{"id":3307,"date":"2020-01-20T18:10:16","date_gmt":"2020-01-20T18:10:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/westernmirror.com\/?p=3307"},"modified":"2020-01-20T18:10:19","modified_gmt":"2020-01-20T18:10:19","slug":"get-us-out","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/?p=3307","title":{"rendered":"Get us out!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Clinton Pickering<\/em><\/strong> – Freelance Writer<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Police personnel posted at the Mt Salem Police Station in Montego Bay are anxious to get out of the building from which operations are being directed. With the building falling to into dereliction, the police find themselves sharing it with familiar company – rodents and insects, and not for the first time.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s horrible and I think they should treat the security\nforces much better,\u201d says Councillor for the Mt. Salem Division, Kerry Thomas.\nThe station was ordered closed some years ago by the St James Public Health\nDepartment because of rat infestation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The police expect to be out soon as provision is being made for\nthem to relocate to retrofitted premises at the back, while plans are pursued\nfor the current structure to be replaced by a new building, but vacating the\ninfested structure cannot come soon enough.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In September 2018, the health department ordered the station closed due to structural defects and poor hygiene. But closure was averted after the order was issued as the authorities hastened to make remedial repairs while personnel continued their occupation. Whatever work as done, however, was not sustaining and the facility has again fallen into a bad state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
CONDEMNED BUILDING:<\/strong> This rundown, infested Mt Salem Police Station building is to be demolished, paving the way for a new one. Inset photos show some of the deterioration on the inside.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s horrible, very, very horrible the way they\nhave treated the Mt Salem Police Station,\u201d Cllr. Thomas reiterated, adding, \u201c\ntaking into consideration (that) come September, ZOSO would have come to its\nexpiration date and what they should have been doing is looking to transition\nthe operations to a brand new police station in Mt Salem.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

ZOSO is the first Zone of Special Operations imposed by\nGovernment on a section of Mt Salem, giving the JCF and the JDF special powers\nof control over the community and activities carried out by the people. This is\nagainst the background of a history of frequent gun violence there up to that\npoint in time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Concurrently, social agencies of the government, spearheaded by the Jamaica Social Investment Fund (JSIF), have been carrying out programmes aimed at transforming the community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

NEW STATON<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cllr Thomas added, \u201cVery bad! We\u2019ve been waiting for a\npolice station, as promised under ZOSO (Zone of Special Operations), for almost\nthree years now and to date, not even a tender process has gone out.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Commanding Officer for the St James Division, Supt. Vernon\nEllis, is not so critical in light of interim efforts being made to deal with\nthe problem. He says the station is being relocated to the retrofitted\nstructure at the back, which is air-conditioned and tiled and houses offices, a\nnew guardroom, changing room, a kitchenette, new bathroom and lockers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, it is learnt that furniture has not yet been\nprovided for it and personnel posted at the station feel strongly that derelict\npieces of furniture that they have been struggling with must be replaced.\nAdditionally, occupancy of the new facility is being held up by structural\ndefects, including plumbing problems and defects with two windows.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At least one civilian is also concerned at the state under\nwhich the police personnel now operate, stating in a complaint to the Western\nMirror<\/strong>, \u201cI recently made a visit to the Mount Salem Police Station and\nnoticed how deplorable the conditions are. There\u2019s also no changing room or\nbarracks area for the officers to change or take showers. The rest rooms have\nno lights and no proper locks, the wooden floors are rotting away, waiting for\na disaster and in the entire station, there\u2019s only one working electrical\nsocket, so the fridge that\u2019s used to store food and refreshments for the\nofficers is out of use.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

CITIZEN CONCERN<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The visitor was also aware that, \u201cThere\u2019s currently a\nretrofitted structure around the back that was completed about a month ago\nbut the officers cannot move into the new building because there\u2019s no new\nfurniture to take to the new building.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Supt Ellis believes that what has been provided \u201cis a good\ntemporary fit and I must say that it is very suitable.\u201d He pointed out that\nremoval from the old building was also necessary \u201cbecause they are so advanced\nin building the station that we are to take the guys out of that part to allow\nthem the opportunity.\u201d He said the area is to be sealed off using ply board and\nzinc in a short while.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He said with efforts now being made to address concerns, the\nsituation now is not as bad as it used to be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An administrative officer from Divisional Headquarters at\nthe Freeport Police Station carried out an inspection of the new facility last\nWednesday morning, giving rise to hope of an early resolution to the problems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The old building is to be demolished, making way for\nconstruction of a permanent Mt Salem Police Station on the same site.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Clinton Pickering – Freelance Writer Police personnel posted at the Mt Salem Police Station in Montego Bay are anxious to get out of the building from which operations are being directed. With the building falling to into dereliction, the police find themselves sharing it with familiar company – rodents and insects, and not for the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3310,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[138,1712,19,1711,137,1713,1714,104],"class_list":["post-3307","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-jamaica-constabulary-force","tag-kerry-thomas","tag-montego-bay","tag-mt-salem-police-station","tag-police","tag-st-james-public-health-department","tag-vernon-ellis","tag-zoso"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3307","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=3307"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3307\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3312,"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3307\/revisions\/3312"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3310"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3307"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3307"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3307"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}