DENSELY overgrown bushes on an abandoned roadside house lot in close proximity of the Suddie Primary School turned out to be an ideal haven for a wanted teenager who the police were in pursuit of when he darted in there in broad daylight and could not be captured.
For several hours from around 3pm on Friday September 17 scores of curious spectators including myself witnessed the police cordoned off the bushy section with ranks placed at vantage points where a search was being executed.
The offender, who lives on the opposite side with his parents, was at home when he recognised an incoming police vehicle and dashed for freedom across the public road and a trench into the nearby bushes.
Ranks who were available then gave chase but failed to capture him as he vanished, hiding with no difference to the situation even with reinforcement from the Suddie Station deployed in the search.
The search party armed with guns and a cutlass was handicapped by the thickness of the bushes compounded with obstacles which made it difficult to move about thoroughly.
Police were on the hunt for the juvenile of a well known character on an allegation of larceny of $80,000 in cash from an elderly overseas remigrant living immediately aback of the Suddie Post Office.
The victim reportedly had the money in a pants pocket which he left behind while having a bath on the Suddie Beach last Friday. The pants was recovered minus the money.
Sometime after the police departed the suspect rejoined his parents who eventually handed him over to the ranks at the Suddie Station.
Within recent times, there has been an upsurge in criminal activities not only on the beach but within the neighbourhood.
In years gone by, the then Public Health Department prosecuted persons whose yards were found to be bushy, but now the same department with the change over of a glorified name does not seem to care.
The dangers of this bushy plot moreso near to a school cannot be overlooked and prosecution would have certainly made a big difference.
For years now, a most disgraceful and insanitary sight continues to exist with the dumping of garbage right in front of the Department’s office at Suddie on a spot near to the market.
Violations against the department have reached alarming proportions from the lack of prosecution against offenders with taxpayers money just being wasted to maintain a staff there.