Kevon Felmine

Po­lice of­fi­cers swooped down in sev­er­al crime hot spots yes­ter­day, ar­rest­ing 25 sus­pects in­clud­ing two women as day three of the state of emer­gency took ef­fect. The raids, which be­gan around 3 am, were car­ried out in Mara­bel­la, Mon Re­pos and Pleas­antville, ar­eas which are un­der the 9 pm to 5 am cur­few. No weapons were seized but law en­force­ment of­fi­cers re­cov­ered a quan­ti­ty of nar­cotics. Se­nior of­fi­cers have hailed the cur­few as a suc­cess since there had been a de­crease in crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty over the past three days. How­ev­er, oth­er of­fi­cers ex­pressed con­cern about reprisal when the cur­few ends.

"This is a war they have start­ed, some of the gang lead­ers and drug lords we have touched are on­ly keep­ing qui­et for now. They will be com­ing back for us as soon as this is over," said one se­nior of­fi­cer. Led by Sergeant An­tho­ny Charles, a large con­tin­gent of po­lice of­fi­cers ex­e­cut­ed the raids while the cur­few was still in ef­fect. The of­fi­cers in­vad­ed the Mara­bel­la Train Line and hauled peo­ple out of their homes. At Or­chid Gar­dens, Pleas­antville, of­fi­cers searched the apart­ment build­ings where they ar­rest­ed four men want­ed in con­nec­tion with sev­er­al rob­beries. As some of the sus­pects were be­ing de­tained by po­lice they claimed their in­no­cence, ac­cus­ing the po­lice of ar­rest­ing them mere­ly to jus­ti­fy the raids on their homes.

A woman, who gave her name as Chezrae, said she un­der­stood that the po­lice­men had a job to do but they were ar­rest­ing in­no­cent peo­ple as well. Chezrae came back to her apart­ment around 10 am and saw po­lice­men ar­rest­ing her boyfriend. She said: "I had left home ear­li­er on to pur­chase food at the su­per­mar­ket and I left my boyfriend home with my two chil­dren. When I came home I saw him in hand­cuffs. "They did not say any­thing about why he was ar­rest­ed and they took him for no rea­son. There was no one smok­ing and I heard they knocked on the door and they just took him." Chezrae said the of­fi­cers could have con­duct­ed their search dif­fer­ent­ly. She said they al­leged­ly barged in­to an apart­ment where a woman was bathing.

The of­fi­cers then locked down the Mon Re­pos HDC apart­ment build­ings where they ar­rest­ed two women who were al­leged­ly found with sev­er­al small pack­ets of mar­i­jua­na, she added. A se­nior of­fi­cer said: "We have start­ed to tar­get gang lead­ers, gang­sters, drug lords and some of the gangs em­a­nat­ing out of these ar­eas. "Soon we will be go­ing in­to the oth­er ar­eas where there have been crime. So far we have a quan­ti­ty of nar­cotics but we haven't got­ten any firearms.

"Some of the peo­ple we have de­tained are be­lieved to be gang­sters ac­cord­ing to the an­ti-gang team. We have ar­rest­ed 25 peo­ple, with two women in­clud­ed. They will be charged with pos­ses­sion of mar­i­jua­na." An­oth­er se­nior of­fi­cer said so far they had not ar­rest­ed any­one for break­ing the cur­few. "The on­ly re­ports of crime we got so far was lar­ce­ny of a mo­tor­car in Mara­bel­la and rob­bery in San Fer­nan­do on Tues­day. These two in­ci­dents are be­ing dealt with and they have oc­curred in the day­light. Noth­ing has hap­pened dur­ing cur­few hours," the se­nior of­fi­cer said.