OCHO RIOS, St Ann — St Ann’s top cop has staunchly defended the job done by the police in handling the larger-than-anticipated crowd of revellers that turned out for the Intimate Show staged at Grizzly’s Plantation on New Year’s Day.

He has also promised that there will not be a repeat of the hellish traffic snarls seen at the venue when it hosts Rebel Salute on January 20 and 21.

According to Senior Superintendent of Police Dwight Powell, Intimate promoters were simply caught off guard by the sheer size of the crowd at the event.

“We met with the promoter and based on what they said to us they were anticipating some 10,000 persons to be in attendance at the concert. When we checked we had over 35,000 that were attending. So that definitely posed some challenges for us,” Powell told last Thursday’s monthly meeting of the St Ann Municipal Corporation.

“I’m getting reports that the authority didn’t do a good job and just a lot of negative [comments]. But I believe the police did extremely well in managing that situation and the volume of traffic that came into our space,” he argued.

In an effort to get the traffic moving, police from the Public Safety and Traffic Enforcement Branch (PSTEB) were called in to assist.

“I want to express commendations to my partners from PSTEB because we don’t have the kind of resources available in the parish so the officers coming in from PSTEB really did a tremendous job. We had officers, including myself, because I couldn’t leave them out there alone, deployed from Mammee Bay straight into Salem and I can say they did their best,” explained Powell.

The gridlock seen on the roads, he said, was also a result of the indiscipline displayed by some motorists.

Councillor Ian Isaac (JLP, Exchange Division) has suggested the use of a shuttle service to minimise the number of vehicles on the road during the staging of major events.

“We are making plans to ensure that what happened at Intimate concert will not be as challenging at Rebel Salute,” Powell assured.