A Few Points We Easily Could Have Missed..

I will be brief as I vent on a few items which made the news recent­ly in my beloved Jamaica.
In the mean­time, I want decent law-abid­ing Jamaicans who sim­ply want a good and peace­ful life to know just how the peo­ple they put in charge of their affairs are deceiv­ing them using the police as scapegoats.

The Police have to sim­ply walk away as they have no means of get­ting their sto­ries told and the pow­ers that be in con­junc­tion with the com­plic­it deceit­ful media is all too will­ing to car­ry the mes­sage for the liars.
It shows how some activist judges, crim­i­nal lawyers and oth­ers come togeth­er to defame and dis­man­tle the sys­tem because of their dis­dain for the police.

Item # 1 Murder Case Collapses After Cops Are Caught Lying.

Anthony ‘Bugussu’ Powell, a 56-year-old hig­gler beats a mur­der rap.
According to the com­plaint in an affi­davit more befit­ting a dying dec­la­ra­tion, on January 26, 2010, 43-year-old Richard Burke was shot in the back of the neck while he was stand­ing at the inter­sec­tion of East Street and Tower Street in down­town Kingston.
The police tes­ti­fied that they vis­it­ed Burke at the Kingston Public Hospital on the day of the inci­dent and he said it was Bugussu (Powell) who shot him.

According to the police, they returned to the hos­pi­tal the fol­low­ing day and spent two hours tak­ing a state­ment from Burke, but he could not sign it because he was par­a­lyzed. A police­man signed as a wit­ness to the state­ment, which was not com­plet­ed because they claimed that Burke said he had a headache. The police also claimed that on the third day, they returned to the hos­pi­tal to com­plete the state­ment and Burke asked if they had caught Bugussu yet.

Two of Burke’s rel­a­tives also told the court that he had told them that Bugussu had shot him before he died on the evening of the third day that he was in the hos­pi­tal. During cross-exam­i­na­tion, the doc­tor who treat­ed Burke told the court that she did not see any police vis­it­ing at the time they claimed, and from the injury, he had suf­fered, he could not give a state­ment for two hours when the police claimed he did. The doc­tor said that based on the nature of the surgery, Burke was not able to speak and, there­fore, could not give a state­ment last­ing two hours the next day, as claimed by the police.

In doing what they do best whether they are paid or oth­er­wise, the tri­al judge Evan Brown said the case was a “trav­es­ty of justice”.
There was no evi­dence that the police offi­cers knew the accused Anthony Bugussu before they got the case, since they did not know the accused there was no way that they could have had mal­ice against him.

Additionally, fam­i­ly mem­bers of the deceased told the court that their loved one told them that he was indeed shot by the accused Anthony Bugussu,
Dying dec­la­ra­tions are sacro­sanct by law in most munic­i­pal­i­ties and it ought to be in Jamaica accord­ing to Jamaican law.
Yet on the tes­ti­mo­ny of one Doctor who may have lied or who may have sim­ply got­ten the facts wrong the clear-cut mur­der case was tossed and the defen­dant was set free.

Worse yet, the Judge, defense, and attor­ney decid­ed to pile on the police, sole­ly on the evi­dence of one per­son who could have been lying or have got­ten her facts wrong.
What was the motive of the police for charg­ing the accused con­sid­er­ing that there is no evi­dence that they knew the offend­er and as such could have zero mal­ice toward him?
Why was the tes­ti­mo­ny of the Doctor giv­en more cre­dence over the fam­i­ly mem­bers and inves­ti­gat­ing officers?

Item # 2 Corporal Melvin Smith killed in Mandeville town cen­ter try­ing to stop the rob­bery of a motor cycle.

No damn motor­cy­cle is worth an offi­cer’s life, so it was­n’t the motor­cy­cle which caused Corporal Melvin Smith to inter­vene on see­ing a rob­bery in progress. It was the call of duty and the com­mit­ment to serve. Corporal Smith was shot sev­er­al times as he attempt­ed to appre­hend a rob­ber who had just stolen a motor­cy­cle in the Mandeville town cen­ter. The own­er of the motor­cy­cle was also shot and remains hos­pi­tal­ized in sta­ble condition.
This offi­cer gave his life while in the same breath the Minister of Justice Delroy Chuck con­tin­ues on his mis­sion to defame them using all of the tools at his disposal.
I urge the fam­i­ly of this fall­en offi­cer to shun and rebuff all attempts at plat­i­tude com­ing from INDECOM in this their hour of grief.

Item# 3 Cpl Marsh of the Trelawny Division goe to New York for treatment.

Corporal Marvin Marsh who was shot in his leg at his home on September 18^th this year was told that he may lose his leg if he does not get treat­ment abroad.
Corporal Marsh who was injured in his right leg was treat­ed at the Mandeville Hospital, read­mit­ted and is now forced to leave the Island because he can­not receive the treat­ment or one of the med­ica­tion he needs on the Island.
According to reports, the con­di­tion of Corporal Marsh’s leg con­tin­ues to dete­ri­o­rate and his fam­i­ly and col­leagues were giv­en the grim news that if he did not receive the treat­ment he would lose his leg.
Corporal Marsh is now in the United States through the quick work and ded­i­ca­tion of his col­leagues at the Federation and his family.
We wish him well.

Item#3 Joking With Our Jails — INDECOM Still Concerned About The Treatment Of Persons In Police Lock-Ups

Amidst the death of Cpl Smith and the sense of good­will which has begun to turn toward the Police Chief Media pros­ti­tute and anti-police antag­o­nist, Terrence Williams made a grab for some media atten­tion as well.
Knowing full well that if the police are able to get their act togeth­er no one cares about him he went back to the tra­di­tion­al well.

He argued that this is not the case at many police sta­tions island­wide, and indi­cat­ed that since 2010, INDECOM has received 131 com­plaints of unlaw­ful deten­tion and 59 com­plaints of undu­ly long deten­tion. The Mandeville Police Station account­ed for 16 of the com­plaints, the most from any indi­vid­ual sta­tion over the peri­od, while 12 were from per­sons held at the Constant Spring Police Station and 11 from detainees at the Half-Way-Tree lock-up. Williams said that per­sons are often sub­ject­ed to over­crowd­ing and inhu­mane con­di­tions in lock-ups as some cops use delay tac­tics to keep them behind bars.
Williams said that since 2010, it has received almost 200 com­plaints from per­sons detained by the police.

First of all, I encour­age offi­cers who are forced to arrest sus­pects to take them to Terrence Williams’ home and house them there.
If the Police do not do their jobs this scribe chat if they do their job this scribe chat, where are the police sup­posed to put these suspects?
All across the world police are forced to some­times keep vio­lent sus­pects in cus­tody for a lit­tle over the times pre­scribed by statute.
In many cas­es, this is done using inge­nious ways like charg­ing the sus­pect for the lit­tle weed he had when he was held on sus­pi­cion of murder.

Even though detec­tives would gen­er­al­ly not both­er with the weed charge under nor­mal cir­cum­stances if they had all of the evi­dence, they are forced to charge the sus­pect for it in order to buy time.
In many cas­es, this is a valu­able tool for the safe­ty and pro­tec­tion of the cit­i­zen­ry, espe­cial­ly in a coun­try like Jamaica which is a crim­i­nal revolv­ing door even for the most vio­lent mur­der­ers who are sum­mar­i­ly giv­en bail regard­less of the num­ber of peo­ple they kill.
Finally on this, in a coun­try like Jamaica with the lev­el of crim­i­nal­i­ty and the anti-police envi­ron­ment which exist there, it is absolute­ly shock­ing that in sev­en years there have only been 200 complaints.

At that rate, there is a grand shock­ing total of 2.380 reports to INDECOM per month. If the Police can have num­bers this good in all of it’s oper­at­ing cat­e­gories Jamaica would be in great shape.
Nevertheless, the atten­tion-grab­bing Terrence Williams is a drown­ing man who is quite des­per­ate to grab at any straw he can. That makes him dan­ger­ous and he must be called out for the lying decep­tive dem­a­gogue that he is.

Item#4 Mark Rickets Article. Mark Ricketts | It’s A Disgrace How We Treat The Police (Part 2) — Jamaica’s Crime Cop-Out.

Some months ago, the min­is­ter of jus­tice, in a rather unfor­tu­nate pre­sen­ta­tion cap­tured on TV, used sleight of hand trick­ery, depict­ing move­ment of an invis­i­ble object from the right hand to the left, accom­pa­nied by the words, that’s the sort of thing the police will do.
In so far as the medi­um is the mes­sage, the imagery being rein­forced is that the JCF is insti­tu­tion­al­ly cor­rupt, is inclined to exces­sive use of force, and is not enti­tled to respect. Listen to the ‘curse-out’ the police get if they insist on giv­ing a tick­et for an offence.
Last Monday, most peo­ple saw on TVJ instances of police pow­er­less as they were jos­tled and arm-wres­tled by motorists they had stopped for infrac­tions. It was a dis­grace, affirm­ing that law­less­ness has no bound­aries. http://​jamaica​-glean​er​.com/​a​r​t​i​c​l​e​/​c​o​m​m​e​n​t​a​r​y​/​2​0​1​7​1​0​2​9​/​m​a​r​k​-​r​i​c​k​e​t​t​s​-​i​t​s​-​d​i​s​g​r​a​c​e​-​h​o​w​-​w​e​-​t​r​e​a​t​-​p​o​l​i​c​e​-​p​a​r​t​-​2​-​j​a​m​a​i​c​a​s​-​c​r​i​m​e​-​cop