MANCHESTER, Jamaica — Police in Manchester say there will be tighter security measures following recent incidents of crime including murders in the south-central Jamaica parish.

Head of the Manchester police Deputy Superintendent Carey Duncan, while on a tour on Monday of the Mandeville Market where two people were killed and five others were injured in a gun attack last Friday, said citizens will see a restriction on public gatherings in some areas.

READ: Two dead, five injured in Mandeville Market gun attack

“I am going to ask the people with this parish to just bear with us a little bit. Yes, we have some tighter security measures within the space in that we are looking at some tighter security measures within the space in that we are looking at some particular areas,” he said.

He said the measures are to mitigate the risk of reprisals.

“We are looking at some particular areas. We are looking at some shutdowns as we understand it persons are looking at places where people gather to exact revenge killings,” he said.

“We are looking at shutting down some areas for the time being. For the majority of this parish we won’t be having any events being permitted in certain areas,” added Duncan.

He listed some of the areas being targeted.

“The majority of our incidents are either occurring or stemming from some communities and that’s the Albion, Newhall, Greenvale, generally the Porus area. These are some area where we intend to tighten our security around in terms of our operations and our mitigating risk assessments to ensure that these areas remain safe,” said Duncan.

DSP Duncan said the police are working to restore public order in Mandeville.

“What you are seeing here is in response to some recent incidents that we have been having in Manchester, so we realise that persons are a little bit apprehensive to what is happening,” he said.

“We have decided as a team to come out to restore public confidence and order with the public spaces in Manchester and this morning this operation that you are seeing we have dubbed it as operation restore,” he added.

He said the incident last Friday at the side entrance of the Mandeville Market was “very unfortunate”.

“We are just out to reassure the persons within the space to let them know that we are here with them and for them. I want to commit to them to what they saw last week Friday will never happen again in this township,” he said

“We are following some very strong leads in that incident last week. We understand that we are looking at persons from our neighbouring parishes. And we hope to make a breakthrough very soon,” added Duncan.

– Kasey Williams