Due to the anticipated rivalry among schools due to the hysteria surrounding the ISSA/ GraceKennedy Boys and Girls' Athletics Championships, the police are rumoured to have introduced unconventional methods to prevent any violence.

THE STAR understands that the police have resorted to methods such as dressing like madmen in an effort to catch the troublemakers.

Last Friday evening, a group of plain-clothes officers were in the Half-Way Tree bus park carrying out one of these undercover operations.

dress up like madman

According to a female student who happened to witness the operation, "at first, I heard the bus conductors saying dat di police man dem dress up like madman to catch di bad pickney dem, and by the time mi run inna di park, I saw two of the officers sitting on the ground listening to some schoolboys conversation. Not long after, I saw them chasing some of the boys. It was when the police started to run that di people dem realise that they had guns and that they were really plain-clothes police."

It is said that the male students were attired in uniforms representing two of the prominent all-boy schools but they do not attend these institutions.

"Because boys and girls' Champs is approaching, the boys want to rob other students of their phones and money, and so they dress up in other school colours to do there wrongdoing. Who to tell if these so-called schoolboys belong to school," a taxi driver told us yesterday.

Another bus driver was heard saying, "you know seh a yesterday a schoolboy who was trying to thief another little boy phone tek out a long machete out of his bag when him couldn't get the phone? A di bus man dem had to come down on him to cool things down." When THE STAR yesterday asked Senior Superintendent Terrence Bent if the police have resorted to unorthodox methods, such as dressing like mad people to curb the violence, he shied away from commenting much on the issue.

SSP Bent, however, said: "for the upcoming boys and girls' championships, we are boosting patrols, both mobile and on foot, in the major transport areas, including Half-Way Tree, Cross Roads and New Kingston to reduce elements that would want to commit crimes."