Press Conference- Cherry Tree Lane, Clarendon
Address
By
The Most Honourable Andrew Holness ON, PC, MP
Prime Minister of Jamaica
At
Press Conference, Cherry Tree Lane, Clarendon
On
August 14, 2024
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Good morning, everyone.
The brutal killing of 8 innocent Jamaicans which has prompted the government to mobilize all its resources to respond is something that I make a priority and all our security forces, the JCF, JDF, MOCA, our intelligence services; all our security forces have been mobilized in this regard.
The deputy prime minister has just given an update on the declaration of a State of Public Emergency for the parish of Clarendon. This is as a result of our analysis of the intelligence available and the very high probability. Indeed, I would go as far as to say, even though it was not said by Acting Commissioner Bailey, attempts at retaliation and reprisals. As Minister Chang pointed out that when incidents like these have occurred in the past, when you take the accumulated murders that are connected to the initial event, you end up in tens and twenties and thirties, so we are very careful in ensuring that this incident does not spark a string of additional murders and therefore the implementation of the SOE in Clarendon.
The SOE is not designed to be an inconvenience to the citizens and the security forces will be using this additional power in a very targeted and strategic way. I want to assure the public that our security forces in as much as we are focused on getting the criminals and those who are responsible, we are also focused on protecting the human rights of our citizens. The rights of the victims clearly, in my opinion, should take priority but we also have a duty as a civilized country to show the criminals that we act within the law. So, I want that point to be absolutely clear, and you would have seen this in the conduct of the police force in their operations so far. They have been very professional, very strategic, very targeted and it is not just talk. Talk is important. We must bring the public along. We must share information. The public must be aware of what is happening, but we must also report progress. We must report actions, and we must report challenges and that is what we have been doing as we try to come to grips with what has happened in our nation.
In the last press conference, somebody said, would you describe this as a mass shooting? I would say if you were to use the language in a semantic way, yes, it is a mass shooting, but mass shootings have a particular connotation. I think a more accurate description that this is armed organized violence perpetrated by criminal enterprises. This is a gang related event which is over and above what the average would’ve been and so we are going to treat it in that way and focus on gangs.
We have had the traditional notion that gangs are a social response to poverty, disenfranchisement, unemployment. I would suggest to those persons who hold this view that that is an outdated notion. The gangs that we are dealing with are highly resourced; they are not poor. They are not struggling for money. They operate as an enterprise. They have structure, they have leadership, and they have systems and rules, and I want you to also bear in mind that they operate on intelligence. They study our police force, they use information operations, they use our banking system, they use our telecommunication system, they use social media, they are well-structured and well-organized; and what they do, is that they entrench themselves in communities and take advantage of poor dispossessed youth. They give them guns, they use them as lookouts, they use them to commit crimes, they use the term ‘they lock the area’ so they take over our young people, our unsuspecting women, and they use them as foot soldiers, as pawns in the game. And that is what we’re dealing with.
The entrenchment of this kind of organized armed violence is a threat, not just the communities in which they exist, it is a threat to the very stability of the state. When I went to the community of Cherry Tree on Monday, it was heartbreaking. It could be any community. In my own constituency, people play bingo all the time. The bingo table is a place of social gathering, and this was not a drive-by. These men were deliberate. They stopped their vehicles. They came out and they pursued victims, and they didn’t do it in just one location, they left the location where the bingo was at and went to another location and did the same thing, so I want the nation to understand that this is a different level of criminality. You can only describe this as an act of terror.
It wasn’t carried out by someone who is mentally ill or someone with a social vendetta. This was carried out in the pursuit of a criminal vendetta. It is the use of violence in support of the entrenchment of the power of the gang. It is an act of terror, and it has to be treated in that way and the public needs to understand the evolving nature of the criminality that we face. And what the government has been doing is building the capacity of our security forces to be able to address this level of criminality.
Very instructive for me in visiting the community and speaking with the mother of one of the victims, who was very effusive in her praise for the police force in the area that they had ongoing patrols. The area was under active police operations, but it is clear that these criminals would have studied the rhythm of the police and took an opportunity. This is a level of criminality that we are dealing with. I know that there are certain narratives that are usually carried, but I would urge persons to be very careful about how they seek to characterize what is happening here.
The JCF, JDF, MOCA, and all our security apparatus is responding not in the traditional way. We have new modalities and new ways of responding to this so there may be persons who would be expecting to see mass mobilizations and mass arrests and all kinds. No, that’s not how the JCF, JDF and our security forces operate. We are operating in an information rich, and intelligence driven strategic environment. That is what we are doing, which is why hours after the incident Acting Commissioner Bailey can report progress. He can report that five persons have been arrested with connections to the incident with a firearm connected, one person has turned himself in, so the impact is there.
Now, as it relates to the wider strategy, I want to spend a few minutes on that. The potential for reprisal leads us also to look at other gangs who may be involved. So, once we have zeroed in on the gangs that are responsible, we know that the connections and cooperation exist where the gangs that we have zeroed in on may very well subcontract. I hate to use that term, but that’s the best way to convey it. They may very well go into collaboration with other gangs to carry out their reprisals and therefore, our strategic response is not going to be limited only to the gangs we know to be involved, but to a wider area and therefore my comments regarding ensuring that there is wide net around gangs and attack and assault on gangs and gang culture is very appropriate as a result of this incident.
So, this is an opportunity for the government to mobilize fully to have a very serious focus on gangs and I want to point out that the government has had a longstanding strategy for the last five years in tackling gangs. About five years ago, we estimated that there were about 400 gangs that were active within our Jamaican space. My last report from the Minister of National Security on Monday was that we are now down to 185 active gangs but by any measure, having185 active gangs in our space is still very high. The intention is to bring the gangs down to zero. And it is important, therefore, that the public understand that these gangs that are in your communities, they are not your protectors. They are not your friends.
One of the strategies to erode the gangs is to create an environment where citizens can provide information. It is the information that is going to destroy the network of the gangs and remove the space for gangs to operate in the community. Another action that the government will take in support of promoting an information rich environment is that we have now established a fund of 25 million Jamaican dollars. The fund is in the ministry of national security, and it is focused primarily on this incident. We will provide 6 million dollars for credible information and intelligence leading to the arrest and charge of any suspect involved in the killing, particularly those who were involved in pulling the trigger, and that is up to a maximum amount of 1 million dollars per person.
Secondly, we will provide 5 million dollars for information aiding in the investigation, arrest and charge of facilitators of this criminal act up to a maximum of 1.5 million dollars per person. We’re particularly interested in the facilitators and the organizers. The facilitators, those who provided the weapons or gave access to the weapons and ammunition, access to the motor vehicle, organized, made the telephone calls, made the connections; we are particularly interested in those persons.
We will give a reward for the provision of information and intelligence leading to the recovery of the firearms that were involved in this killing. We’re particularly interested in that and any information on the networks involved in the supply of those firearms, and we will provide 5 million dollars for the supply of information and intelligence resulting in the securing of evidence, any form of evidence against the gangs that were involved in this operation.
Lastly, we will provide a fund of 5 million dollars leading to the arrest and charge for anyone harbouring the criminal gangs or their associates, a maximum of $800,000 per person identified. So, this is a 25-million-dollar fund that is aimed at increasing the pace at which information is flowing in for the investigation. This fund will be under the administration of the Ministry of National Security and the traditional methods of providing information can be used but any method that you use to get the information in, once it is forwarded to the Ministry of National Security and the relevant details are available, the payments will be made securely.
I wish to remind you of the methods of contact to provide information to the security forces securely:
- Crime Stop 311
- Police Emergency 119
- NIB (National Investigation Bureau) tip line 811
- MOCA tip line 888-MOCA-TIP (888-6622-847)
- JDF tip line 837-888
This administration is taking this act of terror very seriously. It is the second time that I’ve had to use this term to describe an act of this nature. I would remind the nation of the brutal killing which took place in St James, where a criminal used a high powered weapon, opened fire on a public passenger transport vehicle which killed three persons including two school children. We used a similar strategy of mobilizing the community, deployment of a state of public emergency, focus on targeted information and within weeks we were able to bring those responsible to justice. I am expecting that we will have similar if not better results. In fact, more impactful results as we respond to this.
And as I close my presentation, I will say that we cannot allow murders to become normalized in our country. And therefore, there must be very strong response to these kinds of incidents.
Thank you.