Anxiety grips Westmoreland as case falls apart

WESTERN BUREAU:

The collapse of the gang trial against 19 people who were alleged to have made Dexter Street their headquarters of horror has rattled the nerves of residents and business persons in Savanna-la-Mar, fearful of a resurgence of violence despite a state of emergency being in effect.

Westmoreland Custos the Reverend Hartley Perrin said that the falling through of the case on Tuesday in the Home Circuit Court in Kingston, triggered by the disappearance of a key witness, had shaken confidence in the security forces and the justice system.

“It is a frustrating blow to the law-enforcement officers who would have worked so hard to capture and lay charges against these men,” said Perrin, who was at the forefront of the call for the imposition of a state of emergency as murders soared to unprecedented levels.

“Maybe we are sending the wrong message to these guys who might be led to believe that the way to walk free is to make sure that the witnesses go missing,” said Perrin, who urged sleuths to anchor cases on forensic evidence instead of testimony.

Outgoing Westmoreland police commander Senior Superintendent Gary McKenzie, who played a pivotal role in the investigations, lamented that the absence of the star witness, a former gangster who had flipped, had caused the case to fall apart.

Stay out of trouble

According to McKenzie, the police would now have to institute strategies to calm jitters on Dexter Street. He also warned the gangsters to fall in line.

“We want to say to the persons who have returned that peace and harmony are in their best favour,” stated McKenzie.

Westmoreland has been under a state of emergency since April 30 as part of a security crackdown in the western arc incorporating Hanover and St James.

Police had claimed that the Dexter Street Gang had been responsible for 40 per cent of the more than 100 murders committed in Westmoreland between 2017 and 2018. Ninety-seven people were murdered in 2018.

News of the case collapse has raised fears in the community.

“Before dem youth get lock up, a nuff night mi haffi hide under mi bed because a gunshot and di gang war. Since dem deh a jail, Dexter Street come een like a paradise,” said a resident, who requested anonymity for fear of reprisals.