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<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=1 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD><SPAN class=TopStory>Grants Pen celebrates a year of peace</SPAN>
<SPAN class=Subheadline></SPAN></TD></TR><TR><TD>BY KARYL WALKER Observer staff reporter
Friday, October 27, 2006
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<P class=StoryText align=justify>GRANTS Pen, once a volatile, politically divided community in Kingston, which caused the police much headache, is reinventing itself. No murder has been recorded in the community for the past 12 months and, according to the police, the residents and political representatives have been instrumental in rebuilding the community.<P class=StoryText align=justify>Inspector Michael Simpson, head of the Grants Pen Police Station, which sits in AmCham Place, a modern $150-million complex housing a post office, health centre and Paymaster, said the police would continue to work with the residents.<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=5 width=360 align=center border=0><TBODY><TR><TD>
</TD></TR><TR><TD><SPAN class=Description>Jamaican-born author, motivational speaker and management consultant, Alvin Day (left), speaks of his days of poverty as a child growing up in Clarendon. Day was one of the performers at yesterday's concert in the peace park at Grants Pen in Kingston. Sharing in the occasion are the People's National Patry's caretaker for North East St Andrew Hugh Thompson (second left), singer Ernie Smith (second right) and Betty Stockhausen, executive director of the American Chamber of Commerce. </SPAN></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><P class=StoryText align=justify>"We are involved in community policing where we are out there with the people and hearing their problems, speaking with the youths on the corners and listening to their grouses," Simpson told reporters during a press conference at the station yesterday.
He also had praise for member of parliament Delroy Chuck and former PNP caretaker Leonard Green.
"You would never believe two opposing sides could have worked so well," Simpson said.<P class=StoryText align=justify>Between January and November last year, 10 murders were recorded in Grants Pen. Yesterday, residents and the police highlighted the fact that no one was killed in the community on Independence Day, as was the norm for the past 10 years.
There has also been a sharp decline in car thefts, robberies and larceny in the upscale and middle-class communities which surround Grants Pen, police say.<P class=StoryText align=justify>Donovan Corcho has lived in Grants Pen for all his life. Yesterday his voice cracked as he expressed gratitude for the social intervention programmes spearheaded by the American Chamber of Commerce, the private sector and government.<P class=StoryText align=justify>"If you had told me five years ago that I would be walking down Grants Pen Avenue at 3 o'clock in the morning and see the man dem playing some poker I wouldn't believe you," Corcho said. "We are pleased with the bottom up approach and the programme will continue to work."<P class=StoryText align=justify>Deadly violence broke out in the area in the mid-1990s when heavily armed gangs terrorised the area and mesmerised the police through the maze of zinc and board which is a feature of inner-city communities.<P class=StoryText align=justify>Dozens of lives were lost in a series of feuds between several gangs in the area and for months police and soldiers lined the community as a buffer between the warring factions.
Yesterday, after the press conference, the residents celebrated with a peace concert at the Peace Park built in the community at the same time as AmCham Place.
<SPAN class=Subheadline></SPAN></TD></TR><TR><TD>BY KARYL WALKER Observer staff reporter
Friday, October 27, 2006
</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
<P class=StoryText align=justify>GRANTS Pen, once a volatile, politically divided community in Kingston, which caused the police much headache, is reinventing itself. No murder has been recorded in the community for the past 12 months and, according to the police, the residents and political representatives have been instrumental in rebuilding the community.<P class=StoryText align=justify>Inspector Michael Simpson, head of the Grants Pen Police Station, which sits in AmCham Place, a modern $150-million complex housing a post office, health centre and Paymaster, said the police would continue to work with the residents.<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=5 width=360 align=center border=0><TBODY><TR><TD>
</TD></TR><TR><TD><SPAN class=Description>Jamaican-born author, motivational speaker and management consultant, Alvin Day (left), speaks of his days of poverty as a child growing up in Clarendon. Day was one of the performers at yesterday's concert in the peace park at Grants Pen in Kingston. Sharing in the occasion are the People's National Patry's caretaker for North East St Andrew Hugh Thompson (second left), singer Ernie Smith (second right) and Betty Stockhausen, executive director of the American Chamber of Commerce. </SPAN></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><P class=StoryText align=justify>"We are involved in community policing where we are out there with the people and hearing their problems, speaking with the youths on the corners and listening to their grouses," Simpson told reporters during a press conference at the station yesterday.He also had praise for member of parliament Delroy Chuck and former PNP caretaker Leonard Green.
"You would never believe two opposing sides could have worked so well," Simpson said.<P class=StoryText align=justify>Between January and November last year, 10 murders were recorded in Grants Pen. Yesterday, residents and the police highlighted the fact that no one was killed in the community on Independence Day, as was the norm for the past 10 years.
There has also been a sharp decline in car thefts, robberies and larceny in the upscale and middle-class communities which surround Grants Pen, police say.<P class=StoryText align=justify>Donovan Corcho has lived in Grants Pen for all his life. Yesterday his voice cracked as he expressed gratitude for the social intervention programmes spearheaded by the American Chamber of Commerce, the private sector and government.<P class=StoryText align=justify>"If you had told me five years ago that I would be walking down Grants Pen Avenue at 3 o'clock in the morning and see the man dem playing some poker I wouldn't believe you," Corcho said. "We are pleased with the bottom up approach and the programme will continue to work."<P class=StoryText align=justify>Deadly violence broke out in the area in the mid-1990s when heavily armed gangs terrorised the area and mesmerised the police through the maze of zinc and board which is a feature of inner-city communities.<P class=StoryText align=justify>Dozens of lives were lost in a series of feuds between several gangs in the area and for months police and soldiers lined the community as a buffer between the warring factions.
Yesterday, after the press conference, the residents celebrated with a peace concert at the Peace Park built in the community at the same time as AmCham Place.
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