{"id":3070,"date":"2019-09-25T21:14:28","date_gmt":"2019-09-25T21:14:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/westernmirror.com\/?p=3070"},"modified":"2019-09-25T21:14:31","modified_gmt":"2019-09-25T21:14:31","slug":"mayor-pleads-for-help-to-stem-flow-of-illegal-guns-to-jamaica","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/?p=3070","title":{"rendered":"Mayor pleads for help to stem flow of illegal guns to Jamaica"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Mayor of Montego Bay\nand Chairman of the St. James Municipal Corporation, Councillor Homer Davis,\nhas made an impassioned plea for more to be done by security officials in\ncountries such as the United States of America and Haiti to stem the flow of\nillegal weapons into Jamaica.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Speaking at a forum put on by the Caribbean Policy Research\nInstitute, CAPRI at the Montego Bay Cultural Centre on Monday, September 23,\n2019 entitled \u201cScamming, Gangs and Violence in Montego Bay\u201d, Mayor Davis said\nthose countries are the main areas from which illegal weapons are shipped to\nJamaica.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He said if the flow of illegal weapon to Jamaica is stopped,\nhe is confident that the rate of gun murders in Jamaica will be significantly\nreduced.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mayor Davis said, \u201cIf we can stop the flow of guns, we would\nnot empower these gangsters or these scammers. There would not be anything for\nthem (the scammers) to buy. We are not in agreement with Scamming\u2026We know that\npeople…pensioners have suffered immensely as a result of the action of these\nscammers. What we are saying to our partners is help us to Police our space,\nhelp us to restrict the flow of arms. We have over a thousand kilometers of\nshoreline\u2026We are a thousand kilometers from the United States of America, we\nare less than 500 kilometers from Haiti and these are the points of departure\nfor these weapons that come into Jamaica\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mayor Davis said back in the day when the ganja trade was\nrampant in Jamaica, there was a concerted effort by officials of Jamaica\u2019s\nmajor trading partners to stamp it out and a similar push is required at this\ntime to address the shipment of illegal guns into the island.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He pointed out that based on information from the Jamaica\nConstabulary Force, the gun remains the weapon of choice for criminals who\ncontinue to drive fear into the hearts of law-abiding Jamaicans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

SCAMMING<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the issue of scamming, Mayor Davis said it is a case of\n\u201ca good turning bad\u201d as Call Centres which provide sustainable jobs for several\nthousand Jamaicans, gave birth to the practice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cToday I ask the question – how did we gain that label (of\nbeing the capital of scamming)? It was never a part of our culture. Our\ncitizens were exposed to the technological age in the early 2000 and as such, a\nnumber of our young people were employed to the Call Centres here in Montego\nBay and from that, they were taught in some instances\u2026by persons who thought\nthey could be used as confidants,\u201d Mayor Davis stated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, Mayor Davis is expressing satisfaction with the\ndevelopment of Montego Bay, even in the face of the negative effects that\nscamming, murders and other anti-social activities have had on the city.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He noted that \u201ceven with the prevalence of murder, we have\nseen the economy of Montego Bay growing at a much faster rate than the national\neconomy. Over the last 10 years, over 10,000 new housing solutions have come on\nstream. We have seen the development of Barnett Tech Park, the developments of\nthe Fairview Commercial Centre, the Whitter Village shopping complex, the\nexpansion of the BPO sector, over 8,000 new hotel rooms coming on stream and an\nadditional 4,000 in the making. In other words, Montego Bay is very unique\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mayor of Montego Bay and Chairman of the St. James Municipal Corporation, Councillor Homer Davis, has made an impassioned plea for more to be done by security officials in countries such as the United States of America and Haiti to stem the flow of illegal weapons into Jamaica. Speaking at a forum put on by […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1791,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1565,1564,1563,21,652,1518,31,30],"class_list":["post-3070","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-capri","tag-caribbean-policy-research-institute","tag-illegal-guns","tag-jamaica","tag-mayor","tag-montego-bay-cultural-centre","tag-st-james","tag-western-jamaica"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3070","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3070"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3070\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3071,"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3070\/revisions\/3071"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1791"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3070"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3070"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3070"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}