Bike cops to tackle Kingston crime wave
Published:Tuesday | February 2, 2021 | 12:14 AMAndre Williams/Staff Reporter
The Jamaican police force will in weeks roll out a crack motorcycle unit aimed at stemming the tide of blood that has stained Kingston’s streets amid an upsurge in gang violence.
The imminent deployment is expected to mirror the quick-response police team that was commissioned in 2019 to curtail crime in the western city of Montego Bay, a template that Commissioner of Police Major General Antony Anderson hopes will reap similar rewards.
“They will be trained in the tactical use of motorcycles and their weapons to respond quickly to gang activities and other threats to the lower part of Kingston,” Anderson said at a virtual press conference on Monday.
Tension is mounting in the Kingston Western Police Division, with close to 20 murders in January alone, in the wake of Sunday’s killing of a reputed crony of drug kingpin Christopher ‘Dudus’ Coke.
That fatal shooting triggered an almost immediate reprisal – within 15 minutes – on West Street.
The state-owned Jamaica Urban Transit Company deployed additional buses to ferry out commuters on Monday evening amid anxiety that the blowback against the death could lead to more flare-ups.
Anderson said that he had met with divisional heads to assess “the possible outcomes of that killing”, including whether more bloodletting could follow.
“Immediately we put in a response to separate these criminal gangs using other assets that are not assigned there, but we use them in a more fluid way to interrupt,” the police commissioner said.
Anderson’s bikers will also have to tackle gang violence further east in Dunkirk and will eventually fan out to the northern arc of Kingston and St Andrew.
“These are some serious times,” was the ominous warning being sung on Monday by an elderly resident of the community following the brutal murder of a mother who chastised gunmen for wounding her daughter moments earlier.
The woman, 49-year-old Angelita McPherson, of Margaret Street, Kingston 16, was shot and killed along Wild Street on Sunday.
Her daughter, whose name has not been published because of security concerns, is battling for life in hospital after she was shot repeatedly.
Reports from the Elletson Road police are that about 12:50 p.m., McPherson was walking along the roadway when she was attacked by three men who opened fire at her. She was pronounced dead at hospital.
On Monday, Dunkirk’s streets were generally empty and many businesses closed.
“Dem make after her three times already, and see it now … , dem shoot up her daughter and di woman go round deh go talk and dem duh her bad,” a resident said.
One hundred and nineteen people were murdered in January 2021, three more than the comparative period last year.