SAVANNA-LA-MAR,Westmoreland — The Westmoreland police have vowed to make an example of a councillor, who will be charged soon, to show that no one is above the law “irrespective of creed, class or social status”.

SAVANNA-LA-MAR,Westmoreland — The Westmoreland police have vowed to make an example of a councillor, who will be charged soon, to show that no one is above the law “irrespective of creed, class or social status”.

“[The councillor’s] behaviour and intimidation cannot stop the police from acting and this is a strong warning that if any political personnel or anybody believe that they can intimidate the police from carrying out their lawful duty, they have another guess coming because we will arrest,” David White, the deputy superintendent who heads the Westmoreland Police Division, told the Jamaica Observer West.

White said the councillor is to be charged with obstructing police and assaulting the police.

“We are taking strong actions against him. The Police Federation has been summoned, too, because the police were abused and assaulted by him,” White said.

The pending charges against the councillor stem from an incident on the weekend during a police operation to remove illegal vendors from the streets of Savanna-la-Mar, the Westmoreland capital.

According to White, members of the Westmoreland police and the Westmoreland Parish Council municipal police were conducting a joint anti-street vending operation when the councillor stepped in and sought to bring the activity to a halt, assaulting the police in the process.

“… he came on the scene and started verbally abusing the police, point up his finger in the police face and tell them to low the people dem,” White noted.

He said that the councillor’s action resulted in a street brawl which drew a large crowd. He said reinforcement had to be called in.

White said the idea was to arrest the councillor on the scene and offer him station bail but it was decided instead to proceed by way of summons.

“We are going to make an example. I don’t know if it is cheap popularity he is trying to seek but the law is saying that no man is exempt, irrespective of your creed, class or your social status. That’s the law,” he added.

“I have never seen this in the history of my policing where a councillor would act in such a manner,” he said.

DSP White, who took over command of the Westmoreland Police Division earlier this year, has said that one of his priorities is to rid the town centres in the parish of illegal vending.

White, who is adamant about a link between criminal activities and street vending, earlier this month launched an anti-street vending campaign in the areas of Savanna-la-Mar, Grange Hill and Negril.

“We know that a number of our vendors are there as a result of the proceeds from crime. We also know that some of them have been strategically placed by some criminal elements within the town,” he insisted.

“There is a very strong link of crime in Westmoreland and vending in the different townships. And, therefore, our activity is to remove many of them to create that public safety within.

He added: “Some of them have taken up residence around even the financial institutions and wherever there are shopping centres, and where you have a group of them in between are the criminal elements, who come and prey on the innocent shoppers.”