Night after night police officers and soldiers swoop down on the Housing Development Corporation (HDC) apartment buildings at Mon Repos, San Fernando, searching for guns, narcotics and ammunition with sniffer dogs and metal detectors. Almost every night, they come up empty. Residents are now wondering when the futile searches will stop. The apartment complex, located next to the Mon Repos Police Station, is regarded as a crime "hot spot" by the police who claim illegal gambling, narcotic trafficking and gunrunning are among the activities taking place in the rundown buildings with broken windows, leaking roofs and termite-eaten doors.
The stairways are dirty and the laundry area where tenants hang out clothes has been used as a gambling booth. Now it is empty and surrounded by overgrown bushes. One resident, Johnny Hunter, complained that the police were searching in the wrong place. "These fellas here have small things. Let the police go look for the big fishes," he declared as he took off his dark shades and wiped them clean.
"The police must hold the ones who are bringing in the guns into the country, not the poor struggling youth man who have a stick of weed."
Hunter claimed that "big time" police officers were involved in the criminals, rings. "Every night they in this area. They holding the little boys who trying to make a living but not the big businessmen who controlling the drug trade," he said. Another resident, who did not want to be identified, expressed support for the state of emergency. "Before the curfew those fellas would be selling drugs from that building there. They will go in the shed and talk and play music all night. Now we finally able to sleep in peace," he said.
Kadijah Simon said she was also happy with the state of emergency because her family life had improved. "I don't go anywhere but it is nice to have the curfew because the place is quiet and families can stay together and spend quality time with each other," she said.
Simon believes the curfew might work out in the long run once social programmes are introduced to assist the detainees. However, her friend Melissa Brown interrupted her: "Girl, this curfew is nonsense, Mon Repos is not a 'hotspot'. What they coming here for?" Brown complained that she has not been able to find employment with CEPEP and the curfew had taken away her freedom, so she could not even leave her home at nights. Another resident, Joyce Christ, said while she supported the state of emergency, she felt the police were engaging in biased stereotyping. Christ said her nephew, who came to collect pepper sauce to take to Atlanta in the United States, was stopped by the police on Monday.
"He was wearing ethnic wear and the police stopped him. He had to explain to them and show them his plane ticket before they let him go," she said.
She added, however, that before the state of emergency she was afraid to visit her relatives at Morvant.
"Now I am going there. The state of emergency is good. It will work but the police have to make sure and do their jobs with justice." Margaret Joseph said she was fearful that the people detained by the police would come back into society with more vengeance than before. "This curfew will bring out more criminals in the long run because of how it is being done. The police picking up innocent people. Mothers are crying out because a lot of innocent people are being held," Joseph said. Other Mon Repos residents thought the Government had endangered people's lives by calling the state of emergency.
However, a senior police officer said they have been able to recover a quantity of narcotics, ammunition and arrested more than six known gang members from Mon Repos.
Officers said a 19-year-old suspect who was recently arrested for the murder of a security officer was part of a gang at Mon Repos. They say most of the known criminals have fled the apartment complex and are hiding out at the homes of family and friends. Detectives also believe guns have been hidden in bushy areas or underground. They say that drug dens exist within the apartment buildings even though they are located just next to the police station.