We got it right, say cops - Police satisfied with operations in west Kingston despite lives lost

Erica Virtue, Senior Gleaner Writer

The unofficial death toll from the security forces' incursion into west Kingston last May has been put at 73; there is yet to be an official count.

Scores of persons were injured, the damage to buildings and property was estimated at many millions of dollars, and the emotional scars are far from healed, but still the police are describing the massive operation as a success.

The security forces failed to capture their primary target, alleged drug kingpin Christopher 'Dudus' Coke, when they stormed Tivoli.

He was captured one month later, and then extradited to the United States, after police intercepted a vehicle in which he was travelling along the Mandela Highway, St Catherine.

Many of his lieutenants, including confessed gunman Cedric 'Doggie' Murray, escaped capture despite a massive dragnet. Still the police are satisfied.

diplomatic face-off

The police and military stormed west Kingston on the morning of May 24 with loud explosions, heavy-duty equipment and a deployment of personnel never before seen in Jamaica.

They said they were moving to repel an insurgency by persons loyal to Coke and to capture the man whose extradition request had led to a diplomatic face-off with the United States.

According to deputy commissioner of police in charge of operations Glenmore Hinds, the police and military got the operation right.

"We got it right in the sense that we put down the insurgency, and we normalised the community as we are doing now," Hinds told The Gleaner.

"We are in a transition mode now, as we are making the community prime for community-based policing. That's the third phase in which we are moving," Hinds added.

The police and the Jamaica Defence Force have established a permanent security post in Tivoli Gardens and have succeeded in preventing the rise of another don in the area.

"The first objective was to put down an insurgency. It became a security situation, which required the military to deal with that. All the roads were barricaded and there were regular explosions.

"No policing can take place in that situation. It was an internal security situation where the security of the citizens was significantly eroded in that community," Hinds said.

He noted that Coke's supporters had launched seemingly coordinated attacks on police patrols across St Catherine, Kingston and St Andrew after the decision was made to extradite him.

Gunmen from Red Hills Road, Mountain View Avenue, Allman Town, Maxfield Avenue, and sections of Spanish Town, St Catherine, engaged the police and military in violent confrontations, leaving two policemen dead and several others injured.

attack on police stations

The thugs also attacked police stations and openly displayed high-powered weapons.

That was the signal for the security forces to move, and shortly before midday on May 24, the operation got into full swing.

It began with an intense gunfight as members of the security forces clashed with heavily armed thugs.

By the end of day one, the security forces had taken control of large sections of west Kingston but it would take almost three days before the State could declare that the insurgents were subdued.

According to Hinds, the police achieved their objectives, which had at its focus putting down the insurgency.

"The second objective was to normalise the community, to take it back from the criminals, so that the citizens could go about their business. And the third one was to execute an extradition warrant," Hinds explained.

He said a fourth objective was to recover illegal arms and ammunition and arrest other criminals.

"We seized more than 100 illegal firearms and more than 10,000 rounds of ammunition. So we have stabilised it (Tivoli) and that was the objective for the post-Dudus era," Hinds said.