Author Archives: Mike

by

The Real Conversation Should Be “how Do We Help The Police To Help Us”?

At the top of the list of things being said in this lat­est round of demands by rank and file police offi­cers for bet­ter wages is the argu­ments that wages should be tied to performance.

As a gen­er­al rule, we Jamaicans are well known for offer­ing up opin­ions on every­thing even when we haven’t both­ered to take a minute to avail our­selves of the facts.
One per­son argued quote: Six/​seven of every ten mur­ders in Jamaica go unsolved! Yet, police, clas­si­fied as an Essential Service, had embraced indus­tri­al action for bet­ter wages. Any pay increase should be tied to tan­gi­ble per­for­mance as a crime mit­i­ga­tion strategy.…basic pay for all police but those in divi­sions where mea­sur­able results are record­ed, a bet­ter com­pen­sa­tion pack­age should be offered after the fact, say at the end of the year.”

Commissioner of Police George Quallo

Like every oth­er area of an econ­o­my, includ­ing the Jamaican econ­o­my, polic­ing oper­ates on a top-down system.
Meaning that for all intents and pur­pos­es the aver­age work­er, save and apart from those in the board­rooms are mere pawns on the chess­board to be moved around at the whim and behest of those in control.

To sup­pose that as a con­se­quence of high crime num­bers mem­bers of the police rank and file ought not to receive bet­ter remu­ner­a­tions ignores the fun­da­men­tals of that basic fact.

The vast dis­par­i­ty between the salaries of the gazetted Ranks (Assistant Superintendent to the Commissioner of police) is as a result of their des­ig­na­tion in the system.
Contrary to what many believe, includ­ing many rank-and-file police offi­cers, police offi­cers from the rank of con­sta­ble to Inspector are not civ­il servants.

Civil ser­vice work­ers salaries are cal­cu­lat­ed and approached quite differently.
For exam­ple, the salaries of gazetted mem­bers of the police depart­ment will nec­es­sar­i­ly be in the same group­ing as Doctors, Parliamentary sec­re­taries, and mem­bers of the judi­cia­ry and oth­er such groups of workers.

Police High Command Either Complicit Or More Stupid Than I Thought..

There is a rea­son when a team per­forms poor­ly that upper man­age­ment or own­er­ship does not fire the team. After all the team is the com­mod­i­ty no mat­ter how flawed it is you do not dis­band the team.
So the coach­ing staff has to go.
A new coach­ing staff brings new ideas and method­olo­gies and apply them to the team, with new ideas and meth­ods it may be nec­es­sary to trade part of the team or even retire others.

We arrive at bet­ter out­comes when we bring new ideas to the table and apply best prac­tices which are eas­i­ly measurable.
The JCF hier­ar­chy has done a tremen­dous dis­ser­vice to both the JCF, the junior mem­bers and to the nation on a whole as a result of its cor­rupt prac­tices and it’s less than per­fect oper­a­tional procedures.

Outdated train­ing tech­niques which have no bear­ing on mod­ern polic­ing chal­lenges must be dis­band­ed and replaced with real-time techniques

Through it’s stead­fast attach­ment to both polit­i­cal par­ties, cor­rupt prac­tices and it’s incom­pre­hen­si­ble incom­pe­tence and inabil­i­ty to oper­ate as a mod­ern police depart­ment, the police high com­mand has man­aged to destroy the rep­u­ta­tion of the agency and the morale of its junior members.
As a result of that 50 junior offi­cers leave the force each month.
That is almost 2 offi­cers per day.

A top to bot­tom review is need­ed to deter­mine a new force structure.
That review should begin with an under­stand­ing of the dif­fer­ing roles we ask our police to play in today’s soci­ety and going into the future.
It is armed with that under­stand­ing that pol­i­cy­mak­ers will come to a deci­sion on whether or not the cur­rent lev­el of gazetted offi­cers in the depart­ment is actu­al­ly needed.
The lev­el of inef­fec­tive­ness must cat­e­gor­i­cal­ly be laid at the feet of those who lead the department.

In the same way, many in the low­er ranks through their actions neces­si­tat­ed INDECOM and oth­er detrac­tors, the gazetted ranks have brought the oper­a­tional effec­tive­ness of the force into seri­ous question.
Officers on the ground car­ry out their func­tions as com­mand­ed. Whatever the short­com­ing the senior lev­els must be held account­able for break­downs and lack of results as it relates to crime statistics.

Caches of guns the police recov­er almost daily.

None of it in any way negates the very valid and urgent need for offi­cers to be paid a liv­able wage.

Officers place their lives on the line every day some­thing no oth­er cat­e­go­ry of work­ers is asked to do.

As a con­se­quence, we must hold them account­able for their actions when they mess up but we owe them a greater debt of grat­i­tude sole­ly on the basis of what we have asked them to do for us, in many of those cas­es involv­ing events which we are unable or will­ing to do for ourselves.

That lev­el of grat­i­tude must begin with a fair lev­el of respect for our offi­cers and what they do.
Let us set aside the con­temp­tu­ous and dis­re­spect­ful dia­tribes uttered from behind the rel­a­tive safe­ty of com­put­er screens and begin to sup­port our law enforce­ment officers.

I have long called for a restruc­tur­ing of the police force begin­ning with the man­age­ment structure.
Having served in the depart­ment for rough­ly a decade I have seen first hand the incom­pe­tence and the lack of direc­tion or fol­low through that exist in the lead­er­ship of the JCF.

That is why even after sit­ting and pass­ing the accel­er­at­ed exams in 91 I too decid­ed that I would not be hav­ing a career in the JCF.

I real­ized then, what many young offi­cers do today, That’s why I head­ed for the exit, it is why they run for the exits now.
Policing in Jamaica is a thank­less job which despite one’s best efforts, is gau­ran­teed to result in only mar­gin­al pos­i­tive results.
Perhaps, most impor­tant­ly it is [servitude]to an ungrate­ful nation.

The JCF has long been a step­ping stone for many poor young peo­ple and it’s not about to change any­time soon.

The effec­tive­ness of the police can­not be mea­sured sole­ly on the basis of what appears on the stat sheets how­ev­er impor­tant it is to have declin­ing crime numbers.
Crime is not the pre­rog­a­tive of the police alone the soon­er Jamaicans awake to those real­i­ties the bet­ter off they will be in this fight against criminals.

by

Why Numbers Alone Obscure The Real Deportation Story

The total number of deportations is down under Trump, but don’t confuse that with leniency.

By Julianne Hing

Detainees leave the cafe­te­ria at the Stewart Detention Facility, a Corrections Corporation of America (now CoreCivic) immi­gra­tion facil­i­ty in Lumpkin, Georgia. (AP /​Kate Brumback)

Depor­ta­tions are down. In the2017 fis­cal year, which end­ed in September, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) deport­ed 226,119 peo­ple — 14,000 few­er than the pre­vi­ous year. Barack Obama broke records by deport­ing more than 3 mil­lion peo­ple dur­ing his eight years in office. But no one should con­fuse a drop in depor­ta­tions under Donald Trump with leniency.

There are, broad­ly speak­ing, two kinds of depor­ta­tion: those peo­ple who are quick­ly kicked out of the coun­try for get­ting caught cross­ing the US-Mexican bor­der, and those who are already liv­ing in the United States and are round­ed up from with­in the “inte­ri­or.” One big rea­son for the decrease in depor­ta­tions is that few­er peo­ple are cross­ing into the coun­try from Mexico. That pool of easy stat-boost­ers had already been dry­ing up under Obama, and it con­tin­ues to decline — though in its end-of-year report, ICE claimed that the trend could reflect “an increased deter­rent effect” from the agency’s “stronger inte­ri­or enforce­ment efforts.”

If one looks only at what are called “inte­ri­or removals,” Trump has deport­ed more peo­ple than Obama did in his final two years. In fact, in his first eight months in office, Trump deport­ed 61,094 peo­ple from with­in the inte­ri­or, 37 per­cent more than Obama did in the same peri­od in 2016.

ICE arrests are also up under Trump. Between his inau­gu­ra­tion and September 30, ICE arrest­ed 42 per­cent more peo­ple for immi­gra­tion vio­la­tions than it did over the same peri­od in the pre­vi­ous year. Immigration-court back­logs are key to under­stand­ing why Trump’s depor­ta­tion num­bers aren’t even high­er: If a per­son has lived in the coun­try for more than two years and has not been pre­vi­ous­ly sub­ject to a depor­ta­tion order, they’re enti­tled to a hear­ing before an immi­gra­tion judge. Processing those cas­es takes time.

As it is, Trump has autho­rized his agents to do things that oth­er admin­is­tra­tions declined to do. Obama said that he was focused on remov­ing “felons, not fam­i­lies.” These days, any­one who’s deportable — from restau­rant-own­ing, decades-long res­i­dents to DACA-approved Dreamers — is a pri­or­i­ty. ICE is now will­ing to arrest peo­ple with no crim­i­nal record, peo­ple who are guilty only of immi­gra­tion vio­la­tions. Even ICE’s gang-enforce­ment oper­a­tions — designed, sup­pos­ed­ly, to cap­ture the most hard­ened crim­i­nals — have net­ted a dis­turb­ing num­ber of peo­ple with no crim­i­nal record. It’s an unleash­ing that, to immi­grants, feels like a kind of terrorism.

To make mat­ters worse, ICE agents stalk places that were once no-go areas for appre­hend­ing immi­grants: church­es, cour­t­hous­es, even school drop-off sites. In November, dozens of pub­lic defend­ers gath­ered for an impromp­tu protest out­side a Brooklyn cour­t­house just after ICE agents arrest­ed a man who had shown up at court. That arrest was one of approx­i­mate­ly 40 such inci­dents in 2017 in New York City alone — a 900 per­cent increasecom­pared with last year, accord­ing to the Immigrant Defense Project. Lawyers and judges have report­ed sim­i­lar activ­i­ty in Arizona, California, Connecticut, Colorado, New Jersey, Oregon, Texas, Washington, and the rest of New York State. Denver City Attorney Kristin Bronson said that she’s giv­en up on four domes­tic-vio­lence cas­es since Trump’s elec­tion, because the vic­tims were too afraid that ICE would be lurk­ing to appear in court.

The Trump admin­is­tra­tion has also pres­sured local police forces to do immi­gra­tion-enforce­ment work. In March, ICE began pub­lish­ing a list of juris­dic­tions that declined to hon­or its detain­er requests to hold immi­grants in cus­tody for the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment. The list, intend­ed to shame local­i­ties, has been sus­pend­ed, but the spir­it of it remains. Attorney General Jeff Sessions has been engaged in legal bat­tles with mul­ti­ple munic­i­pal­i­ties, from San Francisco to Chicago, over the administration’s threats to defund so-called sanc­tu­ary cities. Read more here: https://​www​.then​ation​.com/​a​r​t​i​c​l​e​/​w​h​y​-​n​u​m​b​e​r​s​-​a​l​o​n​e​-​o​b​s​c​u​r​e​-​t​h​e​-​r​e​a​l​-​d​e​p​o​r​t​a​t​i​o​n​-​s​t​o​ry/

by

Please Leave The Police Alone To Argue For Better Pay Already.…

Much has been said about the Industrial action being under­tak­en by the Police. Depending on who you speak to, the response is going to be bel­li­cose one way or the other.
Let us stop for a while and ask our­selves what are the police offi­cers sup­posed to do since they are not allowed to strike?
For the sanc­ti­mo­nious hyp­ocrites in the Media who write columns and those who opine on edi­to­r­i­al pages, I ask you when have you ever sup­port­ed the work of the police except to criticize?
Stick to what you do best, which is to talk and keep your snouts out of oth­er peo­ple’s lives.
If the cops ask for a raise for risk­ing their lives you hyp­ocrites chat, if they betray their oaths and take bribes you hyp­ocrites chat.

To the rank and file offi­cers who con­tin­ue to work to cur­ry favor with the gazetted ranks you are noth­ing more than scabs.
When you cross pick­et lines which are designed for your ben­e­fit you are the most despi­ca­ble of despicable.
And as for those senior ranks who tell the men and women under their com­mand that mon­ey is not all, SSP Carl Ferguson my for­mer squad­mate )please remem­ber that your salary is com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent than the peo­ple you lec­ture about the right­eous­ness of service.

There are a pletho­ra of dif­fer­ent per­spec­tives which baf­fles me about the police’s action.
They should­n’t take action.
They refused more mon­ey under the pre­vi­ous administration.
They are PNP.
Crime is high so they do not deserve any pay increase.
They were forced to accept a pay freeze under the pre­vi­ous government.

The com­ments are as ridicu­lous as they are asi­nine and insidious.
The police have every right to take what­ev­er action they deem nec­es­sary in their best interest.
There is the[mout a massi] who have an opin­ion on every­thing police, they are nev­er with­out an opin­ion which they prof­fer as truth when it’s all con­vo­lut­ed opin­ions, sim­ply because they have the medi­ums through which to chat.
There are those in the crim­i­nal rights fra­ter­ni­ty who have done immense dam­age through their advo­ca­cy which has geld­ed police, caused many to drop their hands and oth­ers to look the oth­er way.
Members of the JCF should be wary of them and their state­ments which are designed clear­ly to cur­ry favor with the police.

I have nev­er heard any police offi­cer get­ting involved in salary nego­ti­a­tions of any oth­er group or entity.
In the event that work­ers have struck for what­ev­er rea­son and they decide to demon­strate their dis­plea­sure, cops are there march­ing side by side to ensure that their rights are guaranteed.

What I’m say­ing is give the offi­cers a chance to make their demands and please stop with the damn PNP/​JLP shit.

by

Oblivious Of Consequences

Young men defi­ant­ly pose with their auto­mat­ic weapons, obvi­ous­ly obliv­i­ous of any consequences.
Lets hope that the police find this man real quick and some­how remove him from the streets imme­di­ate­ly.
We under­stand his name is Ryan Peterkin of Cambridge St.James.
by

Va. Pastor, Wife Arrested In $1,200,000 Congregation Fraud Scheme

A Virginia pas­tor, his wife and a friend of theirs are all being accused of defraud­ing their Alexandria con­gre­ga­tion out of more than $1 mil­lion, Fox 5 DC reports.

According to the report, Terry Wayne Millender, who serves as pas­tor for Victorious Life Church in Alexandria; his wife, Brenda; and a friend, Grenetta Wells, who is also affil­i­at­ed with the church, were all recent­ly indict­ed by a fed­er­al grand jury on charges of con­spir­a­cy to com­mit wire fraud and mon­ey-laun­der­ing conspiracy.

Authorities say the charges stem from an invest­ment scam in which the Millenders and Wells con­vinced con­gre­ga­tions to invest in their com­pa­ny, Micro-Enterprise Management Group, which alleged­ly helped poor peo­ple in devel­op­ing coun­tries through the pro­vi­sion of small, short-term loans to start or build up exist­ing busi­ness­es by work­ing with a net­work of estab­lished micro­fi­nance groups, Fox5DC reports.

The trio alleged­ly under­lined their business’s Christian mis­sion and promised guar­an­teed rates of return. Some investors gave sums rang­ing from $40,000 to $400,000, author­i­ties say.

However, instead of using the mon­ey for its intend­ed mis­sion, the Millenders and Wells alleged­ly con­duct­ed risky trad­ing on the for­eign-exchange cur­ren­cy mar­ket and also helped fund the pur­chase of a lav­ish $1.75 mil­lion res­i­dence for the Millenders and oth­er per­son­al expens­es for the defendants.

When parish­ioners began to ques­tion when they would get their mon­ey back, the defen­dants blamed delays on the 2008 finan­cial cri­sis, author­i­ties say.

“It didn’t real­ly come as a shock — it was more of a sigh of relief,” Eric Brown, a for­mer church mem­ber, told Fox 5 DC. According to the news sta­tion, Brown’s fam­i­ly was one of those who invest­ed in the alleged fraud scheme, although they are not a part of the fed­er­al case.

“I asked him like, ‘Hey, that’s a nice car,’” Brown told the sta­tion regard­ing one con­ver­sa­tion he said he had with Terry Millender. “He said, ‘Yeah, $100,000 car. If you save up your mon­ey, God’s going to bless you.’ Come to find out now, it was actu­al­ly part of our money.”

Both Terry Millender and Grenetta Wells were held with­out bond until anoth­er hear­ing set for Wednesday. Brenda Millender was released after the ini­tial hear­ing. Read more @ https://​www​.wash​ing​ton​post​.com/​l​o​c​a​l​/​p​u​b​l​i​c​-​s​a​f​e​t​y​/​p​a​s​t​o​r​-​a​n​d​-​w​i​f​e​-​f​o​u​n​d​-​g​u​i​l​t​y​-​i​n​-​d​e​f​r​a​u​d​i​n​g​-​o​f​-​f​r​i​e​n​d​s​-​f​l​o​c​k​-​o​f​-​m​i​l​l​i​o​n​s​-​o​f​-​d​o​l​l​a​r​s​/​2​0​1​7​/​1​2​/​1​9​/​2​9​a​e​2​4​e​4​-​e​4​1​0​-​1​1​e​7​-​8​3​3​f​-​1​5​5​0​3​1​5​5​8​f​f​4​_​s​t​o​r​y​.​h​t​m​l​?​u​t​m​_​t​e​r​m​=​.​4​4​9​b​a​c​1​e​4​f7e

by

The Second Klan

By Kevin M. Kruse

For many Americans, the recent move­ment of white suprema­cy from the mar­gins into the main­stream has been a stag­ger­ing devel­op­ment. Under the guise of coun­ter­ing a “polit­i­cal cor­rect­ness” run amok, top­ics that were long con­sid­ered taboo have late­ly been broached pub­licly and proud­ly. Fringe orga­ni­za­tions ded­i­cat­ed to white suprema­cy have mobi­lized with sur­pris­ing strength, while the pol­i­tics of racism have been revived and ratio­nal­ized at the high­est lev­els of power.

For white suprema­cists, Donald Trump’s vic­to­ry last fall was both rev­e­la­to­ry and rev­o­lu­tion­ary. “Trump has unques­tion­ably brought peo­ple to our ideas,” enthused Richard Spencer, the white-nation­al­ist leader who coined the term “alt-right.” Emboldened by the Trump admin­is­tra­tion — which, until recent­ly, includ­ed alt-right allies like Stephen Bannon — white suprema­cists stepped out of the shad­ows and into the spot­light. “It’s been an awak­en­ing,” Spencer raved at a cel­e­bra­to­ry ral­ly after Trump’s elec­tion. “This is what a suc­cess­ful move­ment looks like.”

That move­ment, of course, led to the events in Charlottesville, Virginia, where white suprema­cists gath­ered for a “Unite the Right” ral­ly this past August. According to for­mer Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke, the pro­test­ers went there “to ful­fill the promis­es of Donald Trump” and “take our coun­try back.” To the shock of onlook­ers, clean-cut young men marched through the streets of the col­lege town in a torch­light parade, their faces con­tort­ed in anger as they shout­ed “Blood and Soil!” — the old Nazi slo­gan ren­dered in German as “Blut und Boden!” The fol­low­ing day, the demon­stra­tions turned dead­ly when a 20-year-old alt-right sup­port­er drove his car into a crowd of peace­ful coun­ter­pro­test­ers, killing one.

With any oth­er American pres­i­dent, the obvi­ous response would have been a quick and clear con­dem­na­tion of the white suprema­cists. But Trump, as he often reminds us, is like no oth­er pres­i­dent. His ini­tial com­ments parceled out blame to the “many sides” involved in the con­fronta­tion and were so light­ly drawn that the neo-Nazi web­site The Daily Stormer saw his words as a sign of sup­port. To make mat­ters worse, Trump then insist­ed that “some very fine peo­ple” had par­tic­i­pat­ed in the white-suprema­cist protest. Naturally, alt-right lead­ers were flat­tered. “Really proud of him,” said Spencer.

To many Americans, the warm rela­tion­ship between the White House and white suprema­cists appears to be a new and shock­ing devel­op­ment. But as Linda Gordon reminds us in The Second Coming of the KKK, white-suprema­cist pol­i­tics have entered our polit­i­cal main­stream before. The “sec­ond Klan” of the 1910s and ’20s — unlike the vig­i­lante group that pre­ced­ed it in the Reconstruction era or the racist ter­ror­ists who tar­get­ed the civ­il-rights move­ment in the 1950s and ’60s — oper­at­ed large­ly in the open and with broad sup­port from white soci­ety in gen­er­al and white politi­cians in par­tic­u­lar. Moving beyond the region­al and racial bound­aries of the South, this ver­sion of the Klan spread across the coun­try, tar­get­ing a broad­er range of ene­mies: Asians and Latinos along­side African Americans, as well as large swaths of reli­gious minori­ties like Catholics, Jews, and Mormons. At its peak, the sec­ond Klan claimed to have between 4 and 6 mil­lion mem­bers nation­wide, although Gordon makes a per­sua­sive case that this was “cer­tain­ly an exaggeration.”

Aslim vol­ume that large­ly syn­the­sizes the already sub­stan­tial lit­er­a­ture on its sub­ject, The Second Coming of the KKKnev­er­the­less offers read­ers some­thing new: The book is writ­ten, quite self-con­scious­ly, for this moment. Unlike oth­er his­to­ri­ans who strive for an ever-elu­sive objec­tiv­i­ty, Gordon is refresh­ing­ly blunt about who she is and why she wrote it. “In my dis­cus­sion of the Ku Klux Klan I am not neu­tral, and like all his­to­ri­ans, I can­not and do not wish to dis­card my val­ues in inter­pret­ing the past,” she notes in her intro­duc­tion. “The fact that I am one of those the Klan detest­ed — a Jew, an intel­lec­tu­al, a left­ist, a fem­i­nist, a lover of diver­si­ty — no doubt…informs this book.”Read more @ https://​www​.then​ation​.com/​a​r​t​i​c​l​e​/​t​h​e​-​s​e​c​o​n​d​-​k​l​an/

by

At A Time When A Felon Is Admitted To Practice Law, We Say Kudos To Raymond Wilson The Cop.…

The long­time head of the Police Federation Seargent Raymond Wilson has been pro­mot­ed to Assistant Superintendent of Police.
The pro­mo­tion comes at a time when the out­spo­ken Wilson was involved in wage nego­ti­a­tions with the Government.

Wilson’s pro­mo­tion has set tongues wag­ging that the pro­mo­tion was timed to removed him from the nego­ti­a­tions at a time when the union and the gov­ern­ment are dead­locked in wage nego­ti­a­tions for the rank and file of the force.

Some have even asked whether he was pro­mot­ed to Assistant Superintendent instead of Inspector specif­i­cal­ly to silence his voice.
Police insid­ers argued how­ev­er that “He was inter­viewed from last year, and because he did so well in the inter­view, he was promised a posi­tion above the rank of inspector.”

Lost in the tongue wag­ging is one lit­tle fact, that is that Raymond Wilson has recent­ly earned him­self a law degree.
Why would the JCF not reward such accom­plish­ment after he has served in the depart­ment so faith­ful­ly and long?

It is unfor­tu­nate that instead of talk­ing about the tremen­dous accom­plish­ments of this police offi­cer who came from hum­ble begin­nings the con­ver­sa­tion is cen­tered on whether he was pro­mot­ed for the right reason.

At a time when the legal pro­fes­sion in Jamaica just admit­ted a twice-con­vict­ed felon to prac­tice at the bar, this writer takes this oppor­tu­ni­ty to say kudos to Assistant Superintendent of Raymond Wilson.
Job well done.

by

Before You Blame The Police For Crime Read This…

In June of 2016 Minister of National Security Robert Montague made a shock­ing announce­ment which ought to have had the nation aghast but the seri­ous­ness of his announce­ment had no mea­sur­able effect it seemed.

Minister Montague was argu­ing for a review of the man­ner in which bail is grant­ed in mur­der cases.
In the inter­est of full dis­clo­sure I was not a fan of the Montague appoint­ment to fill the National Security Portfolio and as such, I was less than gra­cious in my cri­tique of his appointment.

Minister of nation­al secu­ri­ty Robert Montague

However, it appears that despite his lack of bona fides on crime and secu­ri­ty Minister Montague is will­ing to learn and has demon­strat­ed a com­mend­able pre­dis­po­si­tion to lis­ten and apply what he has learned to his portfolio.
This writer is pleased that Minister Montague is show­ing that he is will­ing to appre­ci­ate ideas and ingra­ti­ate them into his plan of action for the country.

Jamaican Judge Releases Cop Killers, Without Explanation.

At the time Montague made the state­ments he revealed that 134 cas­es of mur­der before the courts involved defen­dants who were grant­ed bail in pre­vi­ous mur­der matters.
Here at chatt-a-box.com

I con­tin­ue to sound the alarm at what I see as a major loop­hole in the jus­tice sys­tem which is not only frus­trat­ing the efforts of law enforce­ment but is putting the secu­ri­ty of the nation in grave danger.
Montague made a point which I have lament­ed for years, mur­der­ers should not be giv­en bail espe­cial­ly in a hotbed of mur­der and may­hem like Jamaica.
The idea of grant­i­ng bail to mur­der accused is even more shock­ing when one con­sid­ers the num­ber of peo­ple being killed by mur­der accused who are out on bail after being charged with murder.

Judges Have A Responsibility As Officers Of The Court To Follow And Apply The Law, Obviously Not In Jamaica..

It is impor­tant to remem­ber that even as the police are able to say defin­i­tive­ly that for the pre­scribed peri­od 134 peo­ple were killed by peo­ple grant­ed bail after being charged with … you guessed it mur­der, we still do not know how many are tru­ly killed because the police real­ly do not know.

Montage talked about the part which angers me most of all “There is an instance where one man was arrest­ed for mur­der, offered bail, came out, mur­dered again, this time two times, appre­hend­ed, offered bail, came out, mur­dered again, appre­hend­ed, offered bail, took the bail, came out, mur­dered again, was appre­hend­ed, offered bail”.

Jamaican Judges A Large Part Of The Murder Problem/​Ask Dexter Pottinger

How in God’s good heav­en is this even possible?
Actually, the more impor­tant ques­tion should be how in God’s good heav­en has the leg­is­la­ture allowed this to continue?
The coun­try is inun­dat­ed with mur­der, rapes, shoot­ings, vio­lent rob­beries and oth­er felonies. While the Nation looks to the police for solu­tions it bears men­tion­ing that the Police can only do so much.
https://​mike​beck​les​.com/​i​f​-​y​o​u​-​a​r​e​-​j​a​m​a​i​c​a​n​-​s​e​t​-​p​o​l​i​t​i​c​s​-​a​s​i​d​e​-​a​n​d​-​t​h​i​n​k​-​t​h​e​s​e​-​t​h​i​n​g​s​-​t​h​r​o​u​gh/

♦ Dont look to the Police to fix the mur­der mad­ness because as soon as the police arrest the mur­der­ers the Islands shit for brain crim­i­nal lov­ing judges release them on bail time and time and time and time and time and time and time again .…..
♦ Don’t blame the Police when INDECOM, the Justice Ministry, the Public Defender’s office, Elements of the Media want to cru­ci­fy them when they deal with the mur­der­ers as they are forced to.
♦ Don’t blame the police when the lib­er­al elit­ists’ judges who came out of the left-lean­ing UWI give them slaps on the wrist despite the heinous nature of the crimes they commit.
♦Don’t for once believe that the best efforts of the police will bear many fruits when they are poor­ly trained, make a pit­tance for the risks they take and hard­ly have the tools required to do the job effectively.
♦ Don’t blame the police when the Legislature refus­es to change the old archa­ic laws and make them more reflec­tive of the needs of today.
♦ Don’t blame the Police when much of the pub­lic at large are crim­i­nals who throw mis­siles at police offi­cers who arrest gun­men in their communities.

It’s time we stop with the bull and see our prob­lems for what they are. We have a seri­ous prob­lem of immoral­i­ty and unless we fix the immoral­i­ty and the exces­sive greed for things we can­not afford the shed­ding of blood will con­tin­ue until we are all drowned by it.

by

A Willful Killer Has No Expectation Of Mercy Under The Law

Driving down the high­way one has cer­tain respon­si­bil­i­ties, you try as best you can to obey the speed lim­its, you are required to stay in lane.
If you decide to change lane, it is high­ly advis­able that you indi­cate your inten­tions using the indi­ca­tor on your vehi­cle, then you make sure you will not be cut­ting before anoth­er dri­ver in the lane you wish to enter before you do so.

You fol­low the instruc­tions and do not stop in the mid­dle of the high­way if at all pos­si­ble but con­verse­ly pull over on the shoul­der if you have to stop.
If all users of the roads obey the rules of the road the dri­ving expe­ri­ence can be a relax­ing enjoy­able experience.
Nore than any­thing else it can be a safe experience.

If we jux­ta­pose the for­gone with a sit­u­a­tion in which no one obeys the speed lim­its, they change lanes with­out indi­cat­ing, stop in the mid­dle of the high­way dri­ve across the dou­ble yel­low or white line to get to the head of the line, effec­tive­ly plac­ing every­one’s lives in dan­ger and dis­obeys all of the rules the result is chaos.
But it’s not just about chaos, it is about the con­se­quences of that chaos which is usu­al­ly the tragedy of the loss of limb and life.

We could rea­son­ably apply the lat­ter to the Jamaican streets.
Or we could apply it to Jamaican life.
In each sit­u­a­tion, the lat­ter sce­nario would be appro­pri­ate and of course the con­se­quences of indis­ci­pline is quite obvious.

There is a type of coarse­ness which has char­ac­ter­ized our Jamaicaness for a while now.
The per­son who yells the loud­est gets heard and is uni­ver­sal­ly accept­ed as the per­son who is right.
The least informed view­point is accept­ed because it is gen­er­al­ly what the crowd wants to hear.
The man or woman walk­ing into a place of busi­ness by default places his/​her cell phone on speak­er and blares out a con­ver­sa­tion in the crass­est man­ner to the dis­com­fort and cha­grin of others.

A dis­sent­ing voice which does not agree with a pop­u­lar point of view is not respect­ed with a view to learn­ing from the dis­senter how he arrived at his point of view, he is labeled and dem­a­gogued, reviled and ostracized.
As a con­se­quence meet­ing places have become echo cham­bers for views that mir­ror each oth­er, the result is that no one learns any­thing new.

LIFE

How we behave indi­vid­u­al­ly is reflec­tive of the homes in which we live. Each home impacts the com­mu­ni­ty, each com­mu­ni­ty impacts the parish or state, each parish or state reflects what kind of coun­try we have.
Every per­son has a choice to make in what kind of coun­try we have. Whether that per­son is a Lawyer, Dance-hall-DJ, Police Officer, Politician, Doctor Farmer or Priest.
We can choose to observe the rules of the road or we can decide to break the rules and suf­fer the consequences.
In my adopt­ed home state of New York, the rules are clear “do not drink and dri­ve” if you have to drink have a des­ig­nat­ed dri­ver if you do not have a des­ig­nat­ed dri­ver do not drink it’s real­ly that simple.

Kartel

Your friends do not get to sub­mit ref­er­ences of your sup­posed good con­duct to the court when you drink and dri­ve and end up killing someone.
You knew before you decid­ed to take that first sip of alco­hol that you would be break­ing the law.
Any per­son who in defense of his life is forced to kill anoth­er human being is ful­ly enti­tled to be exon­er­at­ed from the com­mon law con­se­quences of murder.

A per­son who will­ful­ly goes out and kills anoth­er human being has no expec­ta­tion of mer­cy in the courts and the courts should not be swayed by any peti­tion for mit­i­ga­tion in cas­es of that nature.
We can­not build a civ­i­lized soci­ety by allow­ing mem­bers of that soci­ety to kill each oth­er, then get away with a slap on the wrist.
The courts need to speak loud and clear in mat­ters of vio­lent mur­der. There are signs now that at least one judge is begin­ning to get that mes­sage to some extent.

I call on the leg­is­la­ture to cod­i­fy into law stronger and stiffer penal­ty for felony murder.
Since the Island declared a mora­to­ri­um on cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment homi­cides has hit the roof. Those who make the argu­ment that cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment does not work have not sup­plied a shred of evi­dence to back up their claim.
For starters, not one per­son to whom cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment has been admin­is­tered has come back to kill again.

Desmond Ballentine o/​c Ninjaman

That is a 100% suc­cess rate. We know what the homi­cide rate was when cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment was in the toolbox.
We also know what it is now with­out it. The empir­i­cal data is clear as to the effec­tive­ness of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment as a puni­tive com­po­nent in the fight against crime. The evi­dence sup­ports those who believe that dan­ger­ous killers should be put down.
Some say it is vengeance, not justice.
I say whats wrong with vengeance?

It should not be left up to judges to deter­mine how long a mur­der­er spend behind bars. It is the pre­rog­a­tive of the peo­ple [who are now demand­ing stiffer penal­ties for killers], not unelect­ed judges.

by

From Us To You At Christmas

The Eagle builds her nest high at the top of a moun­tain or in a very tall tree she does so using sticks then she cush­ions it with straw so it can be com­fort­able but she places it up and away so that her young can be pro­tect­ed from predators.
She lays her eggs then sits on them until they hatch.
She goes out and she brings back food, she feeds the young hatch­lings until they are all grown up.
Then one morn­ing she sits on the side of the nest and flaps her giant wings until all the straw is gone.
She effec­tive­ly removes the com­fort that the straw pro­vides, then she flies a lit­tle way off and watches.
One by one the young Eagles try to emu­late their mom, some­times they fall, when they do she swoops down to pick up the young one and places it back into the nest.
The young Eagle repeats the process until the art of fly­ing becomes nat­ur­al and they fly off into the skies on their own.

ANIMALS GET IT !!!
My wish this Christmas is that moth­ers, par­tic­u­lar­ly Black moth­ers, stop hurt­ing young black men by enabling them.
Sure you love them.
If you love them, teach them how to be men and let them fly away.
Stop refer­ring to them as your baby.
Do you see why they refer to your home as their Crib?
Teach them how to be men and let them go so they can be good fathers to their chil­dren and good hus­bands to their wives.
That is my wish, it’s a good place to start if we want to fix us.
Merry Christmas to all.…

by

Judges Wreaking Havoc And Enhancing Murders By Releasing Murderers On Bail As Soon As Cops Arrest Them.……

’

As part of the sen­tence reduc­tion pro­gram insti­tut­ed by the Government of Jamaica killers of all stripes are being turned back onto the streets in alarm­ing numbers.
One would think that with the tiny Island near the top of the list of coun­tries with the dubi­ous dis­tinc­tion of being called the world’s mur­der cap­i­tals Jamaica would be tak­ing decid­ed steps to ensure that crim­i­nals and in par­tic­u­lar mur­der­ers are locked away and kept locked away.

Not so, the Government is active­ly giv­ing away at zero cost to mur­der­ers, the abil­i­ty to sim­ply plead guilty to the mur­der they are charged with and receive a whop­ping 50% reduc­tion in their sentences.
Naturally, some crim­i­nals who dou­ble as defense Lawyers have already found ways to fur­ther manip­u­late this atro­cious sys­tem through the use of what is called social inquiries.
So nat­u­ral­ly, every­one who ever com­mits a mur­der has a psy­cho­log­i­cal prob­lem. On that social inquiry report, mur­der­ers can pin their get out of jail hopes, and they do.

COP SPEAK OUT

Just recent­ly head of the St Ann Police Superintendent Wayne Cameron spoke about judges releas­ing crim­i­nals back onto the streets as soon as his offi­cers arrest them under the guise that they are enti­tled to bail.
He point­ed to the fact that for the most part most of the crim­i­nals who are arrest­ed for bur­glary and house­break­ing in his area of com­mand are indeed out on bail after hav­ing being arrest­ed for the very same crime.

I would like to inform Superintendent that it’s not just home inva­sions and break-ins, the vast major­i­ty of the mur­ders being com­mit­ted across the entire Island are being com­mit­ted by peo­ple out on bail hav­ing com­mit­ted .…. you guessed it, murders.

SP Wayne Cameron

Phillip Brown who killed his preg­nant ex-girl­friend wrapped her body in a tar­pau­lin and was about to dump her in a gul­ly before he was scared off was giv­en a slap on the wrist. Fifteen years with the pos­si­bil­i­ty of release after 10 years.
“Welcome to Jamaica where lives are good for noth­ing, kill at will, every­thing Irie mon”.

Meanwhile, 10 of the 14 peo­ple who had plead­ed guilty in October dur­ing sen­tence reduc­tion day were also sen­tenced yes­ter­day. Among them, the labor­er who admit­ted to killing a woman in December 2014 and hid­ing her body under his bed, after invit­ing her to his home for sex, was sen­tenced to sev­en years’ impris­on­ment with psy­chi­atric eval­u­a­tion, treat­ment, and counseling.

Terrence Williams
Commissioner of INDECOM

Kino Gilzene of New Haven in St Andrew had plead­ed guilty to manslaugh­ter and not mur­der, as a psy­chi­atric eval­u­a­tion in October under the sen­tence reduc­tion ini­tia­tive showed that he suf­fers from schiz­o­phre­nia. The deceased, Sudeen Jackson, a 22-year-old res­i­dent of Braeton Portmore, St Catherine was killed after she went to Gilzene’s home, alleged­ly for a sex­u­al encounter in exchange for $3,000.

Following the sex­u­al encounter, she asked to leave but Gilzene got angry and stabbed her in her chest and neck before using a stone to bash in her face. Gilzene then hid the wom­an’s body under his bed and cleaned up the scene. When his sis­ter Alicia came home, he told her a sto­ry about being held up by three men who raped and killed Jackson. The sib­ling buried Jackson’s body in a shal­low grave the fol­low­ing morn­ing but informed their moth­er of the inci­dent, and she sum­moned the police. Both were arrest­ed. His sis­ter Alicia Gilzene was charged with mis­pri­sion of a felony. Meanwhile, med­ical assis­tant Lorna Williamson, who plead­ed guilty to snatch­ing a day-old baby from the University Hospital of the West Indies in St Andrew last December, escaped a prison sen­tence. Williamson, 47, was sen­tenced to three years’ pro­ba­tion with psy­chi­atric counseling.

Harrison Henry

In hand­ing down the sen­tence, Justice Martin Gayle said the 47-year-old woman needs treat­ment. The wom­an’s attor­ney had ear­li­er request­ed a non-cus­to­di­al sen­tence. Williamson was charged with child steal­ing last year after the baby was found in her pos­ses­sion in Rollington Town on the same day the new­born dis­ap­peared. The baby girl was tak­en from a cot that was adja­cent to her moth­er’s bed on Ward 11 at the hos­pi­tal. Sentencing for the man who admit­ted to killing the Moncrieffe’s Patio Shop own­er ear­li­er this year was post­poned. Omar Graham, oth­er­wise called “Brown Man” of Alexander Road in Kingston, plead­ed guilty to the mur­der of 76-year-old Barbara Moncrieffe and the injur­ing of her hus­band and two oth­ers. His sen­tenc­ing was post­poned until January 30, 2018.

When the mat­ter was called up, the court was told that the social inquiry report was not ready. The elder­ly woman died after receiv­ing sev­er­al blows to her body from a piece of iron, which was also used to inflict injuries on the oth­er vic­tims. Graham plead­ed guilty in October as part of the sen­tence reduc­tion ini­tia­tive, which pro­vides the plat­form for indi­vid­u­als to enter a guilty plea and ben­e­fit from up to a 50 per­cent reduc­tion on their sen­tence, accord­ing to the pro­vi­sions of the Criminal Justice Administration Amendment Act 2015.

Andrew Holness PM

This is an unmit­i­gat­ed trav­es­ty and an affront to the dig­ni­ty of crime vic­tims and their fam­i­lies all for polit­i­cal purposes.
The idea that a dou­ble mur­der­er can get 10 years is a clar­i­on call to all mur­der­ers and would be mur­der­ers to kill because first of all they will not be killed in return, in fact, worse case all they can expect is a slap on the wrist.
This is just one more of the bright crim­i­nal sup­port­ing ideas of Delroy Chuck which will con­tin­ue to make Jamaica the mur­der cap­i­tal of the world under the guise of clean­ing up court dockets.

“If a per­son is to be detained, the police will have to con­vince the JPs that this per­son is sus­pect­ed (of com­mit­ting a crime), and if the JPs dis­agree, the man must be released. If the JPs agree, with­in 24 hours that per­son must be tak­en before a parish judge.”

It is now time for manda­to­ry min­i­mum sen­tences to be applied leg­isla­tive­ly to ensure that this cav­al­cade of mur­der is stopped.
One way to do that is to remove from the hands of the Islands Judges the deci­sion to sen­tence sus­pects who com­mit cap­i­tal murder.
We sim­ply have to be res­olute about stop­ping the bleed­ing fig­u­ra­tive­ly and literally.
The job of doing so can­not sim­ply be left up to the over­worked, under­paid, unap­pre­ci­at­ed, poor­ly trained police.
This requires all hands on deck.
At the moment Government is busy reor­ga­niz­ing the deck chairs on the sink­ing Titanic for bet­ter optics while the major­i­ty of the deck­hands are busy drilling more holes into the hull of the sink­ing vessel.

by - 2 Comments

Ninja Man And Co-Convicts Sentenced To Life In Prison For Murder, Entertainer Must Serve 25 Years Before Parole

YouTube player

(Courtesy of our friends at the Gleaner )

Entertainer Ninja Man and his co-con­victs have been sen­tenced to life in prison for the 2009 mur­der of a Kingston man. The enter­tain­er must serve at least 25 years in prison before he is eli­gi­ble to be released on parole. His son Janeil and fel­low co-con­vict Dennis Clayton will each have to serve 15 years behind bars. The sen­tences were hand­ed down by Justice Martin Gayle in the Home Circuit Court a short time ago.

Justice Gayle sen­tenced Ninja Man, whose real name is Desmond Ballentyne, to 25 years at hard labor for the mur­der of Ricardo Johnson, pop­u­lar­ly known as ‘Ricky Trooper,’ and 20 years for shoot­ing with intent in rela­tion to anoth­er per­son. “Thumbs up, judge,” Ninja Man said after his sen­tence was announced. The oth­ers showed no emo­tion. The three were con­vict­ed last month of mur­der and shoot­ing with intent.

Prosecutors Kathy Pyke and Nicholas Edmund led evi­dence, dur­ing the five-week tri­al, that the killing stemmed from a domes­tic alter­ca­tion in the St Andrew com­mu­ni­ty of Lower Mall Road. According to pros­e­cu­tors, there was an alter­ca­tion on the day before Johnson was killed. Ninja Man, his son, and Clayton report­ed­ly returned the fol­low­ing day with guns and oth­er weapons. They chased Johnson and anoth­er wit­ness through a fence, and as Johnson tried to fend off the attack­ers, shots were fired, and he was hit in the side.

He lat­er died.

.….….….….….….….….….….….….….….….….….….….…..

Kudos to Judge Martin Gayle, who did not allow star­dom to influ­ence the deci­sion he made; at the end of the day, some­one lost his life, and some­one killed him.
In a coun­try in which mur­der is at an all-time high and climb­ing, I salute this judge for stay­ing focused and not allow­ing him­self to be influ­enced by that stardom.
This is not about whether one likes the con­vict­ed mur­der­er Desmond Ballentine O/​c Ninjaman; it comes down to the rule of law.
We need a soci­ety in which jus­tice is objec­tive, a soci­ety in which the scales of jus­tice are not swayed one way or the oth­er by who the accused is or who he knows but that he will be judged on the evi­dence against him.

For years, dance­hall has been an incu­ba­tor for vio­lence and vio­lent lyrics.
As a con­se­quence, many with­in the cul­ture have been named as sus­pects in all man­ner of crim­i­nal activ­i­ties, includ­ing mur­der. Whether it’s life imi­tat­ing art or art imi­tat­ing life, dance­hall has been an out­let for the youth much the same way it has been a neg­a­tive medi­um of indoc­tri­na­tion into doing wrong.
I urge oth­er judges to do their part in help­ing to stem this mur­der mad­ness, as Judge Martin Gayle has.

by

Time For Blacks To Take Over The Democratic Party…

Democrats are all star­ry-eyed at the prospect that at the bare min­i­mum, come next year Nancy Pelosi will yank the gav­el from the puny hands of Paul Ryan a man who has demon­strat­ed he stands for noth­ing and will capit­u­late to anything.
Paul Ryan the man who could­n’t sup­port Trump before he could, a man who has now drawn an alt-right oppo­nent in the per­son of Paul Nehlen for his con­gres­sion­al seat in his home state of Wisconsin, a man who does­n’t know if he wants to stand and fight or run and hide from the challenge.

But this arti­cle is not about a weak Republican Speaker of the House it is about a weak Democratic Party which has man­aged to turn off most of its white work­ing class, union­ized work­ers dri­ving them into the arms of the likes of Steve Bannon and Donald Trump.
Is race a part of this dynamic?
You bet!

But lets us nev­er for­get that many of these very same vot­ers in places like Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Ohio vot­ed twice for Barack Obama choos­ing him first over Hillary Clinton in the pri­maries, over war hero John McCain and in 2012 over Mitt Romney.
All three are white, Obama is black.

I was con­vinced that Barack Obama was going to be the first Black President, but I became dou­bly sure when I heard two elder­ly white women talk­ing in hushed tones in the cere­al aisle of my neigh­bor­hood super­mar­ket ” I don’t trust that Hillary, I’m vot­ing for that nice [fellow]Obama”.
The oth­er chimed in “me too.”

Barack Obama is now a twice-elect­ed ex-pres­i­dent with high approval rat­ings, what is not exact­ly clear is what has become of the Democratic party?
Or the bet­ter ques­tion is, what is the Democratic party?
Even as a polit­i­cal junkie I strug­gle to iden­ti­fy the Democratic par­ty, what is it where is it, is the Democratic Party Nancy Pelosi a woman even some in her own cau­cus says should step aside because she is a light­ning rod?
Is it, Tom Perez the head of the DNC, or is it Charles Schumer the New York senior sen­a­tor from Brooklyn?

The Republican par­ty is a tight­ly woven intri­cate machine that cul­ti­vates its vot­ers from the grass­roots, it has scores and scores of grass­roots orga­ni­za­tions and groups which are active­ly engaged in cul­ti­vat­ing and nur­tur­ing new swaths of vot­ers at all levels.
There is no dis­cern­able coun­ter­bal­ance on the Democratic side.

The fact of the mat­ter is that Black vot­ers are the most loy­al vot­ers in the Democratic par­ty. As one writer recent­ly wrote, Black peo­ple vote the Democratic par­ty into office so that they can nom­i­nate white peo­ple for posi­tions of power.
That state­ment though true does­n’t begin to sum­marise the extent to which blacks the pow­er behind a fick­le and weak Democratic par­ty are being ignored by their par­ty of choice.

Black women, in par­tic­u­lar, con­tin­ue to work won­ders by turn­ing out in phe­nom­e­nal num­bers to elect their can­di­dates of choice as they did in Alabama not because they were nec­es­sar­i­ly in love with Democrat Doug Jones but out of Revulsion for a big­ot­ed alleged pedophile in Roy Moore.
It’s now time for the Democratic par­ty, what­ev­er that is, to ele­vate Blacks to their right­ful posi­tion of pow­er with­in the par­ty or face a pos­si­ble exo­dus of blacks from the party.
A mass exo­dus of blacks from the Democratic par­ty would mean the end of the par­ty, con­sid­er­ing that it has no grass­roots orga­ni­za­tions active­ly cul­ti­vat­ing new voters.

Black vot­ers should not wait for par­ty boss­es they must now demand that the demo­c­ra­t­ic par­ty hear their voic­es and give them the respect they deserve or launch a takeover of the Republican par­ty. Racist whites in the Republican par­ty who don’t like it can run back to the Democratic par­ty as they did to the Republican par­ty after the sign­ing of the civ­il rights act.
Hey, it’s pos­si­ble, the tea par­ty [Patriots] did it, why not?

by

After Alabama, It’s Time For Democrats To Get Over Their White Working-Class Fixation

It’s time for the patterns and practices of the Democratic Party — the candidates we put forth and the voters we pursue — to change.

There’s always been some­thing prob­lem­at­ic about the Democratic Party’s fix­a­tion on white work­ing-class vot­ers. After Alabama, it’s clear that obses­sion isn’t just fraught with bias. It’s also dumb.

Exit polls showed that black vot­ers were deci­sive in elect­ing Democrat Doug Jones to the United States Senate. White vot­ers under-per­formed their past turnout in gen­er­al and spe­cial elec­tions, but a strong major­i­ty of those who did show up cast their bal­lots for a race-bait­ing homo­phobe accused of molest­ing young children.

Cook Political Report edi­tor Dave Wasserman wrote on Twitter: “turnout is at 72%-77% of ’16 pres­i­den­tial race in heav­i­ly black coun­ties, but just 55%-60% in rur­al white coun­ties. Black vot­ers punch­ing above their weight tonight & giv­ing Jones a chance.” Washington Post exit polls sug­gest­ed that while black folks make up just 26 per­cent of the pop­u­la­tion in Alabama, they were 28 per­cent of voters.

These are pre­cise­ly the vot­ers that the main­stream Democratic Party has tak­en for grant­ed for decades. The assump­tion that black folks will always vote Democratic may in fact large­ly be true, but tak­ing that for grant­ed is not only fun­da­men­tal­ly ungrate­ful and obnox­ious but damp­ens turnout. Even the peo­ple that gen­er­al­ly like you don’t show up if you don’t encour­age them to do so. Here it’s worth not­ing that while the entire rest of the mar­ket­ing and out­reach uni­verse has moved toward niche mar­kets, toward rec­og­niz­ing what it means to have super-fans and cater­ing to their needs and inter­ests, the Democratic Party con­tin­ues to treat its black base like an after­thought, or worse, an inconvenience.

As elec­toral strate­gist Steve Phillips has writ­ten, “much of the pro­gres­sive move­ment and many pro­gres­sive cam­paigns are still dom­i­nat­ed by White lead­er­ship, fix­at­ed on White vot­ers.” And, as just one exam­ple of the impli­ca­tions for this on the ground, Phillips notes, “Of the first $200 mil­lion allo­cat­ed by pro­gres­sive out­side groups for spend­ing in 2016, zero dol­lars were direct­ed to African-American vot­er mobi­liza­tion. Zero.” Yes, the mod­ern Democratic Party’s poli­cies have gen­er­al­ly been bet­ter when it comes to com­mu­ni­ties of col­or. But shouldn’t we cel­e­brate, embrace, and expand that strength — rather than under­mine it through our pat­terns of can­di­date recruit­ment and vot­er outreach?

There’s always been a strong whiff of racial bias or even white suprema­cy in what seems to be an implic­it belief on the part of the Democratic estab­lish­ment that the only way to win elec­tions — or per­haps the only “legit­i­mate” way — is with the sup­port of white vot­ers, espe­cial­ly work­ing-class white men. Of course that’s not the only way. Simple math sug­gests oth­er­wise, and the elec­tions of Barack Obama and Doug Jones and many oth­ers prove it.

We are not a coun­try that has yet ful­ly come to terms with the injus­tices of its past and come to under­stand how we rec­ti­fy those injus­tices not mere­ly by acknowl­edg­ing but fore­ground­ing the com­mu­ni­ties that have been most mar­gin­al­ized. We are, instead, a coun­try that con­tin­ues to cen­ter white­ness and male­ness, in spite of the con­tin­u­al­ly mount­ing evi­dence of all the dam­age both have gen­er­al­ly done.

In 2008, when Barack Obama was elect­ed pres­i­dent because a major­i­ty of our nation’s black and brown cit­i­zens vot­ed for him, even though the major­i­ty of white peo­ple did not, the right-wing attacked vot­ers of col­or as “ille­git­i­mate” and “low-infor­ma­tion vot­ers” (i.e., stu­pid). But Democrats them­selves also played into this dynamic.

“I have a much broad­er base to build a win­ning coali­tion on,” Hillary Clinton said in May 2008 in the midst of her pri­ma­ry cam­paign against Barack Obama. She then went on to tout her sup­port among “hard-work­ing Americans, white Americans” — as though black and brown Americans aren’t hard­work­ing; and said: “These are the peo­ple you have to win if you’re a Democrat in suf­fi­cient num­bers to actu­al­ly win the elec­tion.” She didn’t win.

As a moment where we’re see­ing the white suprema­cist patri­ar­chal pow­er of abu­sive men sud­den­ly top­pling, it’s time for the pat­terns and prac­tices of the Democratic Party — the can­di­dates we put forth and the vot­ers we pur­sue — to change. Yesterday, black vot­ers in Alabama turned out in droves and chose Doug Jones, putting him in the Senate. Can Democrats fol­low their lead and chose an inclu­sive and effec­tive new way forward?
https://​www​.thedai​ly​beast​.com/​a​f​t​e​r​-​a​l​a​b​a​m​a​-​i​t​s​-​t​i​m​e​-​f​o​r​-​d​e​m​o​c​r​a​t​s​-​t​o​-​g​e​t​-​o​v​e​r​-​t​h​e​i​r​-​w​h​i​t​e​-​w​o​r​k​i​n​g​-​c​l​a​s​s​-​f​i​x​a​t​ion

by

Who Looks Out For Crime Victims When The Justice Ministry’s Goal Is The Interest Of Criminals?

The Jamaican peo­ple get noth­ing from Delroy Chuck’s so-called SENTENCE REDUCTION DAY.
The peo­ple get “NOTHING” from the give­away of these arbi­trary 50% reduc­tion in sentences,“ZERO”.
Why would the Government under any cir­cum­stances be engaged in giv­ing these mas­sive reduc­tions in sen­tences with­out get­ting any­thing in return?
The cost vast­ly out­weighs any per­ceived ben­e­fit which may be arrived at as it relates to unclog­ging the court dockets.
Now DELROY CHUCK is active­ly engaged in expung­ing the crim­i­nal records of con­vict­ed felons.
Andrew Holness PM
A felon’s record is a vital tool for law enforce­ment, why would a sin­gle indi­vid­ual be work­ing to dis­man­tle the foun­da­tions of law enforce­ment in a coun­try which is already flood­ed with crime?
The coun­try is alleged to have hun­dreds of gangs if at all those con­ces­sions are offered to offend­ers it should be to gath­er evi­dence on the Gangs and on indi­vid­u­als who are engaged in crim­i­nal activities.
Delroy Chuck Justice Minister
That intel­li­gence should not be just in the form of giv­ing police a few names but should be action­able intel­li­gence which bears fruits before the deal any deal is consummated.
So while the peo­ple clam­or for police account­abil­i­ty and police pro­duc­tiv­i­ty ele­ments of the Government are active­ly engaged in mak­ing the job of law enforce­ment expo­nen­tial­ly more difficult.
by - 1 Comment

Delroy Chuck’s Systematic Campaign To Empower And Help Criminals Is Shocking…

A cou­ple of things came up recent­ly which are worth documenting.
(1) Ninjaman was con­vict­ed of mur­der, not to be dis­re­spect­ful of any­one’s intel­lect but it’s worth men­tion­ing that get­ting con­vict­ed of mur­der means that you inten­tion­al­ly killed someone.
Period!
With that said, we’ll wait to see if star­dom will impact jus­tice in this case as we expect it to, so I’ll have much more to say about this after he is sentenced.

Desmond Ballentine o/​c Ninjaman

THE PROOF

(2) Yesterday I wrote about the harm “sen­tence reduc­tion” is doing and will be doing going for­ward. In that arti­cle, I made men­tion of Phillip Brown who mur­dered his preg­nant ex-girl­friend then wrapped her body in a tar­pau­lin and dumped the tarp in a gully.
Since then the courts have sen­tenced the accused Brown to 15 years under the sen­tence reduc­tion day fiasco.
He basi­cal­ly got a slap on the wrist for what is a dou­ble mur­der and the state got noth­ing for its largess.


Phillip Brown.….

Phillip Brown was charged with crack­ing his girl­friend’s skull with a ham­mer he was sen­tenced to 15 years impris­on­ment and will be eli­gi­ble for parole after serv­ing 10 years. Brown took advan­tage of sen­tence reduc­tion day by plead­ing guilty to killing his preg­nant girl­friend and was prompt­ly reward­ed with a slap on the wrist.

CHUCK ACTIVELY ENGAGED IN MAKING IT HARDER TO IDENTIFY CRIMINALS

I want to be on the record once again mak­ing the case that Delroy Chuck’s attempt at return­ing dan­ger­ous crim­i­nals to the streets will have seri­ous and even more far-reach­ing con­se­quences for the Island going forward.
Giving mur­der­ers and oth­er vio­lent felons the abil­i­ty to sim­ply plead guilty and receive 50% off the sen­tence they would nor­mal­ly receive is a give­away to crim­i­nals with­out ask­ing them for any­thing in return.
The penal­ty for cap­i­tal mur­der is already way too lenient, tak­ing into account that the Island already imposed on itself a mora­to­ri­um on cap­i­tal punishment.
How much more are law abind­ing Jamaicans expect­ed to take at the hands of these incom­pe­tent mon­grels who pur­port to be look­ing out for their interest?

Delroy Chuck

It is impor­tant to under­stand that if this sys­tem of “men” being pushed by Delroy Chuck con­tin­ues what we are going to end up with under the guise of free­ing up court dock­ets is a sys­tem in which dan­ger­ous mass killers are giv­en a pat on the wrist and released after just a few years in prison.
It is a trav­es­ty of jus­tice, a slap in the face of the vic­tims of crime in this coun­try which should not be allowed to continue.
Chuck not only wants to toss mur­der cas­es from court dock­ets if they have been on for 5 years, through his efforts dan­ger­ous mur­der­ers are hav­ing their sen­tences slashed in half all for a guilty plea with­out any ben­e­fit derived for the people.
addi­tion­al­ly, Delroy Chuck wants to remove con­vic­tions from the records of con­vict­ed felons giv­ing them fresh new starts which does not reflect their past crimes.

Delroy Chuck is sin­gle-hand­ed­ly engaged in dis­man­tling the very foun­da­tions which are need­ed to help law enforce­ment read­i­ly iden­ti­fy crim­i­nals and build­ing pro­files on them using their past crim­i­nal conduct.
Said Chuck “my min­istry have been work­ing to have the crim­i­nal records of per­sons expunged after a peri­od of time if they prove they have been suc­cess­ful­ly reha­bil­i­tat­ed”.

What kind of sys­tem allows a sin­gle indi­vid­ual or Ministry to sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly do so much harm to a society?
At a time when law enforce­ment needs all of the tools it can to iden­ti­fy crim­i­nals with a view to remov­ing them from soci­ety, ele­ments of the gov­ern­ment itself are active­ly engaged in a sys­tem­at­ic cam­paign to thwart their efforts to fight crime.

THE CASE IN QUESTION

Chuck, speak­ing to Jamaican media was ques­tioned about a twice-con­vict­ed crim­i­nal who was recent­ly admit­ted to prac­tice law on the Island. Chuck denied any knowl­edge of the case.

Buchanan

The twice-con­vict­ed  Isat Buchanan is now able to prac­tice law, you guessed it.….….….….….….…..in Jamaica.
According to the Jamaica Gleaner Isat Buchanan said that 21 years ago he was prepar­ing to trav­el over­seas when a neigh­bor asked him to deliv­er some cash to some­one in the United States. He says he was stopped at the Norman Manley International Airport and the author­i­ties con­fis­cat­ed the pack­ages and lat­er said that it con­tained drugs. He was even­tu­al­ly con­vict­ed and paid a fine of approx­i­mate­ly $1 mil­lion, but that was just the begin­ning of his legal dilemma.

In 1999, Buchanan said he was on a flight to Florida, in the US, when drugs were linked to him and he was giv­en a 10-year prison sen­tence. Five years ago, he enrolled at the Mona cam­pus of the University of the West Indies (UWI), and on Tuesday Buchanan was for­mal­ly called to the Bar.

How con­ve­nient that on both occa­sions on which he was caught break­ing the law and appro­pri­ate­ly con­vict­ed he claimed innocence?
Now that is real­ly not the issue here, any­one can claim what­ev­er they want as long as the soci­ety hold them account­able for their actions if they are guilty.
The real trav­es­ty of jus­tice is that the legal pro­fes­sion which is hav­ing seri­ous prob­lems with lawyers com­mit­ting crimes and being struck from the list of those allowed to prac­tice is now admit­ting felons who are twice con­vict­ed and served a 10-year prison sentence.

THE POLICE

Members of the Constabulary need all of the sup­port they can get, in Jamaica sup­port for the police is a rare com­mod­i­ty as such the police must be strate­gic in appre­ci­at­ing how and when to lever­age support.
As I have cred­i­bly laid out there are ele­ments with­in the Government which are active­ly engaged in dis­man­tling the struc­tures which aid and enhances law enforce­ment even as there are astro­nom­i­cal increas­es in vio­lent crimes.

This is a no, no, it’s against arrest pro­to­cols world­wide, yet Jamaican cops con­tin­ue to cuff sus­pects with their hands in front or not cuff them at all.

The office of pub­lic defend­er, the jus­tice min­istry, and INDECOM are only a few of the agen­cies which are active­ly aid­ing the esca­la­tion of crime.
Not nec­es­sar­i­ly through active com­mis­sion but through active omis­sion and by default.
These are not hyper­bol­ic rants but ver­i­fi­able facts, yet there is hard­ly any­one pay­ing atten­tion to these facts even as they com­plain about the police seem­ing inabil­i­ty to fight crime.

As I have said before there are some sim­ple steps the police can do to begin the process of lever­ag­ing sup­port as I believe there is a well of good­will out there for the police both at home and in the diaspora.
What is need­ed to acti­vate that good­will, how­ev­er, is a demon­stra­tion by the con­stab­u­lary that it is capa­ble of doing the most basic things correctly.

The police will be unable to lever­age sup­port for it’s more crit­i­cal tasks if it demon­stra­bly can­not com­plete the most basic of tasks.
For the aver­age per­son want­i­ng to sup­port the police begin­ning by believ­ing that they are capa­ble of hav­ing an impact on crime, there are some basic things which they need to see.
How about the police do the most basic things right, like safe­ly and deci­sive­ly mak­ing an arrest with­out look­ing like key­stone cops?
How about hand­cuff­ing all crim­i­nals, male and female with their hands behind their backs where their abil­i­ty to do harm to any­one while hand­cuffed is next to zero?

YouTube player

These are not things which can be laid at the feet of gov­ern­ment or any­one else, this is about police offi­cers incom­pe­tence and being clue­less about com­plet­ing the most basic parts of what they are sup­posed to do.

by

Sentence Reduction Day A Travesty Which Ignores Victims Sensibilities…

There is a case to be made for plea-bar­gain, many coun­tries use the mech­a­nism as a means to have a more flu­id sys­tem of jus­tice delivery.
According to nolo​.com, for exam­ple, Commander O.M. Pyre is charged with 20 counts of bur­glary after a spree of bur­glar­ies in his neigh­bor­hood. Assistant District Attorney Art Mills offers to drop the charges to two counts of bur­glary if Pyre pleads guilty right away. Pyre takes the deal because his sen­tence will be short­er and he will be eli­gi­ble for parole ear­li­er than if he were con­vict­ed on every charge at trial.
Another fair­ly obvi­ous ben­e­fit that defen­dants can reap from plea bar­gain­ing is that they can save a bun­dle on attor­neys’ fees, assum­ing they are rep­re­sent­ed by pri­vate coun­sel. It almost always takes a lot more time and effort to try a case than to nego­ti­ate and han­dle a plea bar­gain, so defense coun­sel typ­i­cal­ly charges a much high­er fee if the case goes to trial.

One of the key com­po­nents of the plea bar­gain mech­a­nism in the jus­tice sys­tem is to move cas­es along quick­ly to avoid a bot­tle­neck like that which exist in the Jamaican system.
However, it is impor­tant to note that the suc­cess of the mech­a­nism as it relates to nations like say the United States of America at the Federal lev­el there is a death penal­ty statute on the books.
Additionally, Most of the American States have the death penal­ty as a part of their penal code. Others that don’t have the death penal­ty, for exam­ple: New York State, they have strict laws which make cer­tain crimes pun­ish­able by life Imprisonment with­out the pos­si­bil­i­ty of parole.

On that basis for exam­ple when New York state nego­ti­ates with a mur­der arrestee who would nor­mal­ly face the death penal­ty if he was in Texas, New York begins from the posi­tion of life with­out the pos­si­bil­i­ty of parole.
So the offend­er who is of val­ue to law enforce­ment is able to avoid the por­tion of the law which would lock him up with­out the pos­si­bil­i­ty of parole yet he is faced with 20 – 25 years before he is eli­gi­ble for parole.
It is impor­tant to note that even then the offend­er would not be guar­an­teed re-entry into soci­ety unless his tenure while incar­cer­at­ed is exemplary.

Jamaica with its astro­nom­i­cal mur­der num­bers and clogged up courts sys­tem could ben­e­fit by using this mech­a­nism if its approached right.
However, Jamaica has cho­sen to adopt a piece­meal approach to this tried and proven mech­a­nism, spear­head­ed by the Justice Minister Delroy Chuch a crim­i­nal lov­ing lib­er­al who wants mur­der cas­es tossed from court dock­ets if they have been there for more than five years.

The course adopt­ed in Jamaica is one which is known as Sentence Reduction Day. In a nut­shell, in order to move cas­es along the Government declares cer­tain days as is char­ac­ter­ized before.
Defendants who take advan­tage of the deal the Government offers are guar­an­teed a 50% reduc­tion in their sen­tence, the peo­ple get noth­ing for that act of good faith.
Nothing!
The Government does­n’t even use the prospect of reduc­ing the sen­tence of dan­ger­ous killers by 50% to demand infor­ma­tion on oth­er dan­ger­ous criminals.
Nothing!

And so an ani­mal like Phillip Brown, the man who beat his preg­nant ex-girl­friend to death inside her Crystal Towers apart­ment in St Andrew last December, will see his sen­tence reduced by 50% and the fam­i­ly of the vic­tim gets nothing.
The police get noth­ing, but because he decid­ed to take respon­si­bil­i­ty for his bar­bar­ic act and the Government is unable to deliv­er on its most basic func­tion of secur­ing the pop­u­la­tion and deliv­er­ing jus­tice in a time­ly man­ner, this scum will receive a slap on the wrist.

Now, one could argue that I don’t know what his sen­tence will be.
True!
Nevertheless, when mur­der accused are giv­en 7 and 10 years in the same courts for felony mur­der it does not nec­es­sar­i­ly engen­der much con­fi­dence that this mon­ster, for exam­ple, will be real­ly made to pay for what is essen­tial­ly a dou­ble homicide.
And that ladies and gen­tle­men is the real issue.

Like & share.…

by

As Jamaica Confer Citizenship On Those In The Country Illegally, Here’s A Thought…

Steps tak­en by the Government to reg­u­lar­ize the sta­tus of peo­ple liv­ing in Jamaica ille­gal­ly is a step in the right direction.
Speaking at a swear­ing-in cer­e­mo­ny at the Police Officers’ Club in St Andrew for 47 for­eign nation­als who have been grant­ed Jamaican cit­i­zen­ship, nation­al secu­ri­ty min­is­ter Robert Montague said “We have many per­sons who came here ille­gal­ly. They have lived here, mar­ried and have chil­dren and grand­chil­dren, and have nev­er sort­ed out their sta­tus. We want to give them an oppor­tu­ni­ty to (become legal) Jamaican citizens.”

“It is the least we can do for those who have helped to build this econ­o­my and nation but, some­how, have nev­er sort­ed out their documents”.
“Jamaicans have gone else­where and ben­e­fit­ed from the oppor­tu­ni­ty to for­mal­ize their cit­i­zen­ship. It is now time for Jamaica to offer those on her shores the same opportunity.” 

There is not much to dis­agree with in the sen­ti­ments of the Minister. For decades Jamaicans have ben­e­fit­ed sig­nif­i­cant­ly from the largesse and gen­eros­i­ty of host nations which have opened their doors and allowed us in.
As a result of their benev­o­lence, tens of hun­dreds of thou­sands of Jamaicans lives, maybe mil­lions, have been pos­i­tive­ly impact­ed both at home and in their host countries.

Residually our coun­try has ben­e­fit­ted immense­ly from the gen­eros­i­ty of oth­er coun­tries which have opened their doors to allow us in. The ben­e­fit to our coun­try is incal­cu­la­ble with the mon­ey sent back to Jamaica for years rep­re­sent­ing Jamaica’s sec­ond largest for­eign exchange earner.
Additionally, Jamaica ben­e­fits from oth­er nation’s largess through edu­ca­tion and skills train­ing, it is only right that giv­en the chance that Jamaica should rec­i­p­ro­cate this good­will wher­ev­er possible.

CONVERSELY

With that said let us hope that the prop­er pro­to­cols are being fol­lowed com­men­su­rate with the pro­ce­dures, Jamaicans are sub­ject­ed to when they move to oth­er coun­tries. This is impor­tant par­tic­u­lar­ly as it relates to the fact that those con­ferred with cit­i­zen­ship arrived in the coun­try ille­gal­ly accord­ing to the Minister’s own admission.
The move to reg­u­lar­ize their sta­tus is indeed noble, how­ev­er, to sim­ply reg­u­lar­ize their sta­tus with­out any puni­tive com­po­nent attached, [mon­e­tary or oth­er­wise] is an open invi­ta­tion for ille­gal immi­grants to flood the coun­try and not nec­es­sar­i­ly for the right reasons.

Movement of peo­ple from coun­try to coun­try is as nat­ur­al as the air we breathe. Jamaica with its reg­gae music, white sandy beach­es, great food, and drink is a major draw for peo­ple around the world, despite our prob­lem with crime.
I urge the author­i­ties to be astute and judi­cious with the way they han­dle this process of accept­ing new peo­ple and bestow­ing cit­i­zen­ship on them.
Let the process be expan­sive and well thought out, rem­i­nis­cent of what Jamaican nation­als are sub­ject­ed to when we seek res­i­den­cy in oth­er countries.

Counterfeit shoes brought in by the Chinese..

The Government owes this to our coun­try and peo­ple to ensure that the Immigration process is not an ad-hoc process based on the whim and fan­cy of a sin­gle individual.
In today’s world of Terrorism, nar­cotics dis­tri­b­u­tion and oth­er transna­tion­al crimes, includ­ing ille­gal move­ment of arms and Kidnappings it is incum­bent that Government do due dili­gence, and emu­late best prac­tices from others.

It is unde­ni­able that many Haitians who broached our shores and set­tled in parts of Clarendon and oth­er parts of the coun­try did not come with our invi­ta­tion. They did not come with skills we need­ed which would nec­es­sar­i­ly be pos­i­tive­ly impact­ful to our country.
Despite this, they have been engaged in smug­gling mas­sive amounts of guns into our coun­try in col­lu­sion with Jamaican criminals.
Jamaican farm­ers have borne the brunt of this ille­gal part­ner­ship as they lose their live­stock to crim­i­nals who slaugh­ter them to exchange the car­cass­es for weapons in Haiti.

Chinese man charged in $50-mil­lion seizure of fake shoes

Chinese nation­als who come to our coun­try have stayed, many who stayed ille­gal­ly have flood­ed our mar­kets with coun­ter­feit goods, much of which are not what they pur­port to be, includ­ing food prod­ucts which are report­ed to be of sus­pect quality.
Many Colombians and oth­ers from South America who come to Jamaica have ingra­ti­at­ed them­selves into the crim­i­nal under­world and have con­tributed much accord­ing to sources, to the enhance­ment of the weapons and cocaine com­ing into our country.

Jamaican author­i­ties can ill-afford to be bleary-eyed about the way it hands out cit­i­zen­ship. As cir­cum­stances change across the globe peo­ple of all stripes will be look­ing for safer places (safer sub­jec­tive) to live and raise their families.
So too will crim­i­nal net­works be look­ing to find weak spots to set­tle and set up shop to fur­ther their crim­i­nal enterprises.
Someone has got to be look­ing out for the safe­ty and secu­ri­ty of the Jamaican Nation and peo­ple, sad to say I am not sure that the peo­ple who are sup­posed to be guid­ing the ship of state aren’t asleep at the tiller or worse, even know that they should care about this.

FOOTNOTE

In the penul­ti­mate arti­cle, I wrote I stat­ed that the per­son of inter­est in the arms cache Investigation (a woman) would prob­a­bly be released with­out any charges laid against her.
She has been released with­out charge albeit with a bond we are told.

Like & share.…