Editorial | Hit terrorism by the law

Prime Minister Andrew Holness is – as are all well-thinking Jamaicans – rightly outraged by Sunday night’s acts of terrorism in the Four Paths area of the south-central parish of Clarendon, in which eight people were killed.

That, in this newspaper’s view, was what it was – terrorism. For while the action of the criminals who opened fire on residents attending a bingo birthday party may not have been directed at the Jamaican State to coerce it to a specific political action, it had the hallmarks of calculated violence, aimed either at frightening an entire community into conformity with expected behaviour, or exacting revenge.

There is as yet no definitive determination of what that behaviour is, or the specific trigger for this brutality. However, the authorities have linked it to Jamaica’s deeply worrying problem of inter-gang violence.

In responding to this outrage, the Government, and other actors of the State, have to be careful to prevent indignation turning to blue anger, and of innocent citizens becoming collateral damage in the process.

In other words, in going after gangs, which the security forces were mandated to do in the aftermath of the Clarendon killings, the authorities must operate within the confines of the law, and in accordance with due process.

In any event, even before Sunday night’s development and the latest directive by the National Security Council (NSC), the police were already, by their own declarations, in an enhanced anti-gang mode. Clarendon and the adjoining parish of St Catherine are among their main targets in anti-gang operations.

ALLEGED MEMBERSHIP

In fact, the police, in recent years, have insisted that they were making significant inroads against criminal organisations and the gang culture.

Indeed, in October last year, 15 members – including the leader, Andre ‘Blackman’ Bryan – of the so-called ‘One Don’ faction of the notorious St Catherine-based Klansman gang, received mostly long jail terms under Jamaica’s anti-gang law. The trial began in 2021 with 33 accused persons.

Convicted of murder, conspiracy to murder and for his leadership of the gang, Bryan is serving 39 years in prison. The other convicted gang members received sentences of between 21 months and 17 and a half years.

Additionally, in January, the Jamaica Constabulary Force’s (JCF) head of crime, Fitz Bailey, announced the arrest of 31 alleged members of the original Klansman gang. The reputed leader of that faction, Tesha Miller, is currently serving a 38-year sentence for ordering the 2008 hit on the head of the Government’s bus company, the Jamaica Urban Transit Company. Miller, it has been claimed, continued to run his gang from prison.

Two dozen of those alleged gang members, including Miller, are expected to go on trial in October.

In early 2022, seven members of the police force were arrested for alleged membership of the Ronko gang, which operated in Clarendon. One of the arrested officers, Constable Tafari Silvera, was said to be the gang’s boss.

At the time of the January Klansman arrests, Bailey, a deputy commissioner of police, claimed that the two Klansman factions were, between them, responsible for around 800 murders over a decade.

FULL FORCE

At the same time, though, Bailey reported that homicides by gangs were falling as a proportion of Jamaica’s annual murders, which averages around 1,300 a year. It had fallen to 67 per cent, five percentage points lower than two years earlier, and from nearly 80 per cent of all murders in 2018.

“The JCF will continue its focus on disrupting criminal organisations wherever they are identified,” Bailey said at the time. “We will use our skills, competencies and technologies in our quest to create a secure environment for our citizens.”

This newspaper does not expect that this policy has changed, except, perhaps, for the tactics. That may have been refined to be more sophisticated.

In that sense, the NSC’s reported directive to the security forces, as announced by Prime Minister Andrew Holness, would be for a continuation of the mission.

Nonetheless, Mr Holness might feel inclined to clarify his remark that the country has “played with gangs for far too long”.

Said the prime minister: “There is no way that eight persons can be killed in one incident in Jamaica and the State stands as if nothing happened. No!

“Every gang member, every gang will feel the full force of the State today. This must never happen again in Jamaica.”

The Gleaner fully supports those sentiments. Once it is via the legal process.

The people who engaged in that act of terror in Clarendon, and every other gang and gang murderer in Jamaica, must be caught and made to face the full force of the law in a criminal court. That should happen swiftly. Which will require good and efficient skills by law-enforcement agencies and State prosecutors.

What must not happen is that misguided members of the security forces misunderstand Prime Minister Holness’ outrage and twist his directive in a fashion that is detrimental to due process and justice. That would only erode support for the very thing that every one hopes to achieve.