MANDEVILLE, Manchester —A high-profile task force comprising top cops, clergymen, community leaders and educators has been set up to help reduce the number of domestic violence cases in the parish following a number of murders and deadly domestic disputes which have rocked central Jamaica recently.
The task force, the brainchild of National Security Minister Peter Bunting, who is also Member of Parliament for Central Manchester, was officially launched at Northern Caribbean University (NCU) on Thursday, in direct response to the parish's domestic violence problem.
Police statistics revealed in April this year showed that for the first quarter of 2011, 10 of the 32 murders committed in the parish were domestic. They also showed that between January and March this year, 23 persons were murdered in Manchester, five more than the 18 over the same period last year. However, major crimes have dipped from 312 this time in 2011 to 276 this year.
In early June, Mandeville doctor Clinton Lewis was found dead in his apartment. He was killed, police say, by someone he knew. The suspect, Vaughn Lee Edwards, is still on the run.
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