Extreme alert
Published:Wednesday | August 4, 2010 | 12:00 AM
Gary Spaulding, Senior Gleaner Writer
Clearly stunned by the loss of three crime fighters in eight days, Minister of National Security Dwight Nelson and Police Commissioner Owen Ellington have rushed to place security personnel on "extreme" alert.
Nelson echoed the call of the Ellington-led Police High Command's vigorous warning yester-day, that policemen and women must not allow themselves to be dazed by the murders of three policemen and the injuring of another in separate incidents between Monday of last week and Sunday of this week.
At the same time, Opposition Spokesman on National Security Peter Bunting appealed to police personnel to remain vigilant even when off duty.
Special Constable James Lemmie, of the St Catherine North Division, was killed Monday night, well within 24 hours after Special Corporal Jermaine Cummings was gunned down on Langston Road in St Andrew.
"The Police High Command has raised the threat level to extreme," a statement out of that office declared hours after news surfaced that Lemmie had become the ninth policeman cut down by criminals since the start of the year.
The high command explained that the raising of the threat level to extreme means that the risk of attack by criminals on police personnel and facilities is imminent.
Nelson's characterisation of the situation was just as urgent and ominous.
He said the concerted nature of the assaults had left no doubt in his mind that criminals had been emboldened to strike out at members of the security forces who are doing a superb job in containing crime.
Nelson urged police and soldiers to be on heightened alert to preserve their lives and to try to be strong in the face of the attacks
Investigators are probing a report that Lemmie was threatened earlier this year.
Cummings, 32, was attacked by armed men who ambushed him as he entered his home on Sunday morning.
The pronouncements of Nelson and Ellington were further triggered by the fact that, between the killings of Lemmie and Cummings, another policeman was shot and injured in May Pen, Clarendon.
On Monday of last week, Corporal Omar Duncan was fatally shot in Ramble, Hanover, as he moved to foil a robbery attempt.
"Our intelligence and the actions of criminals over the last week indicate calculated assaults on police personnel as we continue to disrupt and displace criminal gangs across the island," declared Ellington in the aftermath of a meeting yesterday with his executive management board.
"It is therefore imperative that all police personnel be on high alert at all times by taking extra security precautions to protect themselves and their colleagues," he said.
Stay alert
Ellington instructed Police Control Centre to broadcast security reminders to all police personnel on a regular basis in order to keep members alert.
Nelson charged that criminal elements were attempting to undermine the security of the nation by their continued and unabated assault on police personnel over the past week.
He characterised the killings as a deliberate and vicious assault on the agents of the state who are duty bound to risk their lives to protect the people of Jamaica.
"Do what you must to protect yourselves," Nelson urged policemen and women.
He called for members of the public to tell all they know in relation to the policemen's killings.
The Opposition said it was "troubled" by the third fatal assault on policemen in just over a week.
Bunting said he was horrified by reports that a 17 year-old youth was implicated in the policeman's murder.