AGAINST the backdrop of recent violent incidents involving high schoolers in the Corporate Area a senior police officer has lamented that despite proactive measures, physical altercations including armed fights continue to trend at an alarming rate.

“We are not strangers as members of the organisation [Jamaica Constabulary Force] to treat with these things, but they are getting one too many, and that is what we want to reduce,” head of the St Andrew Central Police Division Acting Senior Superintendent Mark Harris told the Jamaica Observer on Friday, a day after a 16-year-old Jamaica College schoolboy was charged for assaulting a fellow student.

Harris confirmed that the teen was charged with assault occasioning bodily harm and is expected to appear in court sometime next week.

Jamaica College has figured prominently in the headlines in recent times for positive and negative activities. The school captured the Mortimer Geddes Trophy as the boys’ champion at the 2026 ISSA/GraceKennedy Boys’ and Girls’ Athletics Championships in March and days later broke a 39-year drought by capturing the 2026
TVJ Schools’ Challenge Quiz championship title.

But, amidst the celebrations, the school was under scrutiny as news broke about a March 24 incident in which one student was left nursing injuries and another arrested on assault charges.

Then last weekend a now-viral video emerged showing two students assaulting a schoolmate.

On Monday news broke about the fatal stabbing of 13-year-old Seaforth High School student Kland Doyle by a schoolmate in Morant Bay, St Thomas.

Harris on Friday also pointed to the arrest and charge of four schoolboys in the Gordon Town, St Andrew, after they were allegedly found in possession of offensive weapons.

“A similar incident happened three days ago at the Papine High School, when four students were fighting and all of them were charged for offensive weapons — knives, icepicks and machetes — and we had to intervene quickly to break it up. They weren’t charged for the fight, because none of them made any report as it pertains to being assaulted, but we charged them for the weapons that they had which were offensive weapons,” Acting SSP Harris told the Observer.

He also pointed to another incident which resulted in a then 14-year-old student being hospitalised in critical condition.

“Closer to Boys’ and Girls’ Champs we had a similar incident in Half-Way-Tree, where a Calabar student was injured and hospitalised in the intensive care unit for a while. The person was charged and is still in custody. We held a lot of meetings with a lot of stakeholders, including the Ministry of Education, to level the tension before Champs and it worked,” he added.

Harris also raised concern that some violent incidents involving teens are not reported or detected. However, he said the police continue to educate and tackle violence among teens.

“We are working on it… I know other [police] divisions are also trying their best to alleviate these types of behaviour from youngsters,” said Harris as he reminded children of the likely outcome if they are involved in violent altercations.

“I just want to say that these incidents set a bad precedent for the future of how we interact. These [students] will become adults in a few years and then the adult world is so different and demanding and even needs more discipline than in schools, because serious crime is not a joke, it has serious implications on persons if they commit these crimes,” said Harris.

“We are working with other stakeholders and other agencies to assist these persons and to let them understand the implications of these senseless things in them being arrested and charged and taken before the court,” added.

The divisional commander pointed out that the Community, Safety and Security Branch has been active in the many schools in St Andrew Central.

He said programmes are already in place to tackle school-based violence.

“We have school resource officers and a territorial officer who manages these aspects. We have a lot of schools where we have officers assigned. Officers also visit these schools and we keep a lot of meetings and interventions treating with these things,” Harris noted.

A police vehicle outside the Old Hope Road entrance of Jamaica College on Monday (Garfield Robinson)

Head of the St Andrew Central police Acting Senior Superintendent Mark Harris (JCF)