Sat | Apr 27, 2024

Chang: Fighting crime not easy in Westmoreland

Published:Friday | September 8, 2023 | 12:12 AMAlbert Ferguson/Gleaner Writer
Dr Horace Chang (centre), minister of national security, listens to Jacqueline Johnson (left), senior project manager, special projects unit at the National Housing Trust, while Morland Wilson (third right), member of parliament, Westmoreland Western; Marl
Ashley Anguin
Dr Horace Chang (centre), minister of national security, listens to Jacqueline Johnson (left), senior project manager, special projects unit at the National Housing Trust, while Morland Wilson (third right), member of parliament, Westmoreland Western; Marlon Turner, manager, Marlon Turner Construction; and Major General Antony Anderson, Commissioner of Police (right), look on during a tour of the Little London Police Station in Westmoreland yesterday.

WESTERN BUREAU:

NATIONAL SECURITY Minister Dr Horace Chang says the escalation of criminal activities in Westmoreland has ignited a dire need to have the Frome and Little London police station buildings now under construction put into operation quickly.

Chang says these two facilities, which have a combined construction value of $375 million, are being erected under the security ministry’s ‘Project Rebuild, Overhaul, and Construct (P-ROC), with funding from the National Housing Trust.

According to the minister, the construction phase is expected to come to an end next year, before the full occupation of the Frome Police Station some time next July.

Further, he said work on the Little London Police Station is expected to begin before the end of that calendar year.

Chang said construction is proceeding at a good pace at this time.

“We had some delays in the start-up, which we have overcome, and we are moving along now. We are monitoring them very carefully because we need the stations in Westmoreland,” Chang said.

He was speaking with reporters following a tour of the construction sites of the Frome and Little London police stations and a high-level closed-door security meeting with Commissioner of Police Antony Anderson, and Vernon Ellis, Acting Assistant Commissioner of Police for Area One, yesterday.

“Westmoreland is a parish that has seen some increases in criminal activities, and we have had to deploy more personnel in the parish,” the national security minister said.

“It is a demanding job in Westmoreland, and fighting crime is not easy. We have seen the evolution of criminal activities in the west,” Chang stated, noting that there has been an emergence of big, organised gangs in Westmoreland.

“There is also the growing level of scamming, which has the smaller gangs, not the big organised gangs, but they do more damage because they kill each other much quicker in personal disputes,” he added.

Pointing to the government’s plan to build a new state-of-the-art divisional headquarters for the parish, Chang insisted that the project, despite several missed timelines, will be built on land in Llandilo, which is currently being used as an operations base for the Jamaica Defence Force (JDF).

On Monday, gunmen kept the police busy processing two crime scenes metres apart. The criminals went on a rampage in the parish as they shot and killed a businesswoman in Little London and then robbed a supermarket, leaving an elderly woman nursing gunshot wounds.

Chinese nationals who operate the Little One Supermarket in the town were robbed of an undetermined sum of cash. That incident sent residents scampering for cover as the men fired a barrage of shots before escaping.

In the second incident, men riding motorcycles shot and killed a businesswoman named Lativa Helps, and one of the alleged gunmen came under attack from irate local residents.