THE Trelawny Police Division are to continue the ban imposed more than three years ago which prohibits residents of Bunker’s Hill and its environs from playing music at social events staged in those communities at nights.

Last week, Commanding officer for the parish Superintendent Wilford Campbell told Bunker’s Hill residents at a meeting held at the Unity Sports Complex, that the ban will remain in force until the community revives its once vibrant Neighbourhood Watch group.

“As soon as the Neighbourhood Watch is up and running, whether it’s next week, two weeks’ time, four weeks’ time… as soon as it is established, up and running, and not just a group of people coming together because the want to keep social events at nights, you will get your first permit,” Superintendent Campbell told the residents.

Earlier, Superintendent Campbell told the well-attended meeting that the Wakefield Police area of which Bunker’s Hill is a part, is one of the most violent in the Trelawny Police Division.

“This police area [Wakefield] also is one of the most violent communities in the Trelawny Police Division and we have empirical data to support what we are saying,” said Superintendent Campbell. “As a matter of fact, since the start of the year, we would have

experienced four murders in the Wakefield Police Area.

 Of the seven murders we have had in the parish, four came from the Wakefield Police Area, and we have not been able to solve any of them because the citizens who witnessed the murders failed to cooperate, they failed to assist in solving these murders.”

Apart from Bunker’s Hill, the Wakefield Police Area encompasses several rural districts including Dromilly, Deeside, Friendship, Hampden, Greenvale, Bounty Hall, Logwood Valley and Wakefield.

Superintendent Campbell pointed out that a man, whom he named as ‘G-Dog’ of a Bunker’s Hill address who was on the police’s most wanted list, “walked freely amongst the place here and we were not assisted by these citizens of Bunker’s Hill in apprehending this man who met his demise late last year.

‘G-Dog,’ 31, whose given name is Jermaine Thomas, who the police said was wanted for illegal possession of firearm and shooting with intent, was reportedly killed by a man who was out on bail on a gun-related charge, at a wake in Friendship, which adjoins Bunker’s Hill, in an alleged shoot-out on Saturday December 20.

The commanding officer who was accompanied at the meeting by several senior police officers from the Trelawny Police Division including DSP Winston Milton, DSP Cyrill Brissett, Inspector Lorna Henderson and Corporal Wayne Wallace, accused some of the citizens of benefiting from the illicit lottery scam.

“A number of people inside here, a number of you sitting down inside here are benefiting from the illicit lottery scam which is fuelling the murders in this community… because it is the lottery scam that gave us those four murders,” he argued. As a result he stressed, the police have to implement measures to ensure that the citizens are safe.

“And some of these measures have to do with restrictions on certain recreational activities, and so I am going to ask you that if you want to restore your community to the stage where it was, then you have to work with the police, you have to work with your association, you have to make a meaningful contribution to your own community and the contribution can’t be just to sit back and look, or try and make some money from the illegal gains of these lottery scammers that are around here,” he argued.

But Dale Walker, a prominent community activist, assured the police that within the next six weeks the community will revive the dormant Neighbourhood Watch group, establish a vibrant Community Development Committee, a Senior Citizen’s Association, a Farmer’s Watch Group and a Police Youth Club.

Walker later told the Jamaica Observer West that the Neighbourhood Watch group which was started in 1998 with over 70 members was discontinued about six years later “due to threats against the lives of some of its members”.

Bunker’s Hill residents have long argued that the ban placed on the recreational actives at nights is stifling the growth and development of the once vibrant rural community.

“Without fund-raising events we won’t be able to raise money to undertake a number of communitydriven projects that we want to do in the area,” Walker told Observer West in a recent interview.

Several business operators had also complained about the debilitating effect the inability to stage fund-raising activities is having on their businesses.

But Campbell had maintained that his office would not lift the ban placed on the playing of music at public gatherings in Bunker’s Hill, until he is satisfied that the police are getting the full co-operation of the citizens in the community.

Superintendent Campbell promised the residents that in the near future they will see an increase in police presence in the various communities.

“We have recognised that the Wakefied Police Area is a very challenging one and we are experiencing some challenges as it relates to numbers, but in short order you are going to see more police in particular areas such as Bunker’s Hill.

They [the police] will walk around and interact with you, and not just to calls made to them,” he explained.