Cop arrested at Hunts Bay… again
Published:Sunday | July 18, 2021 | 12:53 AMLivern Barrett - Senior Staff Reporter
Another cop has been arrested at the Hunts Bay Police Station in St Andrew. The second one in a month.
The police corporal was apprehended by other police personnel “around allegations of corruption”, according to Superintendent Kirk Ricketts, commanding officer for the St Andrew South Police Division.
His identity has not been released, but he was recently reassigned from the Jamaica Constabulary Force’s (JCF) Public Safety and Traffic Enforcement Branch to act as head of the traffic unit at Hunts Bay Police Station, Ricketts confirmed.
It is unclear if the surprise arrest was carried out by police personnel from the Major Organised Crime and Anti-Corruption Agency or the JCF’s Inspectorate and Professional Standards Oversight Bureau.
“I have not been fully briefed as yet, but I know that the person was picked up around allegations of corruption,” Ricketts told The Sunday Gleaner yesterday.
The arrest is yet another black eye for the St Andrew South Police Division, which, historically, has been one of the most violent regions in the country.
Exactly one month ago, police Constable Tafari Silvera, dressed in full uniform, was arrested at the Hunts Bay Police Station in front of stunned colleagues for allegedly contracting three men to kill another man in Clarendon.
Silvera and two civilians, Christopher Robinson and Mark Bennett, were later charged with conspiracy to murder following a ruling by the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions.
In December 2019, The Sunday Gleaner reported exclusively that a detective inspector of police, who was also assigned to the St Andrew South Division, was allowed to resign without facing criminal charges.
His resignation came months after he allegedly tipped off a gangster about a plan that was being devised by the Jamaican police, with assistance from United States, British and Canadian law-enforcement authorities, to apprehend him.
According to multiple law-enforcement sources, he narrowly escaped a sting operation, set up with assistance from the gangster, to catch him in the act of collecting a $300,000 payment for his “help”.
TOP HOMICIDE DIVISIONS
The St Andrew South Police Division leads the nation in homicides, with 95 reported murders between January 1 and last Thursday, according to the latest JCF statistics. This is 11 or 13 per cent more than was recorded for the comparative period last year.
There are at least 38 active criminal gangs wreaking havoc across the division, one senior investigator disclosed.
“Turf war, fighting for the spoils of crime, contract killings and extortion,” one investigator disclosed, pointing to the source of the gang conflicts.
St James has the second-highest murder rate, with 90 reported killings over the same period, a 43 per cent jump when compared with the corresponding period last year.
Trelawny, with seven (a 50 per cent decline) and St Mary, with eight (a 56 per cent decline) are the parishes with the fewest murders so far this year.
Up to Thursday, a total of 764 persons have been murdered across the island since the start of the year, a six per cent increase over the corresponding period last year, according to the JCF statistics.