Jamaica Tourists Told to Stay in Hotel Rooms Due to High Murder Rate

Ammoland ^ | 26 January, 2018 | Dean Weingarten

[marktwain]

British Tourists flock to Jamaica, where they tend to stay in fenced in tourist hotels that are off limits to most locals. Now they being told to stay in their rooms.

The reason: sky-high murder rates and a recent spate of killings.

From mirror.co.uk:

British holidaymakers in Jamaica have been told to stay in their resorts by the Foreign Office after a state of emergency was declared following a series of shootings.

Troops have been put on the streets following the killings in Montego Bay, which is popular with tourists.

It follows a series of shootings including a driveby shooting which killed one person, and the shooting of another four times on a roundabout near to the main airport Sansgster international on Tuesday.

The country's Prime Minister issued a State of Emergency and put security services and troops on the street to tackle the gunmen after a record 335 murders last year in the area.

He has now ordered a massive house-to-house search in the St. John's area for the gunmen and tourists are being tole to stay in their hotel rooms.

The 2017 murder rate for Jamaica was 42.6 per 100,000 population, one of the highest in the world. It is not as high as Baltimore, Maryland, where the rate reached 55.8 in 2017. Many attribute the Baltimore murder rate to a lack of police presence. Police drastically reduced their activities after several officers were charged in the 2015 death of Freddie Gray. The officers were eventually found not guilty of all charges.

In the article in the Mirror, this excuse is given:

[MPJackal]

I have been there. Went from a cruise ship to the Ritz Golf course (White Witch?). The resorts are great. The course was fantastic. The rest of the country is a shithole. huts made of corrugated steel sheets, dirt floor, no plumbing. Crime is sky high. Don't want to ever go again.

[ClearBlueSky]

Everybody from civilized countries STAY THE HELL OUT of Third World Shithole countries! That is all.

[aquila48]

Bookmark

[cgbg]

My parents took me to Jamaica (Montego Bay) when I was a kid.

What I remembered most were the bugs—giant beasties—all over the place in the hotel room.

I also remember driving past some stunningly poor areas—never went back, have to desire to ever go back.

[1Old Pro]

If you want sandy beaches go to Gulf Shores or the Keys.

Agreed, which is why my mind is blown that the new hip destination for millenials is Thailand.

[Trillian]

Gotta love that diversity.

[cherry]

if they manage to stop the tourist trade, it’ll be the end of Jamaica...Jamaica will be another Haiti...

[DeFault User]

I have known immigrants from both Venezuela and Cuba. One Venezuelan lady who has been in the States for 30+years still has family there. 10 years ago it was obvious what was happening to the government under Hugo Chavez, the same path to “shithole” that Cuba followed. I urged her to get her family (mother and brothers/sisters) out. She could not convince her brothers and sisters to leave because her mama did not want to leave. There are times when you have to overrule your parents and do what’s best for everybody.

The Venezuelan woman kept hoping that the elections would oust Chavez, later Maduro. “Don’t you know they’re rigged?”, I asked.

Still she would travel to the Venezuelan consulate in Miami to vote. It was totally useless.

[Buckeye McFrog]

Lots of Jamaican cruises now depart from Baltimore, so you can enjoy the charm at both ends.

[rlmorel]

Arghh. That is discouraging.

[Buckeye McFrog]

Yes, a poor country. Likely they don’t spend ten cents on the dollar what we do on education.

Yet they appear to do a better job of educating black people than we do at $20K/pupil/year.

[JimRed]

And of course, NO ONE goes to the capital, Kingston.

Our ship moored there for a couple of days on one of our Caribbean deployments, back in 1962, '63 or '64. Waterfront dive bars with nautical names were the main feature, IIRC. Don't recall feeling unsafe.

[Joe Boucher]

Gots to kill them white devils.

[marktwain]

Our ship moored there for a couple of days on one of our Caribbean deployments, back in 1962, ‘63 or ‘64. Waterfront dive bars with nautical names were the main feature, IIRC. Don’t recall feeling unsafe.

---

Independence came in 1962. The insane gun laws in 1967.

They have had 55 years to develop.

It was a decent country when the UK ruled it. You saw much of the same for much of Africa, India, all over the world.

Remove the Colonials, and the devolved back to tribal strife and rule.

South Africa is undergoing the same process.

[Yaelle]

You slay me!

I thought ganja didn’t make you violent, mon.

[ronnie raygun]

Ah............ those sh##holes lets send a junket of rat senators down to check it all out

[roadcat]

The murder rate in Jamaica is so high that the authorities tells tourists to stay in their hotel rooms for their safety.

Reminds me of a stay at a Holiday Inn near the White House in Washington, D.C. Hotel staff told us to stay in our rooms at night and avoid the hallways, not go into the hallway corridors alone and to always be with a group. And those were warnings for inside the hotel. The scenery outside at night looked like Jamaica if you know what I mean. We switched hotels next morning, to Georgetown with familiar safe faces. Yeah, parts of Wash D.C. are like a shoothole too, just like Jamaica.

[HotHunt]

Back in my mid-30s, I was a mortgage banker and a long distance runner.

A group of us from work went to an underwriting conference in Oakland, CA at the Holiday Inn. It was 4 days-3 nights long.

Well, as I always did back then, at 5 AM I was on the road for my daily training run. I just left the hotel and ran through the surrounding neighborhoods.

I returned to the hotel just before daybreak but the front door to the lobby was locked. I thought, "Have I got the right hotel?"

I banged on the door and a guy comes over and yells through the crack in the door, asking what I wanted?

I showed him my room key through the glass and he let me in but locked the door again. He said it stayed locked 9 PM to 7 AM. Too dangerous. Bad neighborhood. Must have been how we got such low rates on the rooms, ya think?

He wanted know what I was doing in my skivvies outside at that hour and I told him running, like in exercising. He said I was lucky to get back without being mugged.

I told him it was probably the safest time to run in the neighborhood. The muggers were asleep by 5 AM because all their prospects had gone home by that hour. We had a good laugh. But I did ran in the daylight after that.

[wildbill]

Armed gangs representing either drug posses or political factions used to be so rampant that the shanty-town sections were full of gunfire at times. My experience there was considerably later than yours by a couple of decades and after the big drug boom in Jamaica.

The US embassy used to warn tourists that the town was unsafe. Perhaps it has been cleaned up. One good thing about Jamaica is that the people know that tourism is important to the economy. I’ve seen them report criminals that harmed tourists.

[roadcat]

A group of us from work went to an underwriting conference in Oakland, CA at the Holiday Inn.

You're lucky you didn't get assaulted. I've gone to conferences in Oakland, at hotels between Oakland Airport and the BART station. Made the mistake of walking from BART to the hotel, thinking it was only about 4 or 5 blocks. Big mistake, took a cab on following days. Low rates at your hotel, probably. Back in Washington, D.C. my cousin talked me into the low rate at Holiday Inn, only stayed one night and left for safer Georgetown hotel, difference was $10 in rates. Told my cheap cousin never to trade safety for discount prices!