Dennis “Copper” Barth
“Among the tiny minority of politically motivated criminals in the 1970s none won as much notoriety and anxious concern from the authorities as did Dennis “Copper” Barth. Born in Kingston in 1951, Barth’s turn to crime came at an early age after he dropped out of the Rennock Lodge Elementary School at age twelve. By the time he was eighteen years old Barth had been convicted of several major offences, including murdering a policeman, for which he was sentenced to life imprisonment.19 By the mid- 1970s, Barth, who operated out of the Rennock Lodge area in East Kingston, had been declared “public enemy number one”. By age twenty-six, Barth was the youngest of the “most wanted” men in the country since the violent reign of “Rhygin” – Vincent “Ivanhoe” Martin – a feared gunman who was killed in 1948”
- Obika Gray
Additional Knowledge:
BOOKS
Blood, Bullets And Bodies: Sexual Politics Below Jamaica’s Poverty Line Paperback by Imani M. Tafari-Ama
Demeaned But Empowered: The Social Power of the Urban Poor in Jamaica by Obika Gray
Exceptional Violence: Embodied Citizenship in Transnational Jamaica by Deborah A. Thomas
Gangs of Jamaica, The Babylonian Wars by Thibault Ehrengardt
Mirror, Mirror: Identity, Race and Protest in Jamaica by Rex Nettleford
Radicalism and Social Change in Jamaica, 1960-1972 by Obika Gray
Violence and Politics in Jamaica, 1960-70: Internal Security in a Developing Country by Terry Lacey
SEMI-ETHNOGRAPHIC BOOKS
Born Fi' Dead: A Journey Through the Jamaican Posse Underworld by Laurie Gunst
POETRY
Lead in the Veins: Poetic Reflections on Life, Love and (In)justice by Imani M. Tafari-Ama
ACADEMIC PUBLICATIONS
Jamaican Dons, Italian Godfathers and the Chances of a ‘Reversible Destiny ’ by Hume N. Johnson Roger and Joseph L. Soeters
Rastafari, Communism and Surveillance in Late Colonial Jamaica by Deborah A. Thomas
NEWSPAPER ARTICLES
Jamaica Observer: 'Copper' was the 'baddest' gunman, says 'Trinity'
Jamaica Observer: 'Copper' killed 2 cops in failed robbery at Caymanas Park
FILMS
The Harder They Come directed by Perry Henzell
Betta Mus Come directed by Storm Saulter