PM’s promise to crush gangs met with skepticism

Prime Minister Andrew Holness' bold declaration that the security forces are to "go after every gang in Jamaica" is unlikely to send tremors down the spine of gangsters, a resident of a war-torn inner-city community concluded yesterday.

"That just comes as a spur in the moment kind of thing. This should've been something we were focused on from the beginning. Why it had to take something as drastic like this?" a resident of Craig Town, St Andrew, reasoned.

Holness' comments followed the murder of eight persons and injuring of nine others at a bingo party in Cherry Tree Lane, Four Paths in Clarendon on Sunday night.

"The security forces have now been given, after our National Security Council meeting, the directive to go after every single gang, erode them. The gangs that have been directly identified as responsible for this action are connected with other gangs, and so we must pull the thread to where it leads. So today, every gang leader must tek weh demselves," the prime minister declared.

Holness declared further that it is a "total assault on gangs in Jamaica" and "it should be an operational and strategic stance of the Jamaica Defence Force, the Jamaica Constabulary Force, Major Organised Crime Agency and other intelligence modalities."

But the resident of Craig Town is not convinced that much results will be yielded from the directive to demolish the 185 active gangs across the island.

"It is going to be impossible for the police to get every gang in Jamaica. They don't use their intelligence much and it is going to take a lot for them to capture persons," he shared.

Craig Town has been experiencing a wave of violence that left the area unstable. The resident with whom THE STAR spoke argued further that though a recently instated curfew there has brought about a tense calm in the area, it will require more effort from the police to maintain peace.

"It is not just about sending people in their yard at a certain time. You need more patrolling, you have to search people more. The police know who the people are that are giving trouble so they have to do more to go after these people they call the perpetrators of violence. They need to be doing more," he told THE STAR.