MONTEGO BAY, St James – Superintendent Steve McGregor, the cop sent to cool the increasing crime wave in St James, spent his second day on the job yesterday cooling tempers and helping to clear a large roadblock mounted by residents of Flankers, a poor community plagued by intermittent episodes of disorder in this tourist resort city.

McGregor, who was transferred from St Thomas, was one of 36 senior cops reassigned by the police commissioner as part of his strategy to bring crime under control, especially in St James where a lottery scam has been blamed for several murders.

However, McGregor, who arrived in the parish on Monday, yesterday saw one of the uglier sides of the parish when angry Flankers residents, claiming that they were abused by the police, locked down the main road to the city, leaving hundreds of people stranded, including visitors who had just arrived at the Sangster International Airport. Traffic stretched for miles in both directions during the roadblock.

The residents said they mounted the roadblock to protest against excessive force used by the police in a raid on the community Monday night, in which 10 residents, labelled by cops as extortionists, were detained.

One resident, who identified herself as Leila Henry, told the Observer that she had collected $40,000 from the contractors of the North Coast Highway on behalf of a group of young men for work done on a section of Corbett Drive, also known as Hog City, in the Flankers community.

She said that she paid some of the men but before she was finished she was called by the contractors and had to leave the premises.

She claimed that on her return at about 10:00 am, she found the men still at her place being held at gunpoint by policemen who sporadically discharged shots from their high-powered weapons into the air and released teargas in the area.

“I saw about 20 police stick-up the man them, saying they understood that it was extortion money paying here and I am the ring leader and sharing for them,” said Henry. “They burst off me chain, threatened to kick me down and they chuck me down. They said if me bad me must pass and go in me own yard.”

She said the police later detained 10 of the men, but released tem later.

The detention of the men, however, angered some community members who mounted a high pile of tyres and whatever other debris they found along the busy thoroughfare, just in front of the entrance to the Providence Heights community. They then set the heap ablaze, forcing the busy afternoon traffic to come to a standstill.

A unit from the Montego Bay Fire Department put out the blaze as the police cleared the rubble from the road and directed traffic along the roadway.

Superintendent McGregor said he and his team later met with Flankers residents inside the community.

“We had a meeting with about 150 residents and we made arrangements for another meeting. They told us what they had to say.We met each other half-way, so I am encouraged and things are looking up,” he said.