A WARNING TO GANGSTERS
Chang says JCF will ‘hunt down and prosecute’ any Grange Hill criminal who carries out deadly threat against students
Published:Saturday | May 4, 2024 | 12:10 AMAlbert Ferguson Gleaner Writer
WESTERN BUREAU:
National Security Minister Dr Horace Chang has cautioned gangsters operating in Westmoreland to lay down their arms and refrain from carrying out threats to kill several students from the Crowder community in Grange Hill.
“There are people in Crowder who are threatening to kill students from that area,” Chang said. “I want to tell them, every single one who might be having such thoughts, we will find them, wherever they go (and) anyone that is a perpetrator in Grange Hill we are going to look for them, hunt them down and prosecute them,” the national security minister warned.
Chang was part of a high-level security and education team which visited with students and academic staff of Grange Hill High School yesterday.
Noting threats issued against schoolchildren, he assured that the police, acting on intelligence, are actively working to prevent them from carrying out their threats against them and that Commissioner of Police Dr Kevin Blake and his team, led by Superintendent Othneil Dobson as Commanding Officer for Westmoreland, will find and uproot criminals from their hiding place.
“We are confident that the commissioner and his team, supporting the team in Westmoreland, will not only find these perpetrators but prevent others from carrying out any more of the heinous crimes.
“I want to assure you that anybody hurt you or your fellow student, whether fellow students here or not, anywhere in Grange Hill or Westmoreland, the police force is committed to finding him and locking him away,” disclosed Chang, who is also the country’s deputy prime minister.
He argued that if these criminals operating in the parish attempt to fire at the police they should also be prepared for tough resistance.
On Thursday, April 25, 16-year-old Grange Hill High School Carson Barrett was killed and a female student shot and injured during a deadly attack by gangsters on Belle Isle Road in Grange Hill as they made their way home from sports day.
Chang repeated the security force’s commitment to hunt down those responsible for carrying out the hit on Barrett.
“We are going to pursue the perpetrator relentlessly. Whether he is young or old, we are going to find him and prosecute him and we are going to remove him from the community,” Chang declared.
“And we have accurate intelligence, not verandah talk or rumour that there are those from the other side of the crew,” the minister noted, indicating that the police have information that Barrett’s murder was ordered from within the hierarchy of the Kings Valley Gang.
The Kings Valley Gang, which operates in the Grange Hill space, has had an ongoing feud with the emerging Ants Posse Gang, which also has clusters in Grange Hill. Both gangs are responsible for several murders committed within the parish.
Chang also shared crime, and in particular murder within the community which falls within the Morgan’s Bridge Police Station in the Westmoreland Police Division, has seen a significant increase.