Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) councillor for the Spring Garden Division and vice chairman of the St James West Central constituency, Dwight Crawford says the macabre murder of a nine-year-old child in the parish reinforces the need for states of emergency in crime-riddled communities islandwide.

Crawford was speaking to reporters at the murder scene in Fairfield, St James on Thursday. Describing the killing as an “extraordinary crime”, the political representative said incidents like these call for “extra-ordinary action.”

“It’s a very sad moment. When I heard of this killing, I made my way out of a meeting to come here today to get the facts on what has been happening. Based on the facts that I have received here today, it is clear that these extra-ordinary crimes need extra ordinary action. It is a little unfortunate that when the Government moved for extraordinary measures to be put in place to decisively deal with the crime problem, it was snubbed by the opposition,” he said. “It is unfortunate, very unfortunate because the government needs its (the Opposition’s) support.”

Crawford, who went on to highlight that criminal elements have their own support system, shared that the increasingly gruesome acts of violence are an indication that Jamaica is in a state of emergency and the country’s leaders should be supporting any tool that should help eradicate the issue.

“Gunmen have money and they have good representation from lawyers…when gunmen are arrested and by the time the police lock the locks on the cell, they turn around and see the gunmen walking out with their legal representatives  and before the police can reach to question the witnesses the gunmen go back after the witnesses and basically erase the trail…we need extraordinary powers to deal with this,” he said. “I am imploring the opposition to support the government in its quest to solve this problem because it is getting out of hand.”

“It is a state of emergency. This is a state of emergency. If this does not reflect something that requires and is to be treated as though it is a state of emergency then I don’t know what more the opposition needs to see to support the Government in dealing with these matters,” he continued.