Area 4 Police Ramps Up Operations Under ‘Iron Shield’ Initiative

The Area Four Police is ramping up its presence across all five divisions over the next two months under its new ‘Iron Shield’ initiative.

Area Four Commander, Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) Michael Phipps, said that the 60-day operation will see divisional commanders implementing crime reduction strategies targeted at the top six crime hotspots in each division.

“We’re going to use focused deterrence strategies, where we target the wanted persons, the suspects, and the high-risk targets with revamped policing efforts,” he said.

He was speaking during a meeting between National Security and Peace Minister, Hon. Dr. Horace Chang and divisional commanders at Harman Barracks in Kingston on Friday (June 12).

Iron Shield follows the recent rollout of another initiative dubbed ‘Operation Blade’, which focuses on intercepting illegal firearms.

“This is where we seek to target all the persons who go around the Corporate Area with offensive weapons. Arrest for that is very significant and this is something we continue to treat with some amount of seriousness and urgency,” ACP Phipps said.

He noted that in line with its crime prevention focus, the Area 4 Police will be relaunching several of its neighbourhood watch programmes.

He told Minister Chang that the Area Four Police continue to engage at-risk youth.

“We have launched a number of new [police youth] clubs within some schools, and this is being led by our Area CSSB (Community Safety and Security Branch),” he informed.

He said that conflict intervention measures will also be intensified to ensure that the gains made in the various divisions are maintained.

Highlighting crime statistics for January to March, the Area Four Head said that murders continue to trend downward.

“In 2025, we had some 62 murders and for the first quarter of this year, we were able to reduce that to 42, which is suggesting a 32 per cent reduction,” he pointed out.

In addition, there were 13 less gang murders, which is a reduction of 43 per cent compared to the similar period in 2025 and shootings were down from 60 to 41.

Overall, there was a 21 per cent reduction in category one offences, including murder, shooting, rape, aggravated assault, robbery, break-ins, and larceny.

ACP Phipps highlighted the 88 per cent clearance rate for murders, including the arrest of “some very significant high-risk targets right across the space.”

He noted that operational activities continue across the divisions for road traffic breaches, with 21,931 tickets issued in the first quarter of this year.

“These are tickets just for the divisions, not those done by the Public Safety and Traffic Enforcement Branch (P-STEB) or other formations,” ACP Phipps pointed out.

The Area 4 Commander said that the team remains committed to the task of reducing crime in all its forms.

The Area Four Division comprises Kingston Central, Kingston Eastern, Kingston Western, St. Andrew Central and St. Andrew South.