Personnel shortage affecting St Elizabeth police
BLACK RIVER, St Elizabeth — He didn’t say so in actual words.
But while addressing the St Elizabeth Municipal Corporation monthly meeting recently, chief of police here, Superintendent Kenneth Chin, appeared to suggest that additional personnel would be much appreciated at this time — the usual gift-giving season.
Chin told councillors that the St Elizabeth Police Division was working on plans “for the Yuletide season despite decreased resources, with about 30 less police than we had last year at this time, and we have more crime, so that’s a part of our challenge going into the Yuletide season”.
Pressed as to the reasons for the decreased numbers, Chin identified “retirement, resignations and medical reasons” as major factors.
He told councillors that the St Elizabeth Police Division had not benefitted from the last nine graduation batches at the police academy.
Chin underlined previous reports of alarming criminal activity on the rise in St Elizabeth during 2022. He said “serious and violent” crimes escalated from 93 up to the end of November last year to 278 for the same period this year. The figures included 38 murders up to the end of November, compared to 20 for the same period last year. There were four murders in St Elizabeth in November, Chin said.
Pointing to increasing armed robberies in the parish, Chin reminded his audience that the police were available to provide escort free of cost for people moving large amounts of cash.
“… If you have large cash deposits or withdrawal, you don’t have to pay the police if you are visiting the bank or leaving the bank,” he said.
Chin said two gangs, based in Spring Park and Speculation, to the west of St Elizabeth, remained on the “police radar”. The police were on the alert to protect residents who could be at risk because of gang activity, he said. Chin told the meeting that “men from Speculation [had] interfered with men from another parish and men from the other parish came into St Elizabeth to take revenge.”
Chin, meanwhile, expressed gratitude for the donation in November of two drones to assist the police in surveillance work. The donation was made by Member of Parliament for St Elizabeth North Western J C Hutchinson.
– Garfield Myers
