KINGSTON, Jamaica — People’s National Party  (PNP) Caretaker for Central Kingston, Imani Duncan-Price, is renewing her call for a Zone of Special Operation (ZOSO) in communities across Central Kingston as the crime rate mounts.

Duncan-Price previously called for a ZOSO in January of this year when the murder rate showed a 90 per cent increase year-on-year.

According to Duncan- Price, her call was spurred by the murder of four young men during a drive-by shooting in Allman Town.

Duncan-Price stated then that, “too many people throughout the constituency, especially in Spoilers, Tel Aviv, Southside, Franklyn Town and now Allman Town, have suffered violent deaths at an alarming rate since October 2020.”

She said that the web of gang related activities and retaliations continue to escalate and most recently, the guns have turned on women and children.

“The recently reported news of the fatal shooting of two Central Kingston women and the injuring of five other women and a two-year old baby, on a bus on St John’s Road in St Catherine, have contributed to the unrest in the constituency. These and other incidents are causing a sense of fear and anxiety to take hold in Central Kingston,” said the PNP Caretaker.

 “It is therefore my duty to again insist that the Government authorize the implementation of a ZOSO in the communities comprising Central Kingston. In an extremely concentrated and small space, the spate of murders and incessant gun shots at night are too much for the citizens to bear. And their local economy is shut down — people can’t survive like this,” she argued.