The gov­ern­ment on Wednes­day de­clared States of Pub­lic Emer­gency in sec­tions of the Cor­po­rate Area and sec­tions of the neigh­bor­ing parish of St. Cather­ine in the wake of an in­crease in gang con­flicts.

In a state­ment late Wednes­day, the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter (OPM) said the States of Emer­gency were im­ple­ment­ed in the Cor­po­rate Area po­lice di­vi­sions of St. An­drew South, St. An­drew Cen­tral and Kingston West­ern, and in the parish of St. Cather­ine, in the South po­lice di­vi­sions.

The state­ment said the lo­ca­tions have been iden­ti­fied as hotspots for gang-re­lat­ed war­fare which pose risks to pub­lic safe­ty of res­i­dents as well as com­muters and by­standers giv­en their use as pub­lic thor­ough­fares.

Ac­cord­ing to the OPM, an in­tel­li­gence as­sess­ment has re­vealed that vi­o­lence and crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty in these com­mu­ni­ties have reached a lev­el be­yond what stan­dard polic­ing strate­gies can man­age to ef­fec­tive­ly re­store sta­bil­i­ty and pub­lic or­der.

“The gov­ern­ment will con­tin­ue ad­dress­ing the un­der­ly­ing fac­tors that fu­el vi­o­lence in these ar­eas.”

In re­sponse, the act­ing As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er Michael Phipps, who is in charge of the Area Four Po­lice Head­quar­ters, wel­comed the de­c­la­ra­tion in the three di­vi­sions un­der his com­mand.

He point­ed to an in­crease in gang con­flicts, mur­ders and shoot­ings in the Cor­po­rate Area, par­tic­u­lar­ly in the St. An­drew South Di­vi­sion.

”We have seen these di­vi­sions show­ing an uptick in re­port­ed mur­ders since the start of Jan­u­ary 2025 and have record­ed so far this year 22 mur­ders up from eight for the cor­re­spond­ing pe­ri­od of 2024.

The St. An­drew South Di­vi­sion [has] seen a 1000 per­cent­age in­crease in re­port­ed mur­ders over the cor­re­spond­ing pe­ri­od of 2024. We will be us­ing these mea­sures to treat ef­fec­tive­ly with these very hotspot ar­eas which are known for gang war­fare which pos­es pub­lic safe­ty risk to es­pe­cial­ly our law-abid­ing cit­i­zens who have to tra­verse these ar­eas,” Phipps said.

He al­so called for res­i­dents in the volatile com­mu­ni­ties list­ed un­der the SOEs to give “full sup­port” to mem­bers of the se­cu­ri­ty forces dur­ing their crack­down on the gangs and ef­fort to re­store sta­bil­i­ty and pub­lic or­der.

“I want to use this op­por­tu­ni­ty as well to ask per­sons with ill in­tent not to, in any way, shape, or form, try to re­sist us if we come to ar­rest them. We at all times urge peace­ful sur­ren­der, how­ev­er, we will be de­ci­sive in pro­tect­ing our­selves from all threat forces,” he warned.

CMC/jm/kb/2025

KINGSTON, Ja­maica, Jan 23, CMC