MANDEVILLE, Manchester — Head of the Manchester police Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) Carey Duncan says criminals overseas are the masterminds behind some of the recent murders in the south-central parish, while other killings are linked to lottery scamming.

Official figures from the police show 37 murders in Manchester up to September 7, an almost 28 per cent increase over the 29 recorded for the same period last year. The parish has also recorded 29 shootings, 21 per cent above last year.

“When we look at one in particular that we have persons who are outside of this jurisdiction, persons who are overseas who stay where they are and influence some things happening in our space, we saw it playing out in May Day and Knockpatrick,” DSP Duncan said at Thursday’s meeting of the Manchester Municipal Corporation.

Within the space of one week, five people were murdered in Manchester and four people injured in shooting incidents.

DSP Duncan said interpersonal conflicts were behind some of the incidents.

“Christiana is separate and apart from what is happening in central Manchester… Persons who are off our shores are influencing things in our space, but it is on an interpersonal level,” he explained.

“One of the things that we find that is also impacting what we are doing is the lottery scamming activities. We find that in recent times some of our known scammers are being targeted by some of these persons shaking them down, and in the event that they don’t honour the request they are injured or in some instances killed.

“We saw it also spill over… in the Christiana space where we had about three incidents of murders in recent times and we also know that, based on what is happening up in that space, we have persons who operate in southern Trelawny who come over into our parish and perpetrate some of these offences,” added DSP Duncan even as he argued that Manchester is not being overrun by criminals.

“Most of the incidents are interpersonal. Persons know with whom they have their conflicts. We are just saying that it would be good if persons could find humane ways to treat with their conflicts,” he said.

“It is not that I want for us to leave here thinking that Manchester is being overrun by crime,” added DSP Duncan.

He said strategies, including tough security measures and the deployment of specialised teams, have resulted in at least two suspects being arrested and others identified.

“We have engaged our lottery scamming task force. We have in our space members from specialised operations. We also have our area fugitive operation team and all these persons have been activated, particularly in the Knockpatrick area. We have been instituting curfews behind curfews in that space,” he said.

“Even now some persons are resisting; because we know what is happening over there, and when we decide that we are going to shut down all bars and shops, because we realise that when we have these persons gathering is where persons go to perpetuate their offences, we are getting resistance from the communities that we can’t lockdown them shop,” added the police divisional head.

He said the police have cleared up 80 per cent of the murders committed in Manchester.

“We are not daunted… we have a mandate and I assure you that we are pulling out all the stops to ensure that whatever is happening in Manchester at this time is cauterised in very short order.

“We have identified a lot of the key players locally and they are being targeted. As a matter of a fact, the last murder we had over in Green Street we have persons in custody, and I am confident that persons will be charged for those offences and other offences in terms of murders. When we have the occurrences of murders — our detectives in Manchester are what I would call top class — we are arresting persons as the offences are committed,” added DSP Duncan.