St Mary police boss shooting for success in crime fight
Published:Friday | January 17, 2025 | 12:09 AMGareth Davis Sr/Gleaner Writer
ST MARY:
With a flare-up of violence rocking several communities in St Mary, Acting Superintendent Anthony Wallace, the commanding officer for the St Mary Police Division, has vowed to tackle crime and restore peace and calm among the parish’s citizens.
Wallace, who spoke with The Gleaner via telephone yesterday, said the police would be relentless in its pursuit of what he described as the drivers of violence, wanted persons, and persons of interest (gangsters). He said the police were taking a proactive approach by placing law-enforcement officers in key crime spots to tackle the problems.
“So the aim is to expand our operational support teams to cover the entire division. These are members who were trained by Specialised Operations in level-two tactical policing principles,” said Wallace, noting that this means their skill set, competence, and capabilities have been enhanced.
“We also intend to secure our borders and to collaborate with neighbouring police divisions.
“We will adopt and implement a holistic community safety and security focus across the parish so as to build relationships between the police and residents. There will be continuous training and development for officers,” he added.
According to Wallace, the robust operational activities across the parish will continue in order to deter, displace, and disarm criminals. He noted that the partnership between the Jamaica Constabulary Force and the Jamaica Defence Force will intensify as part of their crime-fighting efforts.
Among the crime hotspots singled out by the commanding officer are Enfield, Iteboreale, Dover, Tremolsworth, Stewart Town, Three Hills, Huddersfield, and Frontier in the parish.
“We will prioritise Annotto Bay for focused and dynamic policing activities to stop the bloodletting in the communities of Enfield, Dover, and Iterboreale. Beat officer patrol will be ramped up in all five main towns centres comprising Annotto Bay, Port Maria, Oracabessa, Highgate, and Gayle so as to preserve the safety of residents and businesses alike,” he said. “We currently have three murders in the division [for the year], but one might not be ours. That one involves a female who was killed elsewhere and dumped in Castleton. The other two murders involve a domestic matter in Highgate, and the third is a continuation of the crime problem in Enfield. We have seen tremendous improvements, but there is still work to be done.”
In the meantime, Wallace said the police will conduct seminars and workshops on customer service and that the Community Safety and Security Branch will ramp up police-citizens interactions as they aim to strengthen relationships and partnerships.
Throughout last year, 26 persons were killed in the St Mary Police Division.