St James, Jamaica (McKoy’s News) – 152 St James Murders Recorded: Residents and business operators in the parish of St James say they are now living in fear because of the vast numbers of murders that have been recorded in the parish.
They pointed out that despite deploying additional personnel throughout the communities of St James, the Area One Police are still unable to control the volume of killings.
Since the start of 2017, a total of 152 St James murders has taken place compared with 135 during the same period in 2016.
A number of business operators indicated that these murders are continuing on the same trend in and around the same communities.
Meanwhile, one police source indicated that they are fully aware of this trend, where every year most of these killings taking place in the Montego Hills policing area.
The Barnett Street, Mount Salem and Barrett Town policing areas are the other locations where a high number of murders continues to take place.
The police also pointed out that the only quadruple murder in the parish was recorded in the Barnett Street policing area of Montego Bay, and this has somewhat dampened the night life in the second city.
The police have now deployed more personnel and stepped up patrols in most communities in a bid to curb these murders, which they say are mainly being caused from the Lottery Scam and ongoing gang feuds.
A trend of more teenagers being murdered has developed since the start of the year. It has also been discovered that gunmen are now targeting innocent family members and persons that are not in any way involved in scamming or gang wars.