Gangster hunt - West Kingston thugs held in Manchester

Cops target men on the run in rural parishes

ON THE run from the security forces, which have maintained a strong presence in west Kingston since late May, gangsters from Tivoli Gardens are seeking refuge in several rural parishes.

But the police say they are determined to flush them out and arrest them.

"We are going after them and we will take action against those who are wanted and those who we think are a significant risk to public safety," Acting Deputy Commissioner of Police Glenmore Hinds told The Sunday Gleaner.

He said other men from west Kingston not on the police's wanted list who are held in rural parishes will be processed and a determination made as to how to treat with them,

Hinds was not in a position to say how many persons on the west Kingston police's most-wanted list had been captured or had turned themselves in.

However, yesterday, news broke that the usually sleepy parish of Manchester has been the home of a group of Tivoli gangsters over the past two months.

324 men held

Over the weekend, the Manchester police detained several men with west Kingston addresses during a curfew in sections of the parish.

"We held 324 persons on Friday and Saturday during the curfew, with at least 30 facing charges for various crimes, including murder and shooting," Superintendent Lascelles Taylor told The Sunday Gleaner.

"We have detained a number of persons from west Kingston, Central Kingston, Spanish Town and other places," Taylor said.

He said that with the increased presence of the security forces in the Corporate Area and St Catherine, persons from these areas see Manchester as the place to lie low until the heat is off.

But Taylor warned the gangsters that the parish would not prove a comfortable hiding place.

"My message to them is that every person who enters the parish of Manchester who cannot give account of their stewardship will be taken into custody until we can determine that they are who they say they are," Taylor added.

Manchester has consistently recorded some of the lowest crime figures in the island, a trend which has continued so far this year.

At the end of June, the Manchester police had recorded 17 murders and 17 shooting incidents, to put it among the parishes with the fewest number of major crimes.

This would make Manchester and other parishes, such as St Ann and Portland, particularly attractive to the known gangsters from Tivoli Gardens, who have been in hiding since they avoided capture when the security forces stormed the community.

Early last month, four men with west Kingston addresses were held while hiding in St Ann.

At that time, the police told The Sunday Gleaner that they were on the alert for these gangsters who were seeking safe haven in the districts.

"Our intelligence indicated that men, under pressure in the Corporate Area, have been running to rural parishes. We are on the look-out and have been carrying out coordinated raids in search of these men," Superintendent Gary Griffiths, head of the St Ann police, told this newspaper.

Among those the police are searching for are several persons believed to be close associates of Tivoli Gardens strongman Christopher 'Dudus' Coke.

The police say more than 100 armed men surrounded Coke just prior to the security forces' invasion of Tivoli, while a further 300 armed men were believed to have taken up strategic positions in the barricaded community.

Wanted for questioning

Since then, the police have released a list of persons from the area wanted for questioning.

The list includes reported gangsters Harry McLeod, better known as 'Harry Dog'; Prince 'Tugman' Bucket; Danny Banton, David 'Reagie' Heron and Paul Kirkpatrick, also known as 'Teddy Paul'.

"I don't think that 'Harry Dog' or 'Teddy Paul' have turned themselves in, and I will have to check on 'Tugman' for you," head of the west Kingston police, Deputy Superintendent Arthur Brown, said yesterday.

Other west Kingston power brokers, including Justin 'Stingy' O'Gilvie, Leighton 'Livity' Coke and Sandra 'Sandy' Coke, turned themselves in shortly after the police announced that they were wanted for questioning,

O'Gilvie and 'Sandy', the sister of 'Dudus', have since been released.