1970s bad boys: rebels today without a cause
November 26, 2006
THREE years ago, Assistant Commissioner of Police Keith 'Trinity' Gardner said he was travelling through Rockfort in east Kingston when he came upon a roadblock. He remembers getting a surprise when he got out of his car to investigate.
"This Syrian-looking man came up to me and shook my hand," AC Gardner recalled. "He said, 'Wha 'ppen Supe, yuh nuh rememba mi?"
"Bonero!" Gardner said he exclaimed.
'Bonero' is George Flash, an east Kingston enforcer from the 1970s and a Rockfort legend. Thirty years ago, Gardner, then Jamaica's leading street cop, arrested him in nearby Vineyard Town for the murder of Edward 'Ted' O'Gilvie, Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Works.
comrade-in-arms
The 56-year-old Flash and his old comrade-in-arms, Anthony 'Tego' Brown, who is one year older, were in the news again three weeks ago when police from the Kingston eastern division arrested them in connection with an outbreak of violence in Rockfort.
The arrest of Brown and Flash was another eventful chapter in the lives of two men whose criminal links go back to the early 1970s. They not only survived the bloody political battles that typified that turbulent decade, but most of their contemporaries have been either killed or have languished in prisons overseas.
Only Tony Welsh, who led Arnett Gardens with an iron hand, has remained in the news over recent years. Welsh is currently in jail, charged with the alleged murder of Damion Hussey, in Golden Spring, St. Andrew, in January. Interestingly, in February last year, Flash and Welsh were arrested and charged with illegal possession of firearm and assault at common law, after roughing up physician Shelton Minott at his office in St. Ann. Both were cleared of the charges.
Flash showed signs of promise as a youngster. He is a past student of Ardenne High School who worked at the Jamaica Railway Corporation (JRC) and the Jamaica Telephone Company. He had ambitions of becoming a mechanical engineer, and attended day classes at Kingston Technical High School, while employed to the JRC.
Those dreams ended in October 1971 when he was sentenced to seven years in prison for robbing the Canadian Imperial Bank at Half-Way Tree Road in September 1971. The previous year, he was placed on one year's probation for driving away a car without the owner's consent.
Brown was the reputed leader of a gang that operated out of Wareika Hills in the late 1970s. He too was implicated in Mr. O'Gilvie's death, as well as shooting with intent at Detective Constable Garnet Williams in 1978.
Flash and Brown were among several heavies aligned to the People's National Party (PNP) who controlled Rockfort in the 1970s. Others were affiliated to the 'Hotsteppers Gang', whose most famous member was Dennis 'Copper' Barth, a serial murderer who was killed by police attempting to rob the Caymanas racetrack in May 1978....
Author: Howard Campbell
Source: Jamaica Gleaner
