Omar Anderson, Freelance Writer
JAMAICANS NEED not be overly worried by the current spate of brutal murders taking place in the capital city as the murders are not random, the police say.
"All of us should be alarmed at the murder rate because a little country like this is not supposed to be seeing this type of murder rate," crime chief, Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP), Osbourn Dyer, said. However, he explained that based on the categories of the murders he doesn't necessarily think citizens have to be overly worried, but should exercise safety at all times.
"I don't know if we have to be fearful but we have to be careful," ACP Dyer told The Sunday Gleaner.
The crime chief said that 303 or 32 per cent of the 937 murders recorded up to last Thursday have been reprisal killings, a figure which the police said could have been higher if they had not been pro-active in most situations.
"You have to do some intervention," he stated. "Perhaps if the police weren't intervening in lots of these situations, it would have been worse."
He singled out August Town in St. Andrew, where police's intervention has brought relative calm in the area following the murder of four persons and the injuring of several others in the community two weeks ago.
Figures last week from the Constabulary Communication Network (CCN) also showed that of the 937 murders, domestic murders accounted for 252 while gang-related murders stood at 145.
Murders with robbery as their motive were 116, while the motive of some 60 murders are undetermined so far. Political killings accounted for 12, with another 10 being as a result of mob killings.
Two of the murders were due to the confrontation with the police while six victims were raped then killed this year.
Regarding domestic murders, ACP Dyer said more intervention needs to be done before disputes result in death.
He suggested that the police and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) need to exert more influence on domestic disputes before a lowering of the figures is seen.
Psychologist, Dr. Leachim Semaj, feels that "the media is playing on people's weakness.
For instance over the past five years, 35 per cent of the murders are domestic, 35 per cent are retaliatory and 15 per cent drug-related. Ordinary citizens are not affected.
"The killings are not random. They occur in communities that exist outside the law. In these communities, people are preying on their own. They protect the known criminals, they know who the wrongdoers are and out of fear they do not pass on information to the state," Dr. Semaj said.
He noted that the media can help by highlighting the resolution of the murders as much as the murders themselves.
"The public never get the rest of the story what were these people involved in? We never hear what kinds of activities they were involved in - many have a drug underpinning," Dr. Semaj stated.
