ST JAMES — Councillor for the Salt Spring Division in St James, Gregory Harris is urging the security forces to increase their presence in the community, in particular Flower Hill, where he said one man was killed and several others injured in different incidents over the last few days.

Harris, who said there has been an uptick in crime and violence in the area, said a man’s body was found Thursday morning after explosions were heard in the community Wednesday night.

“We need the presence of the police, not just patrol. It’s going to take more than just driving around the space. I believe that we also need the presence of the military,” he told the
Jamaica Observer after Thursday’s monthly council meeting of the St James Municipal Corporation.

“Maybe they could post some security personnel there in the community where their presence would be felt more,” he added.

The locally elected official who came to office on a Jamaica Labour Party ticket said Flower Hill, which borders Salt Spring, has become unstable and it is having an impact on those who live there.

“A lot of residents in Flower Hill have moved out of the space also, because of the violence that is taking place,” lamented Harris.

He traced the root of the problem to a double murder that took place several months ago.

“Since the killing of the male and the female at the Salt Spring Primary School, that is where everything went haywire,” the councillor explained.

“There has been some ease-up but it is still on-and-off, in terms of persons either being shot or persons being killed within the space,” he added.

He said the area had been relatively calm before that.

“When I was a caretaker, the police would say that Flower Hill is one of the communities in St James that had almost zero crime. There was zero rape, robbery, all the major crimes, it would have been zero; and that was for many, many years. Now it has shifted,” he said.

Harris said the challenges in Salt Spring need to be addressed as soon as possible and he thinks it will require a coordinated approach.

“I’m sure we’ll have to meet — the Member of Parliament [Dr Horace Chang], who is the minister of national security, myself and other agencies — to see what can be done within the space,” he said, adding that social intervention will be needed in addition to beefing up security.

“It needs urgent, urgent attention,” Harris stressed.

According to Senior Superintendent of Police for St James Eron Samuels the police are aware of and are working to address the issues.

“In Salt Spring, in recent times, we’ve had some incidents and we are really pushing hard and getting some additional support to do some work in that space,” he said.

“We will be increasing and ramping up our activities in the space,” he continued.

He said part of their focus will be the apprehension of a certain individual who has been causing trouble in the area.

“There is a person of interest, a man by the name of Gio. He is from the Flanker community but we heard that he has relocated to the Salt Spring/Flower Hill space and he has been causing some issues in that area,” Samuels revealed.

“We’ve been doing some work up around him and we will continue to work in trying to find him. He is also a person of interest in several murders in the Flanker community, so he is no stranger. But he has been utilising the terrain so we are redoubling our efforts in trying to find him within the space,” the senior cop added.