Police outside the building on Melmac Avenue in Kingston 5 where it was reported that a dentist and a deputy police superintendent were taken hostage. It turned out to be a hoax. (Photo: Michael Gordon)

For three hours yesterday heavily-armed police, mostly dressed in body-armour, hunkered down behind their cars or found other strategic points from which they would have a clear view of the small, two-story building on Melmac Avenue in Kingston.

Their guns were trained on the building. They talked among themselves and into their radios and on mobile telephones.
Some were clearly nervous.

Frequently they had to coax back the crowd that edged forward, encroaching on the danger zone. They needed room to operate. In the event the gunmen came out blazing.

Melmac Avenue is a tight, narrow road. But it has perhaps the highest density of dentists anywhere in the world. Some of the best-known names in Jamaican dentistry have, or used to have, their offices on this horseshoe strip of maybe 150 metres that opens onto Old Hope Road.

It was one of those offices, in the building at 8 Melmac Avenue, that three gunmen were supposed to be holding Dr Denise Jones and one of her patients, Detective Superintendent Scott, hostage. Scott is assigned to the Special Anti-Crime Task Force (SACTF).

"We get a call say three boy have a policeman and a doctor hostage in there and we trying to flush them out," a cop on the scene told the Observer.

In the end, though, there was no one to flush out. It was all a hoax.

Dr Jones, it was reported, was attending a health fair and DSP Scott was on a police operation in Montego Bay.

"It is a copycat situation which is seen all over the world," complained Deputy Commissioner Lucius Thomas, who is in charge of the police's crime portfolio.

"We have had hoax calls but this one is played out a little more than the others," he said. "119 is listed as an emergency number and we should use it as such."

But the playing out was more than a little over the average crank call to the police emergency number.

In yesterday's case, more than 30 police were deployed. The situation was tense and news of a hostage-taking event was being flashed on radio newscasts with out-of-breath urgency.

Early on, the police on the scene appeared a little uncertain about how to approach what everyone seemed to believe was a genuine crisis - until Cornwall "Bigga" Ford, the head of the Flying Squad, arrived and appeared to take charge.

Ford commandeered some policemen and set a plan for them to enter the building, which apart from Jones' offices appeared to house two other dentistries as well as a lawyer's office.

The policemen entered the ground floor, where Jones' offices are, and the top floor.

In a short while more than a dozen persons - staff and patients - hustled out. They mostly declined to give their names. Most knew something was amiss, but they were not clear on the details.

"We didn't know what was happening," said one woman. "We were frightened, so we locked ourselves in our offices. The police came and told us no one was in the building so we came out."

A while longer and the cops emerged.

"We go through the whole building and we don't see anything suspicious," an officer said.

Some were angry and frustrated.

Said one: "This is the hoax of the year and I hope you report it that way. If people call us and we don't respond then we are inefficient, but if we respond to a hoax call we are fools. The police are humans too."

The policeman had probably heard the person in the crowd who was berating their handling of the situation.

Said one man, echoing what had been said by another: "Foreign police would go inside there and take out the gunmen, but these police so coward. They were hiding behind vehicle and stay outside for one length a time."

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