'Curly Locks' went from church to a life a crime
BY KARYL WALKER
Sunday Observer staff reporter
walkerk@jamaicaobserver.com
Sunday, March 16, 2008
This series of articles is not intended to lionise
or glorify the acts of criminals but to put a historical perspective on
criminality in Jamaica, with the hope of shedding light on why the
country is now teetering on the edge of lawlessness. Of significant
note, as well, is the fact that the subjects of these stories die
violently and very young.
FOR the residents of the borderline community of Wilton Gardens,
popularly called Rema, life during the People's National Party (PNP)
reign of the 1970s was treacherous.
The community was the first line of defence against marauding political
enforcers from the neighbouring area of Arnett Gardens who were intent
on rooting out the staunch Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) supporters who
stood out like a sore thumb in the PNP-dominated South St Andrew
constituency.
Political clashes involving combatants bearing guns, machetes, knives,
stones and other implements of war were commonplace, so too were
incidents of firebombing of homes on or near to the troubled Seventh
Street borderline.
But despite numerous firebombings and other attempts to dislocate them,
the residents of Rema managed to survive the repeated onslaughts and
retain their political identity throughout the PNP's eight-year rule.
One young man who evolved into one of the most dreaded fugitives and
political defenders to prowl the tough communities of St Andrew South
and West Kingston during the 1970s and 1980s was Howard Hewitt,
popularly known as 'Curly Locks'.
For almost a decade his name drove fear into the hearts of cops, his
enemies and even those who lived in the very community (Rema) he
protected and ruled with an iron fist.
Curly Locks did not rush head on into a life of crime, as he was once an
ardent churchgoer who walked the straight and narrow. He was not born
in Rema, but relocated there with his mother and grandmother following
the bulldozing of New Town, which is now a swathe of land close to the
Old Remand Centre known as 'No Man's Land' which lies between Denham
Town, Craig Town and Jones Town.
Hewitt was identified as a child with potential for art and was
reportedly encouraged by his teachers at the Jones Town Primary School
to pursue a career in art.
But life had different plans for Hewitt, a teenager of Indian
extraction, when his family moved into the community in the early 1970s.
During that period, the political enforcer who ruled Rema was known as
'Push Wood', and persons who lived in the community at the time say it
was Push Wood who coerced Curly Locks into a life of crime.
"Curly Locks was a Christian but from Push Wood see him and start tutor
him, him bruk out. Him start out by teaching 'Locks' to ride a bike
then, as time passed, the Indian start admire the life and take up the
badness," one resident of Rema said.
In the months following a peace treaty brokered between politically
warring factions in the capital, armed political enforcers from both
sides turned their attention and energies to staging daring bank and
payroll robberies in various sections of the city.
Their favoured mode of transport were Honda 354 and Honda 50
motorcycles. Powerful handguns, revolvers, machine guns and M16 rifles
were also part of the bank robbers survival kit. During the years
leading up to the 1980 elections, arsenals of guns and ammunition flowed
into the island through the island's porous coastline and the unseeing
eyes of corrupt and fearful customs officials.
Lured by the glamour and ill-gotten gains of the bank robbers in the
area, Hewitt put down his Bible and joined their ranks. It was then that
he was given the moniker, Curly Locks, which had nothing to do with him
being a rastafarian, but because of his 'straight' Indian hair.
The gangster quickly learnt that dishing out death and other forms of
cruel punishment with impunity was the formula to gaining notoriety in
the criminal underworld.
One of his first brushes with the brutality of life in a political
garrison came during the attempt by the government to evict residents of
Rema for the non-payment of rent. On February 2, 1977 government
bailiffs, police officers and an angry mob of 'Junglists' converged on
the Seventh Street border and attempted to 'chase out' the Rema
residents under the watchful eye of member of parliament, Anthony
Spaulding. Spaulding's Ministry of Housing had a year earlier, approved
the eviction of tenants for the non-payment of rent. Despite efforts by
some cops on the scene to disperse the invaders, the mob, which included
several gunmen, stormed the community.
The besieged Rema residents were outnumbered and, according to a man who
claimed to be a resident at the time, Push Wood and Curly Locks both
used cunning to fend off the attackers.
"Push Wood and Locks dress up in red and black and join up with the
Junglist dem. When them go inna the building them start stab man and
push dem in corners inside the buildings," the man said.
Eight people were reportedly killed by the 'Rema defenders' , resulting
in the abortion of the eviction attempt by JDF soldiers who trained
their weapons on the armed invaders who came scurrying out of the
building with their hands above their heads. One man was killed after he
failed to stop and hand over his weapon to the soldiers.
Dressed in a bush jacket and knitted cap, a defeated Spaulding left the scene.
Commenting on the botched eviction attempt, retired justice Ronald
Small, described the incident as 'a horrible stain on this nation's
history'.
With the death of Push Wood, his second in command, Curly Locks grabbed
the leadership reins of the Rema 13 gang. Included among the ranks of
the fearsome gang were men known as 'Bigness', 'Pearl Harbour', 'Little
Jack', 'Stealer', 'Mutt', 'Peazy', '39', 'Riley', and 'Bobo Charles'.
The gang was known to stage multiple robberies, and each member was
sometimes armed with two guns or more, police said. Many persons inside
Rema and outside the garrison community met their deaths at the hands of
the Rema 13.
But Curly Locks' lust for blood earned him the respect of his
counterparts (Claudius Massop and his successor, Lloyd Lester Coke,
better known as 'Jim Brown') from Tivoli Gardens.
There are many stories about his cruelty. For example, Curly Locks, in a
jealous rage, was reported to have shot and injured one of his women,
before impregnating her sister months afterwards. When the woman was
eight months pregnant, Curly Locks, ended her life.
He was also known to take on police patrols single-handedly.
Senior Superintendent Calvin Benjamin was one cop who came face to face with the dreaded Curly Locks.
Residents of the area say Curly Locks surprised Benjamin, who was a
young policeman at the time, and a colleague as they walked along Fourth
Street in the community.
Benjamin confirmed that the gunman was brazen in his attack.
"He opened fire at us, and it was a miracle that no one was injured. He
was really bold," Benjamin told the Sunday Observer.
Curly Locks was sentenced for armed robbery and, after his release,
managed to travel to North America and Europe, where he reportedly
shoved a man off a building before hightailing it back to Jamaica, where
he continued his life of crime.
But like many before him, Curly Locks lived by the gun and died by it.
His demise came at the hands of a young enforcer from Tivoli Gardens with whom he had a dispute inside the garrison community.
The enforcer, known as 'Paper Man', had refused Curly Locks entry to a
yard where Jim Brown was handling the weekly issuing of cheques for
casual work to persons in Tivoli Gardens, Rose Town and Rema.
Paper Man, not knowing that he was dealing with the Rema don, reportedly
called Curly Locks an 'insipid coolie boy' and threatened to thump him
in his mouth, before chasing him away from the entrance to the premises.
Curly Locks left the scene and returned with a .357 magnum revolver and
after a brief scuffle reportedly pistol-whipped Paper Man, dislodging
his right eye. Paper Man's life was spared after Jim Brown and other top
Tivoli Gardens enforcers rushed in an diffused the situation, all the
time explaining to Paper Man that the 'coolie boy', was in fact the
notorious Curly Locks.
Weeks later, Curly Locks was ambushed and shot as he rode his Honda
Motorbike in West Kingston. The triggerman was a one-eyed Paper Man, who
would two weeks later be cut down by police bullets.
This is the final instalment in the Jamaica's Most Notorious series.
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