THE abject poverty and squalor in which people live in Kingston’s inner-city communities stunned members of the security forces yesterday as they intensified their push into the two sections of the capital that have been under curfew since early Sunday morning.

“I understand now why some man do some things yuh know. People nuh fi live them way yah,” said one policeman after searching a number of homes in Hannah Town. “We have to do something about these living conditions.”

The filth, garbage and unsanitary conditions commonplace in the area seemed to have touched a soft spot among other members of the military and police.

The police and soldiers have been combing sections of Hannah Town and Tavares Gardens (popularly known as Payne Land) in the first wave of the government’s new anti-crime initiative to crush criminal gangs. So far, a number of spent shells, two live rounds and detonator cables have been recovered in Hannah Town.

Yesterday, the St Andrew Central police reported that they found four guns but declined to say where. Head of the division, Superintendent Leon Rose, said that this find brought to seven, the number of guns that were recovered by the cops under his command in the last two weeks.

“We are very encouraged,” he said. “We had an operation last Friday morning in the Kintyre area in which we recovered a Bryco semi-automatic pistol with three live rounds with two magazines. We also recovered a Thompson magazine. This is a significant find.”

The guns the police said they found yesterday were one Deringer .22 Magnum revolver, a .32 semi-automatic Davis pistol and two semi-automatic handguns. No arrests were made in connection with the find.

The guns, which appeared to be brand new, were packaged in video cassette holders and were wrapped in transparent tape.

Head of the Constabulary Communication Network, Superintendent James Forbes, told the Observer that the police were on a mission to rearrange the social order of the inner-city. He said they would be looking into ways of improving the sanitary conveniences, electricity and water connections and bulldozing the derelict buildings that stood out like sore thumbs in these areas.

“The success of the initiative will not be measured by the number of arms and ammunition recovered, but by the emancipation of the people in these communities who are being held in bondage by criminals. This is a multi-agency approach,” Forbes said.

“Water, light, sanitary conveniences and other social conditions will be addressed before we leave these areas,” Forbes, who took part in the Hannah Town search, told the Observer.

As a matter of procedure, the police have made a pledge to repair any property that has been damaged by them in their effort to search the area. Head of operations, Deputy Superintendent Cornwall “Bigga” Ford, was overheard telling an occupant of a yard in Hannah Town, which was being searched, that the police had kicked off two doors in the yard and were going to repair or replace them. At another home in the area, a soldier was observed repairing the lock to the door of a one-room house that had been damaged.

Eighty-four year-old Lucy Smith lives in a single bedroom on the upper floor of a derelict wooden house in a tenement at 87 Upper Rose Lane in Hannah Town. Her house sits on the border with Denham Town and, as the police and soldiers entered in the yard, residents were overheard commenting that many times they slept on the floor as gunshots would be fired by men from nearby areas in the direction of their homes. They, too, welcomed the presence of the security forces.

As the police and soldiers climbed the steps to offer assurance that their mission was a peaceful one, they had to tread gingerly to avoid falling through the rotting boards.

Smith seemed to be buoyed by the presence of the security men and she encouraged them to continue their effort to fight crime in the area.

“Me respect the police dem,” she told the Observer. “I live in Hannah Town fi bout 50 years. When me younger, me leave Hannah Town and go down a public (Kingston Public Hospital) three o’clock a mornin’ go pull teeth and not even dog deh pan di road. Now, if mi lef mi yard 3 o’clock a day, mi fret,” Smith said as she turned a breadfruit roasting on a coal stove with her bare hands.

“So mummy, a you one live here?” one of the policemen asked.

“Yes man. Mi son live cross the waters,” the elderly woman replied.

“Boy, mi a tell you,” the cop uttered as he shook his head in sympathy with the old woman’s living condition.