people is basically like ending the future generations of people," she said.

The deejay, who recently signed to Sean Kingston's Time Is Money record label also presented his own crime plan to fans.

VERY EMOTIONAL

"He advised them to sit together and work out issues instead of fighting because fighting doesn't usually fix the problems. All that does is breed a new set of disagreements and issues. He was very emotional and the speech was so long, I was wondering if he was going to break down," she said.

Holness said the decision to declare Mount Salem as the first zone was based on police statistics, which show that the area is a major crime hotspot.

He informed that the JDF and the JCF made a written request for operations in Mount Salem.

Deputy Commissioner of Police Clifford Blake said that Mount Salem, St James, is plagued by rampant criminality.

Blake said that 46 murders were committed there in 2014, another 70 in 2015, 85 last year, and 55 this year.