Never again!
Published:Thursday | August 19, 2010 | 12:00 AM
Arthur Hall, Senior Staff Reporter
National Security Minister Dwight Nelson has vowed that the people of Tredegar Park, St Catherine, will never again have to endure the nightmare which climaxed with the killing of eight of their neighbours last Friday.
"This is a distressing situation, it is a terrible situation and the Government is not going to abdicate its responsibilities to protect these people," Nelson declared yesterday.
"Eight have been murdered and we don't want any more murders."
Nelson was on a tour of the community for his first meeting with residents who have survived a seven-year assault.
"I'm frightened. I am really trying hard to find words to describe how I feel inside having visited the places where the people were killed," Nelson told journalists as he walked the area known as Monkey Town, where the eight persons, including an 11-year-old girl, were fatally shot.
"I looked inside and saw the spots at which they died, talked to the people feeling the trauma, talked to children, looked at the fright in their eyes and I'm really, really distressed," Nelson said.
He told the residents that there was need for a united effort to bring back peace and a sense of safety to the community.
However, Nelson said the police have devised several measures which will be implemented to protect the residents.
He announced that those measures will include the placement of a mobile police station in the area.
"When the strategies of the police are implemented, the people should have no fear," declared Nelson as he vowed that every effort will be made to ensure that the Tredegar Park Primary School can open its doors as scheduled in September.
The minister's message of new policing measures was emphasised by Deputy Commissioner of Police Glenmore Hinds, who also visited Tredegar Park yesterday.
"We have established a mobile post, but that is only one strand of the police response. There are other activities that will support the command post."
He told The Gleaner that even as investigations continue into last Friday's shooting, the police are taking steps to capture the killers, but the force needs the support of the residents.
The deputy commissioner, who is in charge of operations, was supported by Nelson who, even as he called for support from the residents, vowed that the killers would not walk free.
"We are going to hunt them down like the dogs they are, within the law."