SAVANNA-LA-MAR, Westmoreland – As calls for increased allocation of resources for the Westmoreland Police Division grow louder, Minister of National Security Dr Horace Chang has revealed that the start of construction for the new divisional headquarters in the parish, which was delayed as a result of the novel coronavirus pandemic, should get underway early next year.

“I have concerns and while I will have discussions with the commissioner (of police), the Government will start the new divisional headquarters, which is crucial, in the new calendar year. We have identified the site and funding and approval…and they are going contracting now,” Chang told the Jamaica Observer West.

He also disclosed that funding is also in place for the replacement of the Little London and Grange Hill police stations — also in Westmoreland— and that construction for those should also get underway early next year.

“And funding for Little London and Grange Hill should be in place early in the year. So we recognise it (challenges), and we are doing something,” the security minister stated.

He was speaking to the Observer West on Saturday in the wake of three murders in Savanna-la-Mar, Westmoreland’s capital.

Prior to the interview with the security minister, Member of Parliament for Westmoreland Central George Wright called for more police personnel and other resources for the parish, in an effort to stem the blood-letting there.

“I can tell you there is a rival between one community and the next. And of such we are really in need of more police presence and also motor vehicles, preferably pick-up trucks that can traverse the different communities,” Wright argued. “So I know that the Minister of National Security Dr Horace Chang would have heard and he would have taken quick action to this.”

It is widely believed that the construction of a new divisional headquarters and the upgrading of the Little London and Grange Hill police stations will breathe new life in the crime-fighting efforts in the parish.

Meanwhile, Custos of Westmoreland Canon Hartley Perrin, who argued that citizens are living in fear in wake of the latest spike in violence, expressed that the Westmoreland Chamber of Commerce has been calling for individuals to install closed-circuit televisions in Savanna-la-Mar.

“I know for a fact that the chamber of commerce has been very, very active in trying to get persons to respond towards putting up cameras in the town so that we may have an eye to what is happening. They have had meetings with the superintendent (of police) with a view to saying what it is that you want because we recognise that we cannot continue like this in the parish. This is not how we live and we also recognise that some of these incidents are caused as a result of gang warfare,” the custos said.

The security minister later disclosed that the Government intends to expand JamaicaEye in Westmoreland.

“We are looking to expand the JamaicaEye programme down there as well,” he stressed.

Up to Saturday, the Westmoreland Police Division recorded 105 murders, which were 40 more than the 65 committed over the corresponding period last year.

Police data revealed that of the 19 police divisions islandwide, Westmoreland recorded the highest percentage increase in murders in 2021 over the same time last year.

In fact, last weekend tit-for-tat attacks by rival gangs domiciled in Ricketts Street and Dalling Street sections of Savanna-la-Mar, resulted in the gun slaying of four people in the two communities.

The modus operandi of the gangsters is to shoot up communities of rival gangsters resulting in the killing and injuring of community members, some of whom are not involved in gang warfare.

The killings continued on Tuesday with the death of two individuals despite a freshly imposed state of public emergency in the parish due to the spiralling murders.

One of the two men killed has been identified as Shandane Campbell, a resident of Grotto, located where several people were killed on the weekend.

Campbell, believed to be a university student, was a member of the Peace Management Initiative (PMI). He was gunned down on the compound of a resource centre where a PMI training session was in progress.

The identity of the other man, who was found in a pool of blood across the road, was not known up to yesterday.

Since the declaration of the SOE in the Westmoreland Police Division, Savanna-la-Mar Bishop Oneil Russell, head of the Ark of the Covenant Holy Trinity, has appealed to members of the security forces to be mindful of the citizens’ human rights.

“I hope the security forces will respect the rights of the citizens. What I saw last time, I hope it will be different,” said Russell, making reference to a SOE that was declared in the parish in 2019.

“I live here, I work here in Savanna-la-Mar, my community is being affected by these senseless killings. It’s not about a state of emergency. We have tried many methods and they fail, we need to do something. The youths need guidance, the youths need assurance and sometimes it’s not the big operation but through community policing urgent attention needs to be given,” Russell argued.

Both Russell and MP Wright agreed that there’s need for greater job opportunities for the youths in the affected communities.

“I think the creation of job opportunities for some of these youngsters will help to eliminate some of these activities here in the constituency. So job opportunities are one and we need to have more interaction with the youths. When you think about some of the youths whose parents have gone on before and they have no help…they are not going to school, they are not educated, so the quickest thing for such a youth is to take up the gun. The only thing they can think about is doing illegal activities. We need to have more interaction with the youngsters,” Wright argued.