MANDEVILLE, Manchester — Police here on Thursday defended the imposition of a curfew in Porus and adjoining areas with the commanding officer for the parish adamant that the security measure is needed to save lives.

This followed comments from Councillor Claudia Morant-Baker (Jamaica Labour Party, Porus Division) who pointed to questions raised by residents as to the rationale for the curfew.

“People are at a loss to say that, for example, there [was] a shooting [and] nobody knows the shooter, nobody knows the victim and they are saying church can’t keep at night any more… In Porus, the people are saying to me and my colleague the mayor (Donovan Mitchell), why is Porus under curfew for so long when a massive barrage of bullets and drama took place in Mandeville and they are not under curfew?” Morant-Baker said.

But head of the Manchester Police Division Superintendent Carey Duncan told Thursday’s sitting of the Manchester Municipal Corporation that the safety of citizens is paramount.

“It comes down to two things… and we have to decide how we want to move it forward, so it has to do with either lives or livelihood,” Duncan told the sitting.

“It is absolutely not our wish to curtail the movement of anybody, any person, within this parish. What we want to see are persons going about their business lawfully doing what they like doing, but in a peaceful and orderly manner,” added Duncan.

He pointed to six murders and shooting incidents in Porus between August and December 3, 2024.

“With all those incidents that we saw last year we thought it was imperative, since all these incidents, based on our analysis and intelligence are connected in some way… The curfew was applied for and our honourable minister [Dr Horace Chang] obliged us and granted the curfew last year,” explained Duncan.

“That gave us the opportunity to police the space in a more meaningful way. When the curfew was imposed for that period between December 2024 and March 2025 there was absolutely no crime in the Porus space, not one murder or shooting occurred during that time,” noted Duncan.

He said the months-long curfew was lifted following discussions with the business community and residents were enjoying themselves.

However, Duncan pointed to four murders and shooting incidents between July and September this year as the reason for the reimposition of the curfew.

“We decided, [based] on the intelligence that we have at hand, that we need to have some special measures placed within that space and so we have done that [and] since [then] we have no major crime,” said Duncan.

“Again, we decided to relax the curfew and allow persons to go about their business freely and not much longer [after] the curfew was lifted in St Toolies there was another murder at the river,” Duncan said in reference to the September 28 murder of 26-year-old Lavar Malcolm, a resident of Kintyre district in St Andrew.

“If you look at that murder [with] untrained eyes it may seem like an isolated murder, but to us with the requisite skills and the intelligence that we have… we know that this has the implication to spill over also into the greater Porus area and so we have opted to co-opt St Toolies in our area of operations,” added Duncan.