THE politically disturbed decade of the 1970s provided the perfect breeding ground for reprobate characters who would grow to become a dangerous menace to society.

These ‘chuckies’ found favour with the political leadership of both parties (The Jamaica Labour Party and the People’s National Party) and enjoyed infamy in the criminal underworld and burgeoning garrison communities they held in check for their political puppet masters.

But there were other criminal elements who, though aligned to a political tribe, were hell-bent on reaping rich rewards from a life of crime and violence. The brutality with which these children of the inner city and worshippers of the power of the gun operated, drew the condemnation and fear of the wider society.

These chuckies were the forebears of today’s ‘shottas’, and started what has evolved into the serious threat which gun violence poses to Jamaica today.

One of the most infamous chuckies to have wreaked havoc on society and staged daring bank robberies and wanton killings was the hardened criminal and former convict, Dennis ‘Copper’ Barth.

Barth was born and raised in the Bond Street area of the hotbed constituency of Western Kingston and quickly rose through the ranks to become its most infamous son of criminality.

The police say Copper was a cold-blooded killer who mastered the art of disguise.

Copper has been described as a career criminal who carried out his first murder in his early teens. He was incarcerated for the act, which was the forerunner for a string of murders and other nefarious acts which, according to the police, earned him the reputation of being the most dangerous criminal to ever walk the streets of Kingston.

Copper escaped prison while serving time for his first murder, and before he was 18-years- old he was slapped with life sentences for the murder of one policemen and the shooting of another.

Copper had been cornered by a police team but managed to shoot his way out, killing one police officer and injuring another during the incident.

He was ordered to serve his sentence at the Tower Street Adult Correctional Centre, known then as the General Penitentiary, but managed to escape.

Copper, the prolific bank robber and the leader of the East Kingston-based ‘Hot Steppers’ gang, also staged a number of successful bank robberies in the latter half of the 1970s.

According to reports of the day, on one occasion he was shot and injured by police during a shoot-out in West Kingston. Several rounds of ammunition were taken from him, but Copper again managed to escape custody.

After his second escape he became a legend, and the mere mention of his name would leave officers serving on the force at the time, on edge.

Two senior police officers, Superintendent Delroy Hewitt and former head of the National Intelligence Branch, Senior Superintendent Albert Edwards, during past interviews with the Sunday Observer, dubbed Copper as the most dangerous man to ever make the police’s most wanted list.

According to Hewitt, Copper was not afraid to challenge the police in a shoot-out.

“I was a young policeman at the time. Copper always took on the police. There were many clashes. I was among the police patrol that captured him in Tivoli Gardens,” Hewitt said in an interview in September 2005.

Veteran crime fighter Senior Superintendent Reneto Adams recalled that Copper was a fearless criminal who was very lethal and cruel. Adams described Copper as one of the best drivers he saw in action.

“He was a dangerous boy. This was a man who was one of the best drivers. He used to specialise in BMWs. There were many a police road block that he drove through as if no road block was there,” Adams recalled.

Adams said the most wanted fugitive was known to frequent several communities in East Kingston, Papine and Cooper’s Hill in St Andrew.

“He was always well-shaved and deported. He never assumed the rude boy persona. He was never afraid of the police and it was well-known that Copper fired a sub-machine gun,” Adams said.

“He was also a political enforcer who was aligned to the Workers Party of Jamaica (WPJ).”

But according to Adams, Copper’s forte was bank heists.

“He was an expert at robbing banks. He would somehow acquire inside information about banks and then move in for the cash,” Adams said.

But while Copper was well known for his role at the helm of the Hot Steppers gang, he was at first a lone marauder who later joined up with that criminal outfit when the law enforcement dragnet began to tighten around him.

“I was a traffic cop at the time and we used to be part of the team that went to search for him in Warieka Hills,” Adams said.

Many stories have been told in the underworld folklore about Copper, but one that stands out is his suave way with women.

“He was never known to hurt women, and one story has it that he offered a petite lady a ride in his BMW and charmed her.

The woman had no clue who she was travelling with, until he revealed his identity to her when she reached her destination. It is said that the woman lost control of her bladder functions when she realised that she had just been driving with the nation’s most wanted man,” a man who claimed to have known Copper told the Sunday Observer.

Copper’s success at staging bank robberies was legendary and, perhaps, because he had been able to elude the police he hatched the infamous attempt to rob the Caymanas Park race track. The attempt would prove to be the undoing of his criminal career, which mimicked the gangster-style movies are made of.

“Copper had forged alliances with leading figures from other garrison communities and they hatched the plan to rob the track. The robbery was supposed to bring a windfall to the various dons in the community and ease the economic depression those communities faced,” a former resident of Western Kingston said.

The robbery attempt was carried out one evening in May 1978, at the end of the race day.

One of Copper’s cronies who accompanied him on the ill-fated robbery was Dennis Addair, better known as ‘Shabba’, a former race horse jockey, who will be the subject of an article in this series.

According to Adams, Copper, in his fearless style, led the group of gangsters to a room where large sums of cash was being stored, but never left the race track alive. He, however, managed to shoot two constables, killing one in the process.

“He shot the two policemen and managed to grab a bag with cash, but he was shot in the stomach by a special constable. Copper shot the constable, believing he had killed him.

But the injured cop managed to shoot Copper once in the stomach.

Copper “never managed to escape or get any money,” Adams said.

Unfortunately, the special constable did not survive his injuries and his body, along with Copper’s, was taken to the morgue.

There was a $5,000 bounty on the head of ‘the most wanted’ at the time of his death.

Responses:

Very intriguing, enlightening and edifying when are you going to do a story on Feather Mop?

-Veronica turnbull [pinky_56turn@hotmail.com]

Nice Series. I picked up from Claudie Massop. What did I miss? Feather Mop must be up next. I am now 58-years-old, Until 1976 I lived at Collie Smith Drive and 5th Street, so you will understand my interest. Good work. Next series – dancehalls/cinemas/night spots. Bunny Goodison, impeccable source.

-OLIVER LOTHA [oliverlotha@hotmail.com]