MONTEGO BAY, St James — As the police in St James grapple with a domestic violence-fuelled surge in homicides that has pushed the parish to the top of the list of murders committed up to March 7 this year, they are hoping a series of pop-up clinics will give residents the tools needed to settle their differences peacefully. The first will be held in Mount Salem today, March 14.

“Unfortunately the last murder, domestic-related murder, we had was in Mount Salem…which was a chopping murder,” commanding officer for the Jamaica Constabulary Force’s St James Division Senior Superintendent Eron Samuels told Thursday’s monthly meeting of the St James Municipal Corporation.

He was referencing last Saturday’s chopping death of Junithe Hickey, a 53-year-old from Anchovy in south St James. Mount Salem residents contacted the police after they saw Hickey running along Valencia Drive in their community. She was taken to hospital where she was pronounced dead.

“We are pushing to change our strategy a bit in terms of looking at domestic violence a little bit more keenly, and other interpersonal situations that we normally face,” Samuels stated.

He explained that for the first three months of the year, the parish recorded 16 murders, with most linked to domestic conflict.

“This is an increase of four compared to last year,” Samuels stated.

“Interestingly to note, we have seen a reduction in gang-related murders; most of the murders we are seeing now are interpersonal — mostly choppings, stabbings, et cetera. We really will be pushing and working with the communities to ensure that these interpersonal matters are dealt with,” he added.

The senior cop said while today’s pop-up in Mount Salem had been planned before, its staging has coincidentally occurred at just the right time and there are more to come.

“We want to go through as many communities as possible, informing them of different ways how they can deal with conflicts and to ensure that we have patrols out in each community to ensure that they can respond to these situations,” Samuels said.

“It’s really unfortunate that, since Hurricane Melissa, we have seen an increase in a lot of these interpersonal conflicts; but for, the most part the city is safe. It continues to remain safe and we continue to ensure that we have a strong police presence in all areas right across,” he added.

He used Thursday’s meeting to appeal to councillors to team up with the police to prevent conflicts from escalating to the point where a life is taken.

“What we want to do is work keenly with your councillors to ensure that matters that are brewing within the community can be brought to our attention so that we can seek to do some interventions before,” Samuels urged.

He expressed disappointment that domestic-related murders have taken some of the shine off the work he and his team members have put into curbing killings.

“That seeks to undermine what we have been doing in bringing the gang murders down; because if we subtract what we have in terms of interpersonal from what we were normally seeing in St James, we would have a reduction in the regular number of murders,” Samuels reasoned.

“We really have to look at our interpersonal relationships across the division and see how we can find better ways of dealing with them. But it can only be done with the help of all stakeholders here, so we are reaching out to persons to ensure that you can guide us if you see a situation that is brewing [so] that we can deal with. And these murders as well can bring reprisals and counter-reprisals just the same,” he reiterated.