CANAAN HEIGHTS, Clarendon — A recent flare up of violence in this community has its roots as far back as 2017, says a senior police officer who is convinced the imposition of a curfew was necessary.

“We have had a number of murders and shootings [and] that has caused tension between the One Mile and Gully Back factions of the Real Niggaz Gang. The tension has been extremely high since the last incident, where Marvin “Rasta” Smith was shot and killed by two men in the community. Smith was affiliated with the One Mile faction and so we anticipate that at any time we will have confrontations between the disputing parties,” explained Superintendent in charge of operations in Clarendon, Christopher Phillips.

He added that residents have welcomed the 48-hour curfew which began at 6:00 pm on Wednesday. “I am amazed at the reaction… they were extremely happy to see us moving in. The co-operation since then has been tremendous. As soon as we announced that there is a curfew, persons readily expressed their support for it and were off the street in a jiffy,” he said, adding that there will be continuous assessment of the communities across the parish.

In addition to the restrictions imposed under the curfew, other measures will include work being done by the Community Safety and Security Branch team, he said.

“It has [recently] been a bit of a challenging period, but we are committed to [ensuring] that the residents feel safe. Some persons who are closely affiliated with some members of the gang have moved out of the community. Others are tight-lipped about the intricacies of what is happening and so we, the police, will try to maintain a presence in the space to see how much information we can get from the people in the community,” said Phillips.