BY KIMMO MATTHEWS

Observer staff reporter

matthewsk@jamaicaobserver.com

RESIDENTS of several Corporate Area communities say the newly launched crime-fighting initiative, Operation Resilience, is causing them much unease.

According to the residents, the initiative — which the police have credited for the disruption of several gangs and the recovery of dozens of illegal weapons — has resulted in an increase in the incidence of police abuse. This, the residents point out, is in addition to the jump in the number of police killings, which the Independent Commission of Investigations (INDECOM) has highlighted as a major concern.

“We believe that in these operations some of the wrong people are falling victims at the hands of the police and something needs to be done to bring them (police) under control,” one woman who lives off Red Hills Road told the Jamaica Observer, on Tuesday.

The woman was at the scene where a 24-year-old man was shot and killed by the police during an early-morning operation in Donmair Common.

Residents claimed that at about 5:30am Dwayne Wilson — a father of two — was at home when a police team visited the area and shot him in cold blood.

Their account of the incident differ from that of the police, who alleged that Wilson was killed in a confrontation with them.

The incident triggered a protest, during which several placard-bearing residents attempted to block sections of the busy Red Hills Road.

“We understand that police are doing their work, but they can’t treat everyone like criminals. If the man was guilty, why dem couldn’t bring him in? Murder them murder the youth,” one resident claimed.

The protest on Red Hills Road followed similar uproars in other parts of St Andrew and St Catherine over the past week.

Just days ago, residents in Windsor Heights, St Catherine, raised similar concerns following the shooting and injury of 22-year-old Ashlando Heavens in the community.

Residents claimed then that Heavens was at a party when a police team drove into the area, called him to the vehicle, and shot him

several times.

Similar protests and claims of abuse also followed last week’s killing of 19-year-old Romarco Wilson under controversial circumstances in the community of Mountain View, St Andrew.

At a press conference last week, INDECOM disclosed that eight out of every 10 police shootings in October ended in fatalities. This, INDECOM said, was an ‘extraordinarily high figure’.

The police, meanwhile, said they have seized over 70 illegal guns and arrested just under 200 people under Operation Resilience.