SSP McGregor’s Statement Not Helpful To JCF.…

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Responding to the Nomination day event in Flankers St James in which a bus trans­port­ing JLP sup­port­ers was sprayed with gun­fire result­ing in the death of at least one person,
(SSP) Steve McGregor Commanding offi­cer for the parish had this to say.
“No per­mis­sion was grant­ed for the moror­cade to pro­ceed through Flankers, “In fact, there were explic­it warn­ings against it,”.
“We are appeal­ing to organ­is­ers and par­ty offi­cials to heed all instruc­tions and warn­ings giv­en in the future,”.

Okaaay !!!
Well there you have it JLP , I guess McGregor told you!!!
According to the report­ing on the ground one per­son was killed in the attack and sev­er­al vehi­cles were dam­aged as well.
Can you imag­ine the Police telling Political can­di­dates where they can and can­not go in any soci­ety oth­er than Jamaica?
Set aside for a moment that the vic­tims in this instance were mem­bers of the JLP . Make them PNP sup­port­ers or whomev­er , where does the police get off telling cam­paigns not to cam­paign , regard­less of neighborhood?

I get the part about cam­paigns not first receiv­ing per­mits before going ahead.
If it’s the law that cam­paigns first receive per­mits before pro­ceed­ing with cer­tain ele­ments of cam­paign­ing then cam­paigns must respect the laws .
I also under­stand that this could be the con­cern of the Commanding officer.
Nevertheless the larg­er issue I believe is that if you remove the green or orange shirts and par­ty para­pher­na­lia Jamaicans have a right to go wher­ev­er they chose in their coun­try with­out the expec­ta­tion of get­ting attacked and killed.

I under­stand that the police are deal­ing with sit­u­a­tions as they have been in our coun­try since inde­pen­dence. That sense of frus­tra­tion was evi­dent in Steve McGregor’s statement.
However as I have said on pre­vi­ous occa­sions the police seem unable to find its way out of a paper-bag.
It is incom­pre­hen­si­ble that the Police is in the busi­ness of telling cam­paigns in 2016 not to go to cer­tain neighborhoods.

Has the police giv­en up on it’s own mis­sion statement ?
(1) Prevention and detec­tion of crime.
(2) Protection of life and property.
(3) Preservation of peace and good order.

If it has­n’t , how then can the Agency tasked with the pro­tec­tion of inter­nal secu­ri­ty jus­ti­fi­ably tell any Jamaican not to go any place in Jamaica or even 12 miles out to see which falls with­in it’s sphere of responsibility?
Sure I under­stand ‘Risk Assessment?
Sure I under­stand the need to inform poten­tial tar­gets of vio­lent assaults of the threats against them .
Warning tar­gets of threats of vio­lence how­ev­er does not absolve the police of the respon­si­bil­i­ty to pro­tect that tar­get of said intend­ed attack.

SSP McGregor seem to be of the opin­ion that his respon­si­bil­i­ty as Commanding offi­cer is to issue warn­ings to the tar­gets, in this case the JLP.
Many of my for­mer col­leagues crit­i­cize me for being crit­i­cal of the police even despite glar­ing instances of mas­sive incompetence.
Yet they hard­ly seem to pon­der the sub­stance of my points.
Senior Superintendent McGregor said that “police intel­li­gence assets are on the ground con­tin­u­ous­ly mon­i­tor­ing the sit­u­a­tion and that this infor­ma­tion informs deci­sions about the grant­i­ng of per­mis­sion for march­es and motorcades”.

Word of advice to the JCF and SSP McGregor . The sup­posed police intel­li­gence assets on the ground which informs deci­sions about the grant­i­ng of per­mis­sion for march­es and motor­cades should not be used to stop campaigning.
They should be used to weed out the crim­i­nals who would attack inno­cent people.
Regardless of the short­ages the police face, SSP McGregor’s state­ments are exact­ly indica­tive of law enforce­men­t’s fail­ures on the Island because of the depart­men­t’s ret­ro­grade thinking.

3 thoughts on “SSP McGregor’s Statement Not Helpful To JCF.…

  1. It’s fun­ny I have to agree with you as a for­mer mem­ber myself is ask­ing a lot of ques­tions where were the police assets know rela­tion to the motor­cade they did not place them­selves strate­gi­cal­ly to deter or arrest a poten­tial threat but allowed their charge to pro­ceed mer­ri­ly along with­out ade­quate protection.

    • I total­ly agree with you arti­cle, the three P’S is what it should be, some­body is dodg­ing the BULLET here, SSP. McGregor bet­ter smarten up…

  2. Sigh.…After thoughts is a hell of a thing.….political cam­paigns are so medieval in this country.…if a man is giv­en a warn­ing NOT to do some­thing. …they should not.…if it is that some­thing is picked up intel­li­gence wise…and is being worked upon..space is needed..to put things in place to pre­vent it…to get those involved. …ARRESTED. ..not killed. …that is what is done world­wide. ..PREVENTION is one aspect of policing.….APPREHENDING AND BRINGING TO JUSTICE IS ANOTHER. ..MAKING THE ENVIRONMENT SAFE FOR PEOPLE TO LIVE WORK AND RAISE FAMILIES AS THE SAYING GOESIS ANOTHER. ..NO POLITICS IS MORE IMPORTANT THANGOOD LIFETHE HELL WITH POLITICS !!!! LIFE MI SAY !!!

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