BY MICHAEL MCLEAN, Star Writer
DESPITE HAVING A police station and several 24-hour-response security companies the small town of Santa Cruz, St. Elizabeth, has been experiencing an increase in crime.
Over the past week there were reports of three business places being robbed and a woman on her way to collecting her child at school being held up at gunpoint. The woman was robbed metres away from the police station.
On October 28, two men held up a jewellery store in a plaza that is also used as a car park for taxis. The police reported that about 11:30 a.m. the men tied up the jeweller and removed watches, chains, rings and other gold and silver jewellery before escaping. They were reportedly seen changing their clothes in the parking lot.
The owner of the store is reported to have escaped and then raised an alarm. The police were informed and the men caught in Manchester.
In another incident later that night, one of three gunmen who went to rob patrons at a bar in the Longwood district, about two miles from Santa Cruz, was beaten to death by an angry mob. A police officer was also injured in that incident after he was stabbed by one of the men. A .38 revolver with three live rounds was taken from the man's body.
In the incident involving the woman, she was on her way to the Santa Cruz Preparatory School, when she was robbed. Witnesses told THE STAR that a white Toyota Corolla motor car pulled up to the woman along Coke Drive and a man pointed a gun at her and ordered her to hand over her money.
In yet another incident, the police foiled a break-in at Neils Department Store. One man is in custody awaiting an identification parade while another escaped.
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