Malis­sa Lara

It's been a bloody sev­en months for of­fi­cers of the North­ern Di­vi­sion­al Task Force who have been con­front­ed with an in­crease in mur­ders this year. Sta­tis­tics from the di­vi­sion show 67 mur­ders be­tween Jan­u­ary and June, an in­crease of 18 deaths for the same pe­ri­od last year. Faced with in­creas­ing gang vi­o­lence and oth­er se­ri­ous of­fences, the di­vi­sion in­tro­duced a gang and crim­i­nal tar­get­ing team. Se­nior Su­per­in­ten­dent Stephen Ram­sub­hag of the Di­vi­sion said though they have that mea­sure and oth­ers in place, "this thing is re­al­ly a so­cial prob­lem." He feels there must al­so be an in­ter­ven­tion from the Gov­ern­ment and re­li­gious or­gan­i­sa­tions. The North­ern Di­vi­sion is the largest in T&T and they were giv­en 100 ad­di­tion­al of­fi­cers from the Com­mu­ni­ty Crime Pre­ven­tion Unit a few weeks ago.

Ram­sub­hag said the ar­eas un­der the di­vi­sion's watch be­came 'hot' no more than four years ago. n On Au­gust 10, 17-year-old Kevin La Bor­de was gunned down while lim­ing at Cal­vary Hill. On June 3, Tim­o­thy Quow, 24, was gunned down in La Hor­quet­ta Phase Three. In Mal­oney, 43-year-old, Wayne For­gonie was killed at Wood­star Av­enue. Last year Ju­ly, 17-year-old Kevin 'Mamoo' Hill was killed at Mau­si­ca Lane, Jon­estown. For­mer Ari­ma may­or Adri­an Cabralis ex­plained that one of the rea­sons the Ari­ma Bor­ough Day J'Ou­vert was can­celled this year was be­cause of fight­ing and crime in the com­mu­ni­ties. To com­bat the vi­o­lence, foot pa­trols have been in­creased in ar­eas such as the Con­go and Cal­vary Hill, Ari­ma.

It's not all bad news as the di­vi­sion has seen a de­crease in se­ri­ous crimes, such as rob­beries, this year be­tween the months of June and Ju­ly. The di­vi­sion in June re­port­ed 347 se­ri­ous crimes, which in­clud­ed, break-ins and mur­ders. In Ju­ly, 270 se­ri­ous crimes were re­port­ed. Over­all, se­ri­ous crimes have de­clined from last year be­tween June and Ju­ly by 376. Ram­sub­hag, who re­ceived the 'ok' from his boss­es to speak with the me­dia, said the di­vi­sion has al­so been hold­ing com­mu­ni­ty meet­ings. He al­so out­lined oth­er ini­tia­tives. They in­clude six func­tion­ing youth clubs and a part­ner­ship with La Hor­quet­ta Move­ment Sport and Cul­tur­al Com­mit­tee which has ex­ist­ed un­der WP Sargeant Hazel Ann Patrick for more than two years. Ram­sub­hag al­so said 772 peo­ple were ar­rest­ed thus far and 46 firearms seized.

RIGHT: David Bovell of San Juan, who paid a vis­it to a friend in Tem­ple Street, Ari­ma. Pho­to: An­ge­lo Mar­celle

Fear­ful res­i­dent in 'hot spots'

The Sun­day Guardian vis­it­ed some of the so-called 'hot spots'. In Tem­ple Street, Ari­ma where well-known mur­dered drug lord Lily Lane lived, res­i­dents were afraid to give their names. One res­i­dent who has lived there for 39 years said, "The chil­dren of Lily Lane have been car­ry­ing on her crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ties." David Bovell, San Juan res­i­dent vis­it­ing Tem­ple Street, said he worked with ad­dicts and boys who were once on the streets. He said a young woman from Bagatelle told him it was the girls' fault there was so much killing among young men. "There is a sub-cul­ture that says women are lead­ing it. One of the things we can do is set up boot camps with psy­cho­log­i­cal sup­port. "My gen­er­a­tion was brought up fair­ly strict, felt we were brought up too hard and felt our chil­dren should not be brought up hard."

Easy mon­ey

In Jon­estown, Mau­si­ca Lane young men said the crimes oc­curred be­cause of lack of work. Yet, when asked if they would work for a month­ly salary, one said, "Nah, I can't wait for a month salary...and I have to be mak­ing at least $5,000!" He said he knew of gang­sters who would kill some­one for $500 to $50,000. "This set of pass­es thing and all this you have to go through...and rec­om­men­da­tion. I know peo­ple don't like to hire crim­i­nals but still..." he said. Elec­tri­cal en­gi­neer, Ker­ron Brown said the area was qui­eter now be­cause "most peo­ple get gunned down al­ready be­tween 17 and 37." Women in the "Con­go" Ari­ma were afraid of giv­ing their names and one even ran off. Some young men glanced at the Sun­day Guardian sus­pi­cious­ly while oth­ers quick­ly hid in their homes.

"Right now be­tween 7pm and 8pm the streets are clean. There was a killing two weeks ago but that wasn't re­port­ed," one woman said. Last year, she said, the crime start­ed to in­crease be­cause of a turf war.

"Be­fore, here just had the name but now it's start­ing to live up to its name," she said. She said ban­ning J'Ou­vert "killed" the Ari­ma Bor­ough cel­e­bra­tions. In La Hor­quet­ta the streets were clear but the peace was de­cep­tive. One res­i­dent in Phase Five said one gang mem­ber had just walked by. "Right now Phase Two is war­ring against Phase Sev­en." The man said, "When they com­mit a mur­der they leave the com­mu­ni­ty and re­turn with friends who then add to the prob­lems. Last year there was an up­surge but then they kill some." In the heart of that war, how­ev­er, is an on­go­ing camp called La Hor­quet­ta Youth Lovers Camp.