'INDECOM is making it worse'

The continued arrests of members of the Jamaica Constabulary Force by the Independent Commission of Investigations (INDECOM) is not going down well with some residents of Havana Heights in Clarendon who claim that the investigatory body is making things easier for the criminals.

"I not saying yuh mus not investigate man and carry him in, and t'ing. But for some of dem boy here, it don't mek sense yuh carry them in. It's best you kill them because you carry them in and they come back out," said Peter Lloyd, the most outspoken of four men who gathered at a shop in the community yesterday.

"INDECOM is making it worse. Dem gunmen here walk and kill off people, and when police kill them, INDECOM arrest them (police). That is one of the problem them," said Lloyd, who charged that residents should also play their part in getting rid of the gunmen as the police alone can't do it.

Lloyd's statements followed the arrest of at least a dozen Clarendon policemen who INDECOM alleges were involved in police death squads in the parish in recent years.

Lloyd's statements also followed complaints by senior officers in the parish that an increasing number of policemen were retiring from the force out of fear that they would be prosecuted for acts carried out on the job.