According to at least two former residents of Ramsey Road and Barnes Avenue, the hoodlums dubbed 'Stinger' gang have unleashed a reign of terror on residents of the area.

The former residents allege that already, many persons have been forced to flee the community, while others live there in fear.

They point to the latest incident when the gangsters went through the community with bags collecting the cellular telephones of all the residents. According to the residents, the telephones were checked for evidence of communication with the police.

"The police shoot the leader in him foot and them say that people 'bout here inform them, so they take away the phones and search them," one resident said.

The alleged gang leader to whom residents referred is Ricardo Wynter, better known as 'Government', or just 'Gov'.

He was reportedly shot recently during a running gun battle with the police but managed to evade the cops.

Threats issued

According to the residents, threats were issued against anyone whose telephone contacts proved that they were in touch with the police.

"Them say anybody whose phone have police number a go dead," a former resident told The Sunday Gleaner recently.

"Since Government get shot, a pure trouble, and them say all informer must dead," the resident said.

"Is like from Gov come, he want to make people see how him wicked, so him start back the war with man from Sunlight Street and Whitfield, and him a tell people where dem can go and who dem can talk to," added the resident.

This is not the first time the Stinger gang has forced residents to flee the area.

In 2007, many persons packed what they could and left their houses as a group of about 20 men ran riot in the area.

Several residents of Ramsey Road have dismissed the allegations against the members of the 'Stinger' gang, arguing that they are part of a propaganda campaign by persons opposed to the gang members.

"Is pure lie dem a tell pon 'Gov' and the man dem because the police a pressure we and a threaten everybody pon the road," one woman said last week when a Sunday Gleaner team visited the community.

According to her, the leader, 'Gov', is not "involved in any war".

"Him is not a person like that, and if any war did a go on, the media would hear. Gov don't get no shot (by the police); is bruk him foot bruk," the woman added.

Fully behind gang

The very vocal resident was supported by her neighbours who claimed that the community was fully behind the Stinger gang.

"A our man dem, and we nah give dem weh fi no police," a few of them declared.

Admitting that gunmen lived in the community, the residents said they would not disclose to anyone, especially the police, who or where they were.

"Gunman round here, yes, but gunman deh everywhere inna Jamaica and the police want we fi point dem out and den man come round yah come kill we off. Is the police dem who causing problems like dem a mek war," another woman said as she claimed that the residents had no connection with the gunmen.

The police, she contended, added fuel to the fire by targeting the men in the community.

"Gov have all him children and his mother round here and him can't come because the police say dem must kill him."

Most of the women denied that their phones had been taken by the gangsters, but one admitted that some phones had been confiscated and returned.

"Bruce Golding need to come round here and give we some work. Gunman nah trouble we; our problem is the police and the jobs that we want."

The Stinger gang has been on the police radar for many years, with its members accused of several shootings in the Maxfield Avenue section of south St Andrew.

Perhaps the most infamous was the 2005 killing of 10-year-old Sasha-Kaye Brown, her grandparents Gerald and Dorcas Brown, and aunt, Michelle Brown, in their house on Barnes Avenue.

That made the gang members the target of several police operations and detectives managed to cut down then gang leader, Marlon 'Little Wicked' Mattie.

New 'government'

His place has since been taken by 'Government', who returned to the community after being freed of a criminal charge.

"There was sort of quiet until he returned, but the police are hot on his trail," said Superintendent Hugh Bish, head of the Kingston Western Police Division.

"The Stinger gang is one of the many operating in this division, but we have made targeting these gangs our number-one priority," Bish said.

He said some of the gang members had drifted from their cronies since the introduction of some social-intervention programmes in the area, but the problem of heavily armed gangs was still far from being addressed.