Tyrone Reid, Staff Reporter
Women were very visible and vocal in last week's protest in Spanish Town. They were demontrating against the killing of Donovan 'Bulbie' Bennett, Jamaica's most wanted man. - Rudolph Brown/Chief Photographer
JOIN THE protest or die! This is the choice armed thugs force many inner-city women and children to make at gunpoint after their cronies have been arrested or killed by the security forces.
It is a chain reaction. The social conscience of these female victims is raped again and again, as they picket against the police.
The tales of terror have been chronicled by some women, as refusal to be proud placard-bearing, slogan-shouting cheerleaders for a criminal's cause has resulted in at least one life being snuffed out. In other cases, houses have been set ablaze and in
several others persons have been forced to leave communities.
"It is a growing culture in certain communities they (thugs) put the people in so much fear and force them to participate in the demonstrations," asserted Superintendent Kenneth Wade, commanding officer for St. Catherine North.
Superintendent Newton Amos told The Sunday Gleaner that the tactic is also employed in his division. "I am one of the major recipients of that. My division is plagued with this sort of organised crime," he stressed. However, Superintendent Amos was swift to point out that there are persons who willingly support these protests, as they are in bed with the criminal kingpins. "It is the Robin Hood syndrome. The community gets dependent on them and they get dependent on the community to protect them from the police."
Superintendent Gary Griffiths, former commanding officer of Kingston West also corroborated that residents are being given these life-threatening ultimatums and many choose to protest and live another day. "They are being hoarded up, men come run them out of their houses, beat them and say that they should go out and demonstrate," he confirmed. The senior officer added that these forced protests are almost inevitable and it would come as a shock to him if they did not occur.
"We need to be very concerned because if we don't it is going to reach a stage of anarchy we need to plug it," he stressed.
Superintendent Wade added that he has received intelligence from persons who were forced to take up placards and scream slogans of injustice on four different occasions in the inner-city communities of Angola, Rema, Denham Town and Jones Town.
One resident of Trench Town was bold enough to come forward and explain to The Sunday Gleaner how the system operates. The source detailed how a woman's life was violently taken while others had to flee the place they called home because they snubbed the call to be cheerleaders for a criminal's cause.
"They come door to door, knock you up, threaten you and tell you that you have to go out and protest," the source explained. She revealed that refusal to submit to the demands is first met with name calling such as 'police informer'. Then, terror strikes. "They wait two weeks or month after and the least little thing they attack you," the source revealed.
The source also revealed that men are seemingly exempt from this sort of ambush.
