More cops to be deployed to St James following multiple rapes

The National Security Minister Peter Bunting has announced that additional security personnel are to be deployed to St James to deal with the threat being posed by sexual predators.

The decision was made during a meeting this morning involving the minister, Police Commissioner Owen Ellington and the Chief of Defence Staff, Major General Antony Anderson.

It follows Monday night's rape of five females in Irwin, St. James.

An eight-year-old girl is among the victims.

READ: 8-y-o among five raped

Only two weeks ago an addition 125 security personnel were sent to St James.

A statement from the National Security Ministry says a senior team from the Centre for the Investigation of Sexual Offences and Child Abuse will also join the St James investigators, providing support and other services.

"The Commissioner of Police has given the undertaking that a sustained security presence will be maintained in the communities, and all capabilities, including personnel from the Canine Division and Forensics will be sent to St James immediately,” said Bunting.

Staff from the Jamaica Constabulary Force Chaplaincy Unit will provide counselling services, while members of the Community Safety and Security Branch will work with the residents to seek to reassure them.

Bunting said the rapes were an abhorrent, repulsive act of criminality on the most vulnerable in the society adding that it was unacceptable to inflict any form of brutal violation on any individual in such a beastly manner.

He also said all the necessary resources of the security forces will be used to bring the criminals to justice and promised that investigators will go house-to-house to conduct investigations in the affected communities.

"These men live somewhere and there are persons right now who know who they are, and know of the heinous acts they have committed; they need to turn these criminals in to the police," said Minister Bunting.

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