Gangsters again on the loose in volatile Grange Hill

WESTERN BUREAU:

When operatives from the Counter Terrorism and Organised Crime Investigations Branch (CTOC) swooped down on the volatile Grange Hill community in Westmoreland in 2018 and arrested 27 men and women linked to the King Valley Gang, law-abiding citizens breathed an overdue sigh of relief, thinking the nightmare was over.

In the lead-up to the raid, the community was a hotbed of lawlessness, having developed the dubious reputation of being a haven for gunrunning, extortion, lottery scamming and contract killings.

However, after four years of relative peace, the community has once again exploded in chaos, recording five murders in a 72-hour span last week, as gangsters aligned to the resurgent King Valley Gang and members of the emerging Ants Posse Gang traded bullets in their feud over the spoils of criminal activities.

“It is the worst I have ever seen the violence in Grange Hill. These guys (gangsters) are armed to the teeth with powerful handguns and rifles, and they are ready to kill each other around the clock,” a former educator told The Sunday Gleaner last week.

“Sometimes when I hear the shots firing, I just roll under my bed and pray, because I doubt my concrete walls can withstand those high-velocity bullets.”

This past Tuesday, the administrators at the Grange Hill Primary and Grange Hill High schools were forced to suspend classes and send home students after reports surfaced that gangsters were planning to shoot up one of the schools in the stronghold of one of the gangs.

In a bid to stem the carnage, a strong contingent of police and military personnel were deployed to the area. They were supported by aerial surveillance. Since then, there has been a tense calm, but residents remain worried as the gangsters are still on the loose in the community.

“As far as I see, bringing in the soldiers and police will not make a difference,” said Juliet Reynolds, whose bike repairman son, Norman ‘Shortman’ Backriddan, was murdered in broad daylight six days ago.

“These men are dangerous, once they want you dead, they are going to come and get you.”

CRIMINALS FROM ST JAMES

While Grange Hill is the epicentre of the current violence, residents of the parish, including the capital Savanna-la-Mar and Little London, are wary of the situation, as criminals regularly move from community to community when they come under pressure from the security forces.

A policeman, who asked not to be identified, told The Sunday Gleaner that many of the faces he is seeing in communities across Westmoreland are familiar faces from the underworld in St James, where he was stationed before being transferred to Westmoreland.

“A lot of the guys who are here creating mayhem are from volatile communities in St James,” said the policeman. “When they come under pressure in St James, their friends in this parish (Westmoreland) encourage them to come here. These guys are usually seasoned in lottery scamming and committing murders; and are the ones who do most of the reprisal killings because they are not well known.”

Since 2017, Westmoreland has been like a tinder box, regularly seeing feuding between gangs based in sections of Savanna-la-Mar – the home turf of the Dalling Street and Dexter Street gangs, Little London, and Grange Hill, which was once totally dominated by the King Valley Gang.

“What is different with Westmoreland is we have a proliferation of scammers who are good at what they do,” said Assistant Commissioner of Police Clifford Chambers in a 2023 interview with The Gleaner.

“Through the use of side roads, back roads and intervals, they have ways and means to get around the entire parish without touching the main (road).”

Westmoreland’s Custos, Reverend Hartley Perrin, who was quite vocal in the call for the state of public emergency (SOE), which was declared in the parish in May 2019, remains adamant that the cycle of violence must stop. In his 2023 Christmas message, he quoted from Bob Marley’s hit song, Crazy Baldhead, calling for the crazy gangsters and scammers to be chased out of the parish.

ATHLETES QUIT SCHOOL TO PURSUE SCAMMING

The lure created by the ill-gotten financial spin-off from criminal activities, especially lottery scamming, has been taking a heavy toll on the sports and education sectors in parish.

Last year, Machel Wollery, whose excellent track programme at Petersfield High School created a world champion in Jamaica’s quarter-miler Antonio Watson, bemoaned the fact that many of his gifted athletes, who should be preparing for the ISSA/GraceKennedy Boys and Girls’ Championships, had quit school to pursue lottery scamming.

In recent years, Everton Tomlinson, the president of the Westmoreland Football Association, has been lamenting the fact that many of the parish’s gifted young footballers have move away from sports to embrace a life of crime. He noted that he had attended the funerals of many of those youngsters who were killed in gang feuding.

“We are keeping our football programmes alive in the hope that we might be able to use sports to save the next generation, if we are not able to pull back those who have strayed,” Tomlinson said.

“Sports gave me an opportunity to make something out of my life, and I am committed to help to do the same for any youngster who want to do the same.”

With sugar cane production, which was once the lifeblood of communities like Grange Hill, practically non-existent, and the tourism sector in Negril only able to absorb a limited number of young people, the great fear in the parish is that, unless new legitimate opportunities are found, students graduating from schools such as Mannings, Godfrey Stewart High, Grange Hill High, and Frome Technical may be drawn into a life of crime.

“I would like to see some call centres established in Westmoreland. We hear that the BPO (business process outsourcing) sector is the fastest growing sector in Jamaica, so why not give us a piece of that pie,” said Diana Smith, who travels daily to Montego Bay to work at a call centre.

“We have many bright young people in this parish who would do well in that sector.”

editorial@gleanerjm.com