A recent event of much impor­tance is play­ing out in the upper ech­e­lons of the Jamaican soci­ety which has tremen­dous sig­nif­i­cance with­in the larg­er con­ver­sa­tion on crime and it is large­ly being ignored.

At the cen­ter of that storm is Red Hills Road Medical Doctor Jephthah Ford who has been con­vict­ed in the courts on charges that he attempt­ed to per­vert the course of justice.
The case demon­strates in clear unequiv­o­cal ways, polit­i­cal affil­i­a­tions, pow­er and how the over­ar­ch­ing sense of enti­tle­ment over-rides the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem and the impact it is hav­ing on crime overall.

It demon­strates how politi­cians, pow­er­ful monied cit­i­zens, and senior police offi­cers con­tin­ue to be the back­bone of the crime cul­ture through affil­i­a­tions and asso­ci­a­tions while using tear-jerk­ing sto­ries to jus­ti­fy col­lu­sion and com­plic­i­ty with uneth­i­cal and crim­i­nal behavior.
Additionally, it shows how the much-maligned low­er ranks of the police are used at dif­fer­ent points as scapegoats.
We see how good police work in the final analy­sis which net­ted a big fish can be the sub­ject of sub­ver­sion by senior police offi­cials and politicians.

The case involv­ing Jephthah Ford began in 2014 when he was arrest­ed and charged after he attempt­ed to bribe a police offi­cer to release two Surinamese men who had been caught with near­ly $60 mil­lion. He also request­ed the return of the con­fis­cat­ed funds. During the 10-day tri­al that start­ed in May, pros­e­cu­tor Joel Brown led evi­dence that Ford was caught on cam­era offer­ing a per­cent­age of the mon­ey seized to a police offi­cer in exchange for the release of the men and the funds.
The two for­eign­ers — Roshen Daniels and Murvin Reingold — were held after police inter­cept­ed a motor vehi­cle on Half-Way-Tree Road in St Andrew on April 7 and found US$533,886 and J$1.3 mil­lion. The men were lat­er tak­en to their apart­ment where the police seized an addi­tion­al US$3,000, J$700 and 55 Surinamese dol­lars. The two were sub­se­quent­ly charged with pos­ses­sion of crim­i­nal prop­er­ty and con­spir­a­cy to pos­sess crim­i­nal prop­er­ty but were freed of the charges when they appeared in court. Dr. Ford had con­tact­ed the offi­cer while the men were in cus­tody and request­ed a meet­ing to dis­cuss the case. During the meet­ing, Ford was cap­tured on cam­era ask­ing for the case against the men to be dis­missed. Ford told the court, dur­ing the tri­al, that he was try­ing to assist the Surinamese men by pre­vent­ing them from remain­ing in cus­tody because he feared they were going to be killed by the police. According to the JamaicaObserver​.com.

The charges and ulti­mate con­vic­tion of Ford is not the real issue here, even though it is extreme­ly rare and almost unheard of, that the promi­nent and well con­nect­ed upper-crust are charged, convicted,much less held account­able for their crimes.
The real issue in my esti­ma­tion are the peo­ple who have come out of the wood­work try­ing to influ­ence the already use­less lib­er­al courts not to impose a cus­to­di­al sen­tence on the now con­vict­ed felon, Jephthah Ford.

Getting lost in all of this is the integri­ty and com­mend­able actions of the police offi­cers involved in the inves­ti­ga­tions who could have done what many of them would have done giv­en the same set of cir­cum­stances but who chose to do the right thing.
Lastly, it demon­strates that despite the protes­ta­tions of those who would step for­ward to give char­ac­ter tes­ti­mo­ni­als on behalf of Ford he is no dif­fer­ent than any crit­ter which gets its tail caught in a crack.
Even as a retired Assistant Commissioner who is a known People’s National Party sup­port­er steps for­ward to give char­ac­ter evi­dence for Ford, the very accused Ford is on record smear­ing the police as a defense strategy.

POLITICIAN

Stepping to the fore to give char­ac­ter evi­dence on behalf of Jephthah Ford was #1 Minister of Culture, Gender Affairs, Entertainment and Sports Olivia Babsy” Grange.

Grange told the court that despite their polit­i­cal affil­i­a­tions, Grange being a mem­ber of the Jamaica Labour Party and Ford a for­mer People’s National Party politi­cian, he is her fam­i­ly doctor.
The min­is­ter explained that Ford was the one who diag­nosed her late moth­er with stage-four can­cer, after the doc­tors in Canada, where she was resid­ing, were unable to detect what was wrong with her. Grange said she felt respon­si­ble to give evi­dence in sup­port of Ford spite of her busy schedule.
Grange told the court she believed it would be a trau­mat­ic event were Jephthah Ford was to be giv­en a cus­to­di­al sen­tence for his crimes.
She described Ford as a car­ing per­son who has saved many lives and pro­vid­ed free health care to count­less indi­vid­u­als, admit­ted yes­ter­day that she was a “lit­tle emo­tion­al”.

In what could eas­i­ly pass as a won­der­ful exam­ple of bi-par­ti­san­ship, an exam­ple of how far we have come since the days when Labourites and Kumreds[sic] were killing each oth­er over pol­i­tics en-masse, this effort to influ­ence the courts is noth­ing more than an attempt to keep a mem­ber of the upper class from fac­ing real justice.
There is absolute­ly noth­ing wrong with giv­ing char­ac­ter evi­dence on behalf of some­one, in fact, it is a use­ful tool which gives the tri­al judge a work­ing idea of who the defen­dant real­ly is and is usu­al­ly instru­men­tal in mit­i­gat­ing what­ev­er sen­tence the court would nor­mal­ly apply.
However, in a small coun­try like Jamaica where it seems that only the lit­tle fish gets fried while the big fish gets thrown back, con­trary to con­ven­tion­al wis­dom, this sends a bad mes­sage, the optics are not good.

It demon­strates at the very least, a craven yet trans­par­ent attempt to once again usurp the process, to per­vert the course of jus­tice only this time using plat­i­tudes and sap­py tales instead of pounds of cash.
It is a vile attempt to con­tin­ue to keep the upper crust of the soci­ety from the hum­bling con­fines of penal confinement.
I have nev­er seen or heard of a sin­gle case where Ms. Grange have ever attempt­ed to offer char­ac­ter evi­dence for any­one from below Cross-Roads.

SENIOR POLICE

Forner Assistant Commissioner of Police Garnett Daley. #2

Former Assistant Commissioner of Police Daley anoth­er of the char­ac­ter wit­ness­es for Ford told the court the following.
That he came in con­tact with Ford while he was assigned to the Constant Spring Police Station, tes­ti­fied that he had known Ford for 40 years. He said he met Ford when he was a detec­tive inspec­tor and tes­ti­fied that dur­ing his tenure at the sta­tion Ford would assist the police with sick pris­on­ers and police offi­cers who were injured. The retired cop explained that for more than 20 years Ford would have treat­ed police offi­cers at his office if the envi­ron­ment at the Kingston Public Hospital (KPH) was not safe.

“I recalled an offi­cer who was shot and he was rushed to KPH — and this was the time when the vicin­i­ty of the KPH was very volatile — and I called Dr Ford and he rushed to KPH, where he exam­ined him and trans­ferred him to St Andrew Hospital, and that patient became his patient at that time,” Daley said. Samuels, dur­ing the exam­i­na­tion-in-chief, asked Daley if there were any oth­er med­ical doc­tors in the vicin­i­ty who would offer such services.

“I can’t recall,” Daley replied. “How would you view that?” Samuels asked Daley.“[As] a good ges­ture,” Daley replied. Daley told the court that Ford still main­tains a good rap­port with indi­vid­u­als in the com­mu­ni­ty. On cross-exam­i­na­tion, the pros­e­cu­tor ques­tioned Daley’s rela­tion­ship with the med­ical doc­tor. “For 20 years most of your inter­ac­tion would be work­ing?” the pros­e­cu­tor asked. “Yes, and I would see him from time to time,” Daley replied. jamaicaob​serv​er​.com

Garnet Daley was an Assistant Superintendent while I was there as a con­sta­ble attached to the CIB office.
Daley’s tes­ti­mo­ny though true in most regards does not tell the whole sto­ry. As a med­ical doc­tor, Ford is a sig­na­to­ry to what is known as the Hippocratic oath.
The Hippocratic oath is a pact to treat the ill to the best of one’s abil­i­ty, to pre­serve a patien­t’s pri­va­cy, to teach the secrets of med­i­cine to the next gen­er­a­tion, and so on. His ded­i­ca­tion to ser­vice as a doc­tor as artic­u­lat­ed by Daley and Grange is not unique to Ford, it is his job.
What they do not tell the court and won’t tell the court is that Ford’s prac­tice was well renowned in police cir­cles for treat­ing crim­i­nal gun­men who shunned the pub­lic med­ical facil­i­ties out of fear of being caught.
Ford’s atten­tion to the Hippocratic oath had pre­cious lit­tle to do with com­mu­ni­ty or ser­vice it was about his own nar­row self-interest.

Renowned lawyer Bert Samuels who is rep­re­sent­ing Ford has also offered him­self up to the court to give char­ac­ter evi­dence on behalf of his client.
Bert Samuels, Garnet Daley, and Ford com­plete the nice tight lit­tle tri­an­gle of PNP oper­a­tives cur­ry­ing favor to avoid the fair and jus­ti­fied dis­pen­sa­tion of Justice.
Grange is allow­ing her­self to be used in this process and it sends a bad mes­sage to the aver­age joe that the law applies only to the guy on the cor­ner and not the connected.

At a time when every tongue is wag­ging about police cor­rup­tion real or per­ceived, these offi­cers did the right thing and the courts have a duty to impose a sen­tence com­men­su­rate with the crime regard­less of the protes­ta­tions before it.
Those offi­cers could eas­i­ly have tak­en a bribe and walked away, they chose to do the right thing.
It is up to this court to do the right thing and send a mes­sage that regard­less of who you are and what you may have done with your life all are equal in the sight of the law.
Failing which we are all wast­ing our time talk­ing about cor­rup­tion and the esca­la­tion of crime.
We will await the outcome.

With seri­ous crimes at an all-time high and cit­i­zens clam­or­ing for answers, the Government is under tremen­dous pres­sure from both the Opposition and civ­il soci­ety to come up with solutions.
The Government while in Opposition did promise that if elect­ed to office Jamaicans would be able to sleep with their doors open.

I sup­port­ed this Administration’s push for elec­tive office because of the inept­ness and cor­rup­tion with­in the rul­ing PNP. I was nev­er delud­ed into think­ing that if the JLP was elect­ed to office the coun­try would go from over 1200 homi­cides annu­al­ly to peo­ple being able to sleep with their doors open.
Neither did I think that if elect­ed the JLP would be this inept on crime and con­cil­ia­to­ry to lob­by groups which are par­tial­ly dri­ving crime on the Island.

This Government’s absolute weak­ness and unwill­ing­ness to empow­er the secu­ri­ty forces has been a green light of acqui­es­cence to Gangland to con­tin­ue with their activities.
They have ele­vat­ed their activ­i­ties to nev­er before seen lev­els al-la Montego Bay which is now a ver­i­ta­ble war zone.

I thought that the JLP could in no way be worse than the PNP on the sin­gu­lar issue of crime, the jury is still out on that thought.
If one under­stand how soci­eties work then one begins to grasp why the issue of crime has been such a focus of mine.
If we fix our crime prob­lem we begin the process of fix­ing our eco­nom­ic and social ills, it is imper­a­tive there­fore that we invest the appro­pri­ate ener­gy and resources into ensur­ing that we have a cred­i­ble jus­tice sys­tem and a coun­try built on the rule of law.
All things which enrich peo­ple’s lives are derived from those principles.

The Opposition PNP has zero cred­i­bil­i­ty on the issue of crime, it has been in pow­er for much longer peri­ods of time than the gov­ern­ing JLP and has, in fact, presided over much of the decline in our coun­try, finan­cial­ly, moral­ly, eth­i­cal­ly and as it relates to the nation’s security.
The Government has now embarked on uti­liz­ing the plea-bar­gain mech­a­nism as one of the tools in the deliv­ery of jus­tice, not a ground­break­ing move by any stretch but wor­thy nonetheless.

Many peo­ple are upset about this move as they see it as yet anoth­er attempt by the sys­tem to allow the guilty to go free with a slap on the wrist.
This is not an unrea­son­able fear to have con­sid­er­ing that the courts have been will­ing and active co-con­spir­a­tors in the Island’s incred­i­ble crime rate.
The courts con­tin­ue to grant bail to defen­dants who have been charged with mur­der over and over and over, in some cas­es up to five or more times before they are required to answer the first mur­der charge.
Killing, receiv­ing bail and knock­ing off wit­ness­es in the case is the favorite course for the Island’s killers, the courts are all too will­ing to oblige.

In seek­ing to assuage those fears, the Island’s jus­tice Minister Delroy Chuck told local media “The pub­lic at large must appre­ci­ate that, when you offer a less­er sen­tence, it’s not being weak on crime but you have to take into con­sid­er­a­tion the strength of your case going for­ward,” the min­is­ter insisted.
“On the face of it, it may seem pre­pos­ter­ous or repug­nant that you’re giv­ing a non-cus­to­di­al to a per­son who is charged with a seri­ous crime, but if the evi­dence is unavail­able, which means the man will go total­ly free, it might be in the inter­est of jus­tice for him to plead guilty and get a sen­tence to com­plete the file.”

I’m unsure why a case would be on the dock­et for any peri­od of time with­out case com­ple­tion but that’s a ques­tion for a dif­fer­ent day.
It’s remark­able how a total­ly rea­son­able sound­ing posi­tion can become a bit­ter taste in one’s mouth because of the char­ac­ter of the messenger.
Much of what Chuck had to say are sim­ply com­mon sense issues which can be fixed with greater super­vi­sion of the peo­ple who han­dle the cas­es from inves­ti­ga­tors to pros­e­cut­ing attorneys.
There is noth­ing ground­break­ing in his state­ments, how­ev­er, this is the very same Delroy Chuck who wants cas­es over five (5) years old tossed from court dock­ets (includ­ing mur­der cas­es) as a sup­posed path to clean­ing up those same dockets.
To the casu­al observ­er, those demands seem like a some­what rea­son­able posi­tion to take if you exclude the mur­der cas­es from the equation.

“What is impor­tant is for the cas­es to be com­plet­ed, and it seems to me that the best way to ensure that is the pros­e­cu­tion in all the cas­es now on tri­al should make it a point of duty to start a for­mal nego­ti­a­tion – maybe a writ­ten let­ter to the accused’s attor­ney and hope that a response comes back from the attor­ney to say they have dis­cussed it with their client (and) they are reject­ing the offer, or they are pre­pared to go into a nego­ti­a­tion.”Said Chuck.

Nonsense, those pro­ce­dures should be cod­i­fied in law not left up to let­ter writ­ing in this day and age, with a hope that some­one will reply in order for an agree­ment to be reached on an issue as impor­tant as a plea deal.
The best approach is to have those pro­ce­dures cod­i­fied, it should be on the table for all cas­es (unless oth­er­wise spec­i­fied in law).
Since the death penal­ty is no longer on the table mur­der accused should be giv­en the option to take a plea for life with the pos­si­bil­i­ty of parole as against with­out the pos­si­bil­i­ty of parole.
It is because of the tar­di­ness and lack of seri­ous­ness in the penal­ties why cit­i­zens are incensed about this procedure.

A clos­er look reveals that it is usu­al­ly defense attor­neys who cause some of the delays because they have not been paid for their ser­vices, or sim­ply because they under­stand the sys­tem and know full well that drag­ging cas­es out will end in a non-pros­e­cu­tion for their clients.
So in essence, were the coun­try to take Delroy Chuck’s path it would be reward­ing mur­der­ers and adding legit­i­ma­cy to those prac­tices which were start­ed by defense attorneys.

It’s impor­tant to pay atten­tion to what some defen­dants said: ” we can buss di case”.
That trans­late into there are ways to beat being held account­able in the sys­tem, so there is no need for them to take a plea.
We have the tail wag­ging the dog in Jamaica and things are not about to get better.
The rea­son behind Jamaica’s two polit­i­cal par­ties reluc­tance to stand against crim­i­nal­i­ty is an open question.

A man walk­ing through a short­cut one day in haste and with the desire not to be late, unfor­tu­nate­ly, lost his left eye from a low hang­ing branch. Instead of doing the right thing by remov­ing the branch, he told him­self he would leave it there so some oth­er per­son could lose an eye like he did.
On his way home that evening he walked the same route and lo and behold the next per­son to lose an eye to the branch was him.
This time his right eye was gouged and he was left total­ly blind.

One of the morals of this lit­tle sto­ry is, be care­ful what you wish for oth­ers, as that which you wish for oth­ers may very well befall you.
There are how­ev­er oth­er morals we may extrap­o­late from that same sto­ry. For example
When faced with a threat remove it deci­sive­ly or it will even­tu­al­ly over­whelm you.

There is a pre­vail­ing tone-deaf­ness on crime which is evi­dent to every­one except for Jamaicans themselves.
The shock­ing loss of life which has become a reg­u­lar part of pop cul­ture leads one to con­clude that the Island has reached a crit­i­cal mass , which indi­cates that the vast major­i­ty of peo­ple left in Jamaica are either crim­i­nals or in some way asso­ci­at­ed with criminality.

I under­stand that-that is an insid­i­ous and shock­ing state­ment to make but how else can we explain the sense of res­ig­na­tion with the present condition?
How does one explain the dai­ly butcher­ing of our busi­ness­peo­ple who make up the back­bone of our country?
How do we explain the con­stant car­nage and blood­shed which elic­it not much more than raised eyebrows?
Do we con­tin­ue to make the same asi­nine state­ments about crime even as com­mu­ni­ties and homes look more and more like the admin­is­tra­tive­ly seg­re­gat­ed sec­tions of some American prisons?

In what nor­mal sit­u­a­tion does a small town like Montego Bay which depends on tourism for its very sur­vival have pro­longed gun­bat­tles between maraud­ing gun­men and law enforce­ment offi­cials? Which leads us to the only log­i­cal con­clu­sion we must all come to.
Separate and apart from the vicious polar­iza­tion of our soci­ety which pits laborites against Comrades, the ad hominem attacks one attract for demand­ing qual­i­ty ser­vice from those who are sup­posed to deliv­er them, the soci­ety has def­i­nite­ly changed and for the worse.

Remarkably, even some in the dias­po­ra who ben­e­fit from stricter rules which neces­si­tate bet­ter account­abil­i­ty have become cheer­lead­ers for the state of anar­chy which con­tin­ue to evolve, devolv­ing the soci­ety in the process.
Why would one send back guns instead of school­books and com­put­ers? Why would we be active apol­o­gists and cheer­lead­ers for the law­less­ness from the rel­a­tive safe­ty and secu­ri­ty of our safer com­mu­ni­ties overseas?

The San Diego Union-Tribune in June 2009 said, “Ships from Miami steam into Jamaica’s main har­bor loaded with TV sets and blue jeans. But some of the most pop­u­lar U.S. imports nev­er appear on the man­i­fests: hand­guns, rifles and bul­lets that stoke one of the world’s high­est mur­der rates.
The vol­ume is much less than the flow of U.S. guns into Mexico that ends up in the hands of drug car­tels – Jamaican author­i­ties recov­er few­er than 1,000 firearms a year. But of those whose ori­gin can be traced, 80 per­cent come from the U.S., Jamaican law enforce­ment offi­cials have said in inter­views with The Associated Press”.

The nar­ra­tive that crime is every­where has been a talk­ing point for many peo­ple for far too long. Unfortunately, the nar­ra­tive is chang­ing with each pass­ing day. We don’t hear that line so much these days because the killers are demon­strat­ing that this is no joke, they are in charge.
Nevertheless, there are still more than enough illit­er­ates who are inca­pable of extri­cat­ing their faces from the ass­es of politi­cians long enough to rec­og­nize that this is not about pol­i­tics it’s about the sur­vival of a nation.

Any polit­i­cal par­ty, politi­cian or any oth­er per­son who is not a part of the solu­tion they are a part of the prob­lem. Our coun­try needs solu­tions not mind­less bots who tra­verse social media look­ing to attack others.
Both polit­i­cal par­ties have con­tributed to the destruc­tion of our cul­ture and our nation since 1962, not all to the same degree but both are guilty.
When I speak out I do so in my own medi­um, I answer to no trash nei­ther am I behold­en to any irrel­e­vant polit­i­cal hack who spend their time on Mark Zuckerberg’s medi­um, I own mine which makes me answer­able to .……
Me.
My love of coun­try tran­scend the nar­row con­fines of polit­i­cal alle­giances cen­tered on what one can derive.
We owe it to our­selves and our off­springs to leave this land our fore-par­ents toiled and died for a bet­ter place. We have no oblig­a­tion to sur­ren­der it to mur­der­ers. and rapists.

As a Jamaican who served my coun­try I have a stake in my coun­try, I own prop­er­ty there, I have fam­i­ly there.I have no vest­ed inter­est in either polit­i­cal par­ty, I call balls and strikes regard­less of who’s at bat.
It is silence and blind igno­rant alle­giance to polit­i­cal par­ties which has brought us to this.
It will be vig­i­lance and unmit­i­gat­ed demand for account­abil­i­ty and action which will get us out of it.
There is lit­er­al­ly no one who does not have a fam­i­ly mem­ber friend or acquain­tance who has been gunned down raped or robbed on that tiny sliv­er of land.
It has to come to an end and the time to do it is now. There must be bet­ter and more sophis­ti­cat­ed law enforce­ment best prac­tices, not the kind we see play­ing out every day on social media plat­forms in which the police seem clue­less and help­less in the face of law­less onslaughts.

The imagery we see of heav­i­ly armed brazen punks are no dif­fer­ent than the images we see in Sub-Saharan Africa, in parts of South America and the Middle East or even some sec­tions of Mexico.
There is one word which char­ac­ter­izes those areas, it is “ungovern­able.”
Jamaica’s polit­i­cal lead­er­ship may con­tin­ue to put the love of pow­er over the coun­try or it can rec­og­nize the dire straits fac­ing the nation and begin an edu­ca­tion­al cam­paign which tells of the exis­ten­tial fight the nation is facing.

Jamaicans are not ungovern­able, Jamaicans are forced to fol­low laws in oth­er coun­tries. The prob­lem is that the lead­er­ship of the coun­try com­pris­ing both polit­i­cal par­ties have ced­ed the coun­try to inter­na­tion­al lob­by groups which have zero pow­er in their home coun­try to impact policy.
The Government made a good first step recent­ly by not send­ing a rep­re­sen­ta­tive to the con­fer­ence in Uraguay host­ed by the Inter America Commission on Human Rights.

It was a good first step even as the admin­is­tra­tion bun­gled the response by sug­gest­ing it did not send a rep­re­sen­ta­tive because of the title of the conference.
The first order of busi­ness is to tell those lob­by groups, we will pun­ish those who go out and will­ful­ly abuse our cit­i­zens but don’t ever tell us how to enforce our laws and keep our coun­try safe. If they can­not accept those assur­ances they should be shown the door.
The Government must unshack­le the police and ensure once again that those who would take inno­cent lives are under no illu­sions that theirs is fair game.

Police offi­cers are called on to set­tle dis­putes, save lives, be coun­selors, deliv­er babies, act as secu­ri­ty guards, secur­ing many who should be left to their own evil devices and do a pletho­ra of oth­er tasks.
Officers are expect­ed to be all things to all people.
And just in case you for­got, they are expect­ed to run toward the bul­lets when every­one else is run­ning away.

In today’s soci­eties, they are also required to be babysit­ters, it is instruc­tive to note that even when they do the babysit­ting and gath­er up the unwant­ed, unpro­tect­ed chil­dren and place them in the only place they have to place them, there are those who crit­i­cize them for plac­ing them in jail cells.
The idea that cops should always be on the look­out for stray­ing unpro­tect­ed chil­dren is one thing, the idea that they should not be placed in jails is another.
This issue is now off the table as there are now so-called places of safe­ty which cater to those needs.

It is against the back­ground of par­ents reneg­ing on their core respon­si­bil­i­ties to be good stew­ards of the chil­dren they bring into the world that these prob­lems still linger.
There is a seri­ous cri­sis as it relates to the way chil­dren are being cared for, which will only be fixed by seri­ous leg­is­la­tion which attach­es ade­quate puni­tive com­po­nents for par­ents who leave minor chil­dren alone to fend for themselves.
The police can­not be expect­ed to babysit peo­ple’s chil­dren and take care of the oth­er func­tions they are asked to attend to.
This crime wave the coun­try is present­ly engulfed in will only be exac­er­bat­ed if these minor chil­dren are left to their own devices.

Against that back­ground Superintendent of police in charge of the Parish of Manchester, Wayne Cameron told a meet­ing of the Manchester Council
“We do make the effort to get our stu­dents off the road, but I just want to say to you that parental respon­si­bil­i­ties must not real­ly rest with the police. Parents real­ly need to take a hold of their chil­dren and if they are to get home by a cer­tain time then that is real­ly the respon­si­bil­i­ty of the moth­er and father.”
Superintendent Cameron was respond­ing to a mem­ber of the parish coun­cil who want­ed an update on the cur­few orders in place for chil­dren to be off the street by a des­ig­nat­ed time.

The idea that cur­fews and con­tin­ued pres­sure on the police to fix every prob­lem are unre­al­is­tic on the front end.
As crime con­tin­ues to esca­late it is imper­a­tive that those in pow­er rec­og­nize that the chil­dren who roam the streets unpro­tect­ed today are the killers of tomorrow.
There is much talk with­in the pub­lic spaces about social inter­ven­tion as it relates to deal­ing with crime.
There is an old Jamaican proverb which says “you can­not bend a grown tree,“If social inter­ven­tion is to be added to the range of tools aimed at cor­rect­ing the nation’s down­ward tra­jec­to­ry now is the time to do it.

Social inter­ven­tion is uptown jar­gon which rolls of the lying decep­tive tongues of those with­in the elit­ist class who gov­ern and shape pol­i­cy. It is-is a dis­tant con­cept which absolves them from the hard work of actu­al governance.
Taking care of the youth through the process­es which ensure that those who bring chil­dren into the world take care of them, makes social inter­ven­tion a prac­ti­cal con­cept rather than an intel­lec­tu­al argument.

Many of the nation’s lead­ers at low­er lev­els of the food chain should in actu­al­i­ty be at the apex of the pyramid.

I hate to say “I told you so.”
But I did tell you so!
When the so-called ZOSO bill became pub­lic knowl­edge I wrote exten­sive­ly on the futil­i­ty of what the act rep­re­sent­ed, out­lin­ing fun­da­men­tal weak­ness­es in the frame­work of the pro­posed law, I went to great pains to tell the Jamaican peo­ple why this pro­pos­al was a non-starter.

Now accord­ing to our friends over at the Jamaica Gleaner (MoBay In Panic — 13 Murders In Six Days Spark Questions About ZOSO’s Effectiveness)

Business lead­ers, stake­hold­ers, and cit­i­zens in St James are now in pan­ic, tak­en aback at the state of crime in the parish after an aston­ish­ing 13 mur­ders over the past week.The spate of killings has left fright­ened res­i­dents won­der­ing if the calm brought on by the zone of spe­cial oper­a­tions (ZOSO) still under­way in Mount Salem is now com­plete­ly shat­tered. “We are in a cri­sis! The secu­ri­ty forces and the min­is­ter of nation­al secu­ri­ty seem clue­less of any method or process that would sup­port the ordi­nary cit­i­zen in secur­ing safe pas­sage as we go about our busi­ness,” declared attor­ney-at-law Nathan Robb, a for­mer pres­i­dent of the Montego Bay Chamber of Commerce and Industry (MBCCI).

“We all have to tra­verse the streets day and night, and at any point in time any­where in Montego Bay, a life can be tak­en, as these shoot­ings are not tak­ing place in some remote sec­tion of the city, or our so-called ghet­to com­mu­ni­ties, it is in the cen­ter of the city.”
He added, “Our lead­ers in Montego Bay have remained silent for fear of embar­rass­ing Government and their friends, out of fear that it will dam­age tourism, but crime is already dam­ag­ing those who work in the pro­duc­tive sec­tor, so devel­op­ment is ulti­mate­ly affected.”
Read more here: http://​jamaica​-glean​er​.com/​a​r​t​i​c​l​e​/​l​e​a​d​-​s​t​o​r​i​e​s​/​2​0​1​7​1​0​2​4​/​m​o​b​a​y​-​p​a​n​i​c​-​1​3​-​m​u​r​d​e​r​s​-​s​i​x​-​d​a​y​s​-​s​p​a​r​k​-​q​u​e​s​t​i​o​n​s​-​a​b​o​u​t​-​z​o​sos

As I said after the leg­is­la­tion became law, I would step aside and be silent so that the law can unrav­el in front of the eyes of the Jamaican people.
The pri­ma­ry point I have con­sis­tent­ly made is that this law was designed to pla­cate the pub­lic with an extreme­ly low like­li­hood it could pos­si­bly have any mea­sur­able pos­i­tive results to point to.

Many peo­ple thought I was too harsh on the law, oth­ers believed I was being polit­i­cal, go figure.
As I said then I did not need to wait to see that a bar­rel rolling down­hill unob­struct­ed toward the ocean, would actu­al­ly end up in the ocean.
It is at best naive and worse case rather stu­pid to expect good results from bad policy.

Here’s the unadul­ter­at­ed fact, at this rate Jamaica is going to end up a failed state, we are extreme­ly close to it.
This is pos­si­ble because the peo­ple elect­ed to lead have demon­strat­ed their alle­giance to inter­est groups with roots over­seas, rather than attend to the safe­ty and secu­ri­ty of the country.

To those adopt­ing the talk­ing points of the clue­less class of upper Saint Andrew, talk­ing about meth­ods of polic­ing, I say many of you even as cops were at best win­dow dress­ings, “what do you know about effec­tive policing”?
There is only one solu­tion for deal­ing with these mur­der­ing scums who kill at will, tough, no-non­sense take no pris­on­ers polic­ing, their choice.
As long as the Government and oppo­si­tion par­ty con­tin­ue to give tac­it sup­port to crim­i­nals by shack­ling the secu­ri­ty forces, the lives of peo­ple will have zero val­ue in this coun­try which has become a par­adise for criminals.

Amidst the killings tak­ing place in Jamaica is a dark back­sto­ry which speaks to the seri­ous­ness of the mur­ders, it ought to send a shiv­er up the spine of every­one with an inter­est in our country.
Even as the Government pats itself on the back for the sta­t­ic sup­pres­sion mech­a­nism it has put in place, the blood­let­ting con­tin­ues unchecked.
All of this while sol­diers and police offi­cers are stand­ing around search­ing the back­packs of chil­dren going to school.

If you care about Jamaica it behoove you to care about what is hap­pen­ing to her, if you have a law enforce­ment back­ground you def­i­nite­ly under­stand that what has been insti­tut­ed as a crime sup­pres­sion mech­a­nism is a pub­lic rela­tions stunt designed to placate.
This is not about pol­i­tics it is about pro­fes­sion­al­ism and pro­duc­ing results. At some point in time, we have to shed the gang col­ors and think about the black gold and green.

For starters, there have been no few­er killings as a result of the cha­rade the Government has put in place. In fact look­ing at the imagery of the Zones of Special Operations it reeks of grade-school-ism, kids play­ing cops and rob­bers even.
Of course, this child’s play should have been expect­ed, I cer­tain­ly did all I could to draw atten­tion to its ridicu­lous nature. What else would any­one expect when we have rank ama­teurs and polit­i­cal hacks design­ing crime poli­cies and poor­ly trained feck­less and afraid ama­teurs exe­cut­ing those strategies?

Last July Richard Ramdial was mur­dered in broad day­light as he sat in his car in traf­fic, yes­ter­day October 23^rd his father Dennis Ramdial was mur­dered at his busi­ness place on Beechwood Avenue in Kingston.

Whenever these kinds of killings occur mem­bers of the pub­lic are left to spec­u­late as to the rea­sons they happen.
Because they were busi­ness­men, the ini­tial assump­tions in the absence of prop­er inves­ti­ga­tions and arrests, are that they were not giv­ing in to the demands of extortionists.
Fair assump­tions to make, which makes these killings even more ter­ri­fy­ing and the need to stop them more pressing.
Then there are those who jump to the con­clu­sion that maybe they were involved in some activ­i­ties which were unto­ward. As if that pos­si­bil­i­ty jus­ti­fies what­ev­er fate is met­ed out to them.
Those assump­tions unwit­ting­ly miss the deep tragedy of the killings them­selves, giv­ing thought instead to con­coct­ed maybe this and maybe that over the real and present dan­ger the killings indicate.

There is no short­age of experts in Jamaica, every­one has hifa­lutin ide­al­is­tic twen­ty-sec­ond-cen­tu­ry ideas [sic]on what to do to rein in this murder-monster.
In the ridicu­lous mud­dle of lawyers, philoso­phers, politi­cos and oth­ers who have no busi­ness shap­ing pol­i­cy but does any­way, amidst the omnipresent wannabes, they all miss a cru­cial fact.
We are liv­ing in the twen­ty-first cen­tu­ry, our prob­lems require fix­es of now, not [super galac­ti­cal fix­es of the myth­i­cal star-trek type].
Our coun­try has become far too enam­ored with the ideals of the devel­oped world which we are not yet ready for. We have tak­en on a men­tal­i­ty befit­ting Scandinavia. Societies built on wealth accu­mu­lat­ed through cen­turies of African exploita­tion, racial homoge­nous soci­eties, soci­eties which first estab­lished the rule of law as the bul­wark of their foundations.

Most west­ern European soci­eties estab­lished the rule of law as their foun­da­tions, they are wealthy states which do not wel­come new and dif­fer­ent peo­ple into their societies.
Those soci­eties are bound to have low crime.
Jamaica has decid­ed to emu­late those coun­tries and is apt to point to their law enforce­ment meth­ods with­out under­stand­ing the fun­da­men­tals which are behind the low crime rates in west­ern Europe and par­tic­u­lar­ly in the Scandinavian region.

In a sen­tence, after 55 years Jamaica has demon­strat­ed an unwill­ing­ness to estab­lish the rule of law as the foun­da­tion for our par­lia­men­tary democ­ra­cy but wants to have the rel­a­tive tran­quil­i­ty of the states which have.
In essence, like most of the African nations still strug­gling to shake off the last ves­tiges of their colo­nial­ist past Jamaica’s polit­i­cal lead­ers too have failed mis­er­ably at fig­ur­ing out how to set the coun­try on a sus­tain­able path forward.

Our coun­try is at a cross­roads, now is the time, if ever at all we are going to arrest the decline we must do so now.
The coun­try is awash in high pow­ered weapons and a seem­ing­ly end­less sup­ply of ammu­ni­tion. In 2010 we wit­nessed that there were the desire and the capa­bil­i­ty among ele­ments of the soci­ety to chal­lenge the con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly elect­ed gov­ern­ment through force of arms.

Prior to that and since then admin­is­tra­tions of both polit­i­cal par­ties have been derelict in ful­fill­ing their respon­si­bil­i­ties and in many cas­es may be char­ac­ter­ized as co-con­spir­a­tors in the wave of crime which con­tin­ue to wash over the coun­try tak­ing the final under­pin­nings of the coun­try we once knew.

While the rev­e­la­tions of large weapons and ammu­ni­tion finds at var­i­ous entry points by the secu­ri­ty forces are cause for cel­e­bra­tion they also leave many ques­tions unanswered.

Even as I say kudos to the secu­ri­ty forces, I can­not shake the uneasy feel­ing I have and the knot in my throat from think­ing that the caches found may rep­re­sent what the smug­glers want to give to author­i­ties as they slip larg­er quan­ti­ties of weapons right past their noses.

In addi­tion to that, I must again raise the ques­tion why?
Why are the secu­ri­ty forces unable to set up sting oper­a­tions to nab who­ev­er comes to claim the illic­it consignments?
Why can’t the police and mil­i­tary intel­li­gence coor­di­nate with their American coun­ter­parts to stop the flow of American guns and ammu­ni­tion into the Island?

It is a well-doc­u­ment­ed fact that drug car­tels have used this time-test­ed strat­e­gy to divert atten­tion away while they pass huge amounts of con­tra­band undetected.
If Jamaican author­i­ties are to have real suc­cess in this fight it has to think two steps ahead of the crim­i­nal net­works oper­at­ing bi-costal­ly in fur­ther­ance of crime on the Island.

The secu­ri­ty forces can­not allow itself to be lured down rab­bit holes chas­ing after lures intend­ed to dis­tract from the real prize.
We hear the very ger­mane ques­tion all the time, where do these poor urban kids get mon­ey to pur­chase these sophis­ti­cat­ed weapons and seem­ing­ly end­less sup­plies of ammunition?
The answers are star­ing us all in the face. There are Jamaicans liv­ing in the United States who are active­ly send­ing these weapons and ammu­ni­tion back into Jamaica in many cas­es using inge­nious meth­ods to avoid detection.

The method­olo­gies being employed by crim­i­nals in fur­ther­ance of their objec­tives are increas­ing­ly ingenious.
With the lim­it­ed train­ing, exper­tise, resources, and cor­rup­tion with­in the secu­ri­ty forces, Jamaica is at a dis­tinct disadvantage.
I can­not shake the feel­ing we are chas­ing the pen­nies while miss­ing the dollars.

I under­stand how size­able finds can be a cause of eupho­ria for the men and women in the field. In fact, when I served I was extreme­ly ecsta­t­ic when I removed a sin­gle gun from the streets.
Nevertheless, those finds must rep­re­sent the begin­ning of inves­ti­ga­tions, not the end.
In the lat­est find police revealed that they arrest­ed one per­son. The inves­ti­ga­tion must now begin in earnest. It should not be about run­ning To the near­est micro­phone but should be cen­tered now on secur­ing a war­rant for this sus­pec­t’s cell­phone with a view to see­ing who he has been talk­ing to over­seas in recent times and what are the con­tents of those conversations.

The idea that some­one can ship a con­tain­er out of the United States or any oth­er coun­try for that mat­ter with­out expos­ing him or her­self sub­stan­tial­ly is a con­cept which eludes me.
I fun­da­men­tal­ly believe Jamaican author­i­ties are not doing near­ly enough to fol­low up on these ship­ments with law enforce­ment over­seas with a view to iden­ti­fy­ing those who send guns ammu­ni­tion and oth­er con­tra­band into the country.

These cas­es are won­der­ful oppor­tu­ni­ties for the Jamaican police to demon­strate that they are capa­ble of inves­ti­gat­ing crimes.
Bringing those respon­si­ble to jus­tice wher­ev­er they are is the great­est deter­rent to those involved in these illic­it practices.
Failing which, the police will be left cel­e­brat­ing these finds, the lion’s share of the illic­it activ­i­ties will con­tin­ue and the nation will con­tin­ue to be inun­dat­ed with ille­gal guns.