August Town curfew? Business as usual, say residents
Published:Wednesday | June 23, 2021 | 12:09 AM
Hours after the imposition of the 48-hour curfew in August Town on Sunday at 2 p.m., residents were still unsure about whether or not the security measure was truly in effect.
The curfew was announced by Prime Minister Andrew Holness on Sunday, a day after a gang member was shot and killed in Goldsmith Villa.
The deceased is Romario ‘Cluck-Cluck’ Reinford. The incident took place just after 10 a.m. on Saturday.
Rhon Henry, an executive member of the August Town Peace Builders Association, said he had received several calls from residents querying the curfew.
He lamented that persons were still walking the roads as they usually do, while others were not sure if they were allowed to leave for work.
“I think the curfew wasn’t outlined properly,” he said. “People didn’t even know that there was a curfew, because you didn’t even see the police and soldiers.”
Henry explained that on Monday, he had to settle a dispute between a police officer and a civilian, a female resident who was sitting along the road. She claimed she was unaware of the curfew, which ended on Tuesday.
RELAXED SETTING
Shop operator Minzelin Small said she had been inside since Sunday when the curfew started, but realised that no one was staying in.
“Usually, we stay in, and the soldier and the police are outside, but now we no see nobody [law-enforcement officers], so we just come out and relax weself,” the 81-year-old said, noting that she took the opportunity to open her shop.
Small shared that she was not able to make her regular Monday-morning trips to the market to sell her produce and buy goods for her shop, because no taxi would come to pick her up because of the curfew.
Dennis Brooks, senior communication strategist of the Jamaica Constabulary Force, said the curfew was supposed to limit the movement of individuals so the police could interrupt the gang activities.
However, he explained that once residents could prove to the ground commanders that they have legitimate, lawful reasons for moving about, they were allowed to.
While some residents said they did not know why the curfew was necessary, Brooks explained that the decision was taken because of activities they had noticed by way of intelligence gathering.
“Recently, there has been heightened tension as persons who were outside of the space have returned, and so we’ve been monitoring those tensions carefully,” he said.
He said the tension has been among the Bedwards Gardens, Jungle 12, Hermitage and Goldsmith Villa gangs.
Romario Powell, otherwise called ‘Worry Dem’, is listed as a person of interest needed for questioning by the police.
After the community was declared a zone of special operation last year, it experienced about 11 months without violent incidents until things flared up recently.
“We have been carrying out several operational activities in the area. We’ve not yet found our main suspects; we’ve not yet found our main violence producers in the space, but we continue those investigations,” Brooks told The Gleaner.