Richard Lord

Two Op­po­si­tion MPs yes­ter­day called for an at­tack and so­cial in­ter­ven­tion in the fight against crime.There were four mur­ders with­in 24 hours in three sep­a­rate in­ci­dents on Sun­day and yes­ter­day.Nine-year-old Jadel Hold­er and his 15-year-old broth­er, Ja­mal Brath­waite, were shot in the head at point-blank range af­ter gun­men stormed their house. Their moth­er es­caped.MP for Laven­tille West NiLe­ung Hy­po­lite said:"An ur­gent frontal at­tack is re­quired on crime by the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­istry im­me­di­ate­ly." Cit­i­zens can­not ac­cept 186 mur­ders in 151 days, he added in a state­ment. He said the crime de­tec­tion rate must al­so im­prove. adding: "On­go­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions must be im­proved.

Few have led to prompt ar­rest ac­tions." The Gov­ern­ment has not de­liv­ered on its promise to suc­cess­ful­ly fight crime, he said.The po­lice must part­ner with com­mu­ni­ties and all stake­hold­ers to de­vel­op strate­gies to frontal­ly at­tack crime, Hy­po­lite not­ed.He said the act­ing Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice re­cent­ly as­sured cit­i­zens that crime ini­tia­tives were work­ing and the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter pro­vid­ed in­for­ma­tion show­ing a "false re­duc­tion" in crime.But he main­tained the cur­rent sta­tis­tics "in­di­cat­ed an un­ac­cept­able in­crease in crimes and mur­ders, there­fore cit­i­zens are not re­as­sured."Hy­po­lite said Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Gary Grif­fith "in­sists in the face of ev­i­dence to the con­trary that crime is un­der con­trol. It is not."

Laven­tille East/Mor­vant MP Don­na Cox ex­pressed sad­ness over the deaths of the two boys from her con­stituen­cy.She said de­spite what peo­ple were say­ing "they were chil­dren."She said the Gov­ern­ment should of­fer so­cial in­ter­ven­tion pro­grammes to the rel­a­tives of those who died, adding that coun­selling was nec­es­sary as some would have wit­nessed the killings.Cox was ex­pect­ed to vis­it the boys' moth­er yes­ter­day.