Maxfield Avenue residents say SOE ineffective

On Wednesday night, gunshots barked through sections of Maxfield Avenue, leaving the St Andrew community on edge.

When the smoke cleared, the bullet-riddled body of an unidentified man was found with his hands bound and mouth gagged in an abandoned yard, while detectives searched the area for clues.

Unfortunately, that was not the only crime scene that the police had to process, because two other men were killed in separate incidents on Little Kew Road and Dillon Avenue.

Up to press time, there were no reports from the communication arms of the Jamaica Constbulary Force.

Despite being within a state of public emergency (SOE) zone, residents believe that this crime- fighting measure has been useless.

There are at least four checkpoints in the community but at least 10 persons have been murdered in the area since the SOE was installed.

House to house

A resident, who chose to remain anonymous, told THE WEEKEND STAR that the security forces need to do more house-to-house searches.

"A lot of days I am here and I don't see any of the security forces doing a walk-through or anything. Every now and again they will stop vehicles but those vehicles don't belong to Maxfield people dem. They need to build a relationship with the residents here and this is where trust will be built but that is not happening," she said.

"Is not them a make the crime rate go up but they are not doing anything to curb it either. But it's like the gunman dem can time pedal dem because dem know say dem nah move from whe dem deh so it no take nothing for dem to go step pon a crime and come back," a man chimed in.

He strongly believes that the government is too lenient in its crime-fighting techniques and offered strong words of advice.

"One time shop use to open round here 24 hours but that can't gwaan again. The place need to come back so it nuh make any sense waste taxpayers money to put man a prison. The Government need to let these killers know that they are serious and stop prison the murderer dem. Once they are sure say they are guilty of murder, then surprise them and kill the habitual murderers. Even if is my son and him a murder innocent people, get rid of him," he said.