Barrington Flemming – Staff Reporter
“We are going to get you Killy Killy” – words of a passionate Prime Minister Andrew Holness, as he declared war against criminal elements, when he addressed a Town Hall meeting at the Closed Harbour Beach (Dump-Up Beach) in Montego Bay, Thursday evening.
Prime Minister Holness said while Montego Bay experienced runaway levels of murder over the last five years, and even amidst decisive action taken by the government to reduce said murders, criminal elements with the capacity, the propensity and the motive, continue to kill, rob and maim across many communities.
“Last year, there were over three hundred murders and this year, we have 199 fewer. So far this year, I believe it is about 90, which is still too many and I want the criminals to know, some of them name ‘Killy, Killy’ and ‘Sick Head’ – whatever fearful name you call yourself, we are going to get you wherever you are,” he warned.
The Prime Minister explained that the criminal is not a single entity existing in a community, but has a varied and powerful network supporting and helping to fuel his activities.
“The criminal only exists because a network supports the criminal, whether it is the girlfriend, wife, the brother and outside of family, it could be a businessman – it could be attachment to the political figure, that is how criminality exists, so it is not broken in one cycle,” he said.
SNAP OF A FINGER
He said for this reason, he would like the citizens of Montego Bay to appreciate the complexity of the crime problem that exists in the city, arguing that it won’t be solved with the snap of a finger as in many cases, it is deeply entrenched and pulls in people from varying strata of the society.
“We are well aware that the criminal element is not merely the street level criminal.There are those who are masterminds, those that make it their point of view to corrupt institutions, to put some of our law enforcement people on their payroll;to work with some of our businessmen to corrupt them and they in turn have their tentacles in the political elite, and that has to be broken.Some of you benefit from it, but it must be broken,” he asserted.
He says while many persons benefit from it, there is no benefit that ought to justify the wanton killing of innocent hardworking, law-abiding citizens.
The Prime Minister shared that in Montego Bay’s development from a town into a city, much of the security provisions were eroded. As a result, the Prime Minister pointed out, the provision of additional police stations or personnel must be supplemented by strategies aimed at breaking the fortresses of crime and to ferret out and apprehend those who prevail in their reign of chaos and violence.