Soldiers, cops show soft touch
Published:Friday | June 4, 2010 | 12:00 AM
Police Commissioner Owen Ellington was back in Tivoli Gardens yesterday to review the post-battle atmosphere as the security forces continue to gear down to a civil operation in the one-time fortress of a fugitive don.
With noticeably less security than the last time he visited, Ellington walked the streets of Tivoli with kind words for the security forces, as well as residents.
In the long term, the softer policing strategy is a clear bid to assuage friction between law enforcement and citizens which has existed for decades. But in the short term, the shift seeks to ease tensions after the community took a pounding in last week's unprecedented shock-and-awe incursion.
With the security forces hoisting the Jamaican flag at key points in the community - a signal that they had wrested control from gang rule - Ellington expressed satisfaction with the developments since the operation started on May 24.
"I just want to look at what is being done and how it is being done," Ellington told The Gleaner.
He said he was also heartened by the developing relationship between residents and the armed forces despite lingering allegations of abuse.
Police and soldiers were seen exchanging jokes with residents even as personnel from the Victim Support Unit and the Social Development Commission - both state entities - continued to collect information from persons who claimed their properties had been damaged and their loved ones killed.
Ellington was also on the scene as a Jamaica Defence Force team found two more high-powered weapons and more than 100 rounds of ammunition at the back of a building which housed the offices of alleged drug kingpin Christopher 'Dudus' Coke.
The security forces have seized at least 52 weapons and more than 10,000 rounds of ammunition in the west Kingston operation.