HOUSTON — A Texas sher­if­f’s deputy who was indict­ed along with her hus­band on mur­der charges in the death of a man they con­front­ed out­side a restau­rant has been fired, author­i­ties announced Friday.

Harris County Sheriff’s Deputy Chauna Thompson’s fir­ing came after the con­clu­sion of an inter­nal affairs probe which fol­lowed com­plaints by the vic­tim’s fam­i­ly that the inves­ti­ga­tion into the man’s death was mishandled.

The inves­ti­ga­tion reviewed the actions of Thompson — who was off-duty dur­ing the May 28 Houston-area con­fronta­tion with 24-year-old John Hernandez — as well as those of var­i­ous sher­if­f’s office per­son­nel who had respond­ed to the scene.

“While our in-depth inves­ti­ga­tion uncov­ered no evi­dence of nefar­i­ous actions on the part of our on-duty per­son­nel who worked the ini­tial inci­dent scene, we did find areas in which we must improve as a depart­ment,” Sheriff Ed Gonzalez said in a statement.

Gonzalez did not offer details on these deficiencies.

“However, we will learn from the trag­ic death of John Hernandez,” Gonzalez said.

Greg Cagle, Chauna Thompson’s attor­ney, did­n’t imme­di­ate­ly return a call Friday seek­ing com­ment. Thompson had been sus­pend­ed with­out pay since she and her hus­band were indict­ed on June 8.

The sher­if­f’s office also announced that one sergeant was sus­pend­ed for five days, one deputy was sus­pend­ed for one day and put on pro­ba­tion for 30 days and two oth­er sergeants received let­ters detail­ing the need for coun­sel­ing or addi­tion­al training.

Chauna Thompson, 45, and her hus­band Terry, 41, are accused of caus­ing the death of Hernandez fol­low­ing a con­fronta­tion out­side Denny’s restau­rant in Sheldon, an unin­cor­po­rat­ed com­mu­ni­ty 17 miles (27 kilo­me­ters) north­east of Houston. Hernandez died at a hos­pi­tal on May 31. A med­ical exam­in­er ruled that he died of lack of oxy­gen to the brain caused by stran­gu­la­tion and chest compression.

Authorities allege Terry Thompson con­front­ed an intox­i­cat­ed Hernandez after see­ing him uri­nate in pub­lic, and placed him in a choke­hold. Chauna Thompson arrived lat­er to help her hus­band sub­due and restrain Hernandez.

Some wit­ness­es said they plead­ed with Terry Thompson to let go of Hernandez but that he refused.

Hernandez’s fam­i­ly has remained crit­i­cal of the inves­ti­ga­tion, say­ing deputies at the scene did­n’t inter­view poten­tial wit­ness­es and ini­tial­ly tried to have an assault charge filed against Hernandez. http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/texas-deputy-charged-murder-fired-article‑1.3347128

Minneapolis police chief Janeé Harteau has resigned after her depart­ment was rocked by an offi­cer-involved shoot­ing that she slammed as “unnec­es­sary.”

Harteau resigned Friday evening, less than a week after her offi­cer Mohamed Noor shot and killed Justine Damond, who had called 911 to report a pos­si­ble sex­u­al assault out­side her house.

Damond, a 40-year-old med­i­ta­tion teacher sched­uled to be mar­ried next month, was fatal­ly shot as she approached the police cruis­er and the cops were star­tled by a loud sound.
Minneapolis Mayor Betsy Hodges had expressed shock at the shoot­ing, and on Friday tried to explain the shake-up.

“We need new lead­er­ship at” the depart­ment, Hodges said at a Friday night news con­fer­ence. “We are not slow­ing the pace of our transformation.”

But pro­test­ers were angry with Hodges’ own lead­er­ship and quick­ly shut down her news conference.
“We want you to step down just as your Chief Harteau did,” a pro­test­er yelled. “We want you to take your staff with you because they have ter­ror­ized us enough.”
Hodges made a failed bid to calm the jeers.

“I hear and under­stand your objec­tions,” she said before the news con­fer­ence was drowned out by shout­ing. “I am hap­py to sit down and talk with peo­ple here in Minneapolis.”

Harteau said ear­li­er Friday that she was step­ping aside to allow “a fresh set of lead­er­ship eyes” to look at how to fix the department’s problems.

“Last Saturday’s tragedy, as well as some oth­er recent inci­dents, have caused me to engage in deep reflec­tion,” she said in a state­ment, refer­ring to Damond’s death.

“Justine did­n’t have to die,” Harteau said Thursday of the shoot­ing, adding that the evi­dence sug­gests it should not have happened.

Cops star­tled by ‘loud sound’ before shoot­ing of Justine Damond

An attor­ney for Noor, who along with his part­ner Matthew Harrity has been placed on admin­is­tra­tive leave, said that his client feared an ambush when he was arriv­ing on scene.

Damond, in her pyja­mas, was unarmed, accord­ing to the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, which is investigating.

The BCA said Friday that Noor, a 31-year-old offi­cer with less than two years’ expe­ri­ence in the depart­ment, has refused to be inter­viewed about what happened.

Outrage over Damond’s death, felt in her native Sydney as well as across the U.S., comes as the nation­al con­ver­sa­tion on police-involved shoot­ings has cen­tered on the Twin Cities.

Damond’s fam­i­ly has hired the same lawyer as the fam­i­ly of Philando Castile, a 32-year-old cafe­te­ria work­er killed by an offi­cer at a sub­ur­ban St. Paul traf­fic stop last year.

St. Anthony offi­cer Jeronimo Yanez was acquit­ted of charges includ­ing manslaugh­ter last month.

Castile’s moth­er Valerie Castile attend­ed a ral­ly in sup­port of Damond’s fam­i­ly and met with her fiancé Don on Thursday night.

Minneapolis police also came under scruti­ny for the con­tro­ver­sial shoot­ing death of Jamar Clark in November 2015.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/minneapolis-police-chief-resigns-justine-damond-death-article‑1.3346120

Like it always was so it was yes­ter­day morn­ing as gun­men sprayed the Denham Town Police sta­tion with high pow­ered weapons fire.
Oh in case you are won­der­ing the Independent Commission of Investigations (INDECOM) is con­duct­ing an investigation.
Gotta have that.

According to the police ear­ly yes­ter­day Tuesday, July 18^th about forty(40) men armed with high pow­ered weapons launched an assault on the Denham Town Police station.
The police the­o­rized that the attack was retal­i­a­tion because they inter­vened between the gang of men known as the Young Generation gang from Tivoli Gardens and anoth­er gang from DenhamTown.

According to reports even with the increased inci­dence of vio­lence in West Kingston and as rival gangs grap­ple for con­trol of turf, both the Jamaica Constabulary Force and Jamaica Defence Force have strate­gi­cal­ly placed their mem­bers at hotspots with­in the com­mu­ni­ties, act­ing as buffers between rival gangs. However, despite the buffers, gun­men are deter­mined to launch attacks.
That is noth­ing new they have destroyed police sta­tions before and the Government have apol­o­gized to them.
Why would they not con­tin­ue to launch attacks on the police?

HOLD THAT THOUGHT …

I expe­ri­enced it in the mid 80’s as we took fire, we were asked not to return fire by the polit­i­cal com­mand­ing offi­cer in charge.
We had gone there from the mobile Reserve to give sup­port to their staff exact­ly because they were con­stant­ly com­ing under attack from mer­ce­nar­ies from Tivoli Gardens.
We did return fire, for the record.

IN THE MEANTIME.

While our police are com­ing under attack by hordes of heav­i­ly armed thugs the Jamaican Prime Minister has his own ideas on how the secu­ri­ty forces should respond to the exis­ten­tial threats posed by the thugs.

These are a few of the police offi­cers and sol­diers who will be going into the so called zones of spe­cial oper­a­tions which will be des­ig­nat­ed by the Government of Andrew Holness as a strat­e­gy to deal with the increas­ing­ly seri­ous issue of vio­lent crime on the Island.

In oth­er words, they are to be human sac­ri­fices, effec­tive­ly plac­ing them­selves between heav­i­ly armed thugs but they must ensure that they do not harm the hair on any­one’s head. As they were asked to do in 2010, they are once again being placed on the altar of polit­i­cal cor­rect­ness to sat­is­fy the elites and for the admin­is­tra­tion’s polit­i­cal survival.

A brief syn­op­sis of this sce­nario goes like this.
Honess is cling­ing to a sin­gle seat major­i­ty in the legislature.
Crime and vio­lence are at an all time high and get­ting worse. If Holness had a big­ger cush­ion he would­n’t give a rats ass about the mount­ing dead bodies.

But he did promise that if he won Jamaicans would be able to sleep with their doors open.
He would prob­a­bly like to see that hap­pen unfor­tu­nate­ly for the Prime Minister wish­ing and wait­ing is not a crime strategy.
The nation is expe­ri­enc­ing unprece­dent­ed lev­els of law­less­ness on his watch so the panacea ‚the zones of spe­cial oper­a­tions act is born.[sic]

Interestingly Holness has an obstruc­tion­ist and intran­si­gent oppo­si­tion nip­ping at his heels and a large group of crim­i­nal sup­port­ing lob­by­ists yelling in his ears.
The aver­age Jamaican being slaugh­tered and their fam­i­lies are damned.
So we get a law which will basi­cal­ly flood ghet­tos des­ig­nat­ed by Holness with active bodies.The bod­ies of sol­diers and police.
The only prob­lem with this fraud­u­lent scheme is that the killers will sim­ply move to an area not occu­pied by those law enforce­ment bodies.

Jamaicans in the coun­try areas can look for a lot of new faces com­ing into their com­mu­ni­ties and a flare-up of killings across the board.
That is because this strat­e­gy which some serv­ing and polit­i­cal­ly moti­vat­ed ex-offi­cers tell me needs time will not work.
It is a strat­e­gy designed to show force at the expense of police bod­ies and a hope crime will be low­ered by just their pres­ence. It is not a real crime strategy.

Neither this Administration nor the Opposition par­ty has a real desire to see crime reduced in a sub­stan­tive way.
Eradicating this scourge from the coun­try requires courage and resolve some­thing nei­ther par­ty has.
This is no longer minor leagues we are deal­ing with Pros, unfor­tu­nate­ly for the good and decent peo­ple being vic­tim­ized by crime and liv­ing in fear and ter­ror, they have minor lea­guers as their leaders.

They have it in them to throw the bums out at the next elec­tions and con­tin­ue doing so until they get the kind of lead­er­ship they need.
This is absolute­ly not it.
This is smoke and mir­rors, a gross abdi­cat­ing of duty.

As news emerged that a bunch of police offi­cers may be arrest­ed soon for alleged breach­es of the law new infor­ma­tion sur­faced that police offi­cers from one of the branch­es of the force actu­al­ly accost­ed the men who assas­si­nat­ed busi­ness­man Richard Ramdial last Tuesday at around 4: 30 pm and released them.
According to Élan Powell Assistant Commissioner of Police with respon­si­bil­i­ty for crime “at the time, the cops were sat­is­fied that the men were clear, hav­ing searched them and checked their hands for gun pow­der residue”.
Shockingly, Powell says the vehi­cle was stopped after the police con­trol broad­cast a radio trans­mis­sion detail­ing the get­away car and its license plate number.
If you are in shock at read­ing this so am I from hear­ing it.

Having policed the streets of Kingston and oth­er towns and vil­lages with some of the very best anti-crime offi­cers any­where in the world I have tried to give the offi­cers in the case the ben­e­fit of the doubt.
I have tried plac­ing myself in their shoes and mulled the sce­nario as it may have occurred over and over in my head and I can­not find a sin­gle rea­son or sit­u­a­tion in which this would have hap­pened on my watch.

Whether it’s Bigga Ford or Parra Campbell, Dadrick Henry or Mckinnis, Allan Campbell or Little Wicked I can­not imag­ine any of these anti-crime cops stop­ping a car in which the plates on the vehi­cle match­es one from police dis­patch and the occu­pants are released.
Jamaican cops are par­tic­u­lar­ly hes­i­tant about get­ting involved, par­tic­u­lar­ly as it relates to the deten­tion of suspects.
With the traps and snares the gov­ern­ment placed in their way, I total­ly under­stand their appre­hen­sion about putting them­selves in legal jeopardy.

Because of the INDECOM Act, police offi­cers have to be dou­bly sure that they are 100% inhu­man­ly per­fect and cor­rect before and dur­ing their inter­ac­tion with even the most vio­lent and dan­ger­ous criminals.
In this case, how­ev­er, offi­cers on the streets respond­ing to infor­ma­tion put out by dis­patch is pro­tect­ed from lia­bil­i­ty because they are act­ing on infor­ma­tion from the con­trol room.

Set aside those con­cerns. The most con­se­quen­tial state­ment Powell made is that the offi­cers took it upon them­selves to car­ry out an arcane field test for gun­pow­der residue on the hands of the sus­pects before releas­ing them.
Powell the man tasked with han­dling the nation’s crime was nev­er a crime fight­er him­self but I want to be fair to him in this even though the ridicu­lous nature of the police sto­ry begs derision.

I was not aware that the police had the means to do field tests for gun­pow­der residue? I guess as far as the offi­cers are con­cerned the sus­pects passed the smell test[sic].
It is not every day that killers get appre­hend­ed min­utes after they kill. If the alle­ga­tions, in this case, are true, it makes it dou­bly dis­tress­ing that these men were released.

If the plates matched that giv­en by police dis­patch under no cir­cum­stances could the police ratio­nal­ly release the occu­pants of the car regard­less of who they are, what they had or did not have.
The most fun­da­men­tal piece of infor­ma­tion giv­en to the police was the plate num­ber. As a for­mer Investigator, I can tell you there are far too many changes which could have occurred between the time mis­ter Ramdial was gunned down and the car was stopped.
Regardless of weapons, gun­pow­der, or any oth­er excul­pa­to­ry fac­tor with the occu­pants of that par­tic­u­lar car they were not going any­where were I in the shoes of these officers.

So we are left with a sit­u­a­tion in which a few things comes to mind. In the first instance.
(1) Corruption in the mind of the anti-police trolls.
Hard to make that case as time and the sever­i­ty of the crime mil­i­tate against this. Possible yes prob­a­ble no.
(2)Incompetence. Possibly yes.
(3) Too col­le­giate? Possibly.
(4) Too timid and afraid? Highly Possibly.

No mat­ter how you slice this, if the infor­ma­tion pre­sent­ed is true this is sim­ply one of the most bone­head­ed occur­rences to ever hap­pen in the JCF. This is only one more log on the fire of dis­con­tent and dis­il­lu­sion­ment with the Jamaica Constabulary Force.
These are unforced errors which the JCF sim­ply can­not con­tin­ue to use to beat itself.
For years the JCF has done a shit­ty job of recruit­ment, back­ground checks, spot­ting and root­ing out bad appli­cants to the agency.
Yes, the Jamaican soci­ety is as cor­rupt as most oth­er coun­tries, offi­cers have to come from that dirty pool. It can­not be ignored how­ev­er that the awe­some pow­er giv­en to the poor­est peo­ple would gar­ner immense scrutiny.

The incred­i­ble incom­pe­tence and cor­rup­tion dis­played by far too many in the JCF have caused even some who served to become crit­ics at large.
The truth is they knew they were no good yet they were able to get in.
Now they are the most vocal crit­ics of the force. Such is it when the agency allows itself time and again to be the Barney Fyffe of law enforcement.
The worse of the worse have much to say.

I’ll await the out­come of Élan Powell’s investigations.

Those who view the killings and the gen­er­al sense of law­less­ness in Jamaica with con­ster­na­tion may be miss­ing a fun­da­men­tal fact.

Jamaica, like oth­er Caribbean Islands, comes from a colo­nial past.
The Independence procla­ma­tion of August 1962 and the hand­ing over of Jamaica to its dark­er skinned sec­ond-tiered caste for lead­er­ship did not result in the end of either racism or casteism.

Today mon­ey and for­mal edu­ca­tion dic­tate who sit atop the social peck­ing order. This does not nec­es­sar­i­ly mean that skin pig­men­ta­tion or the lack there­of does not go a long way in decid­ing status.

Average Jamaicans still embrace the con­cept of the big man. The “big-man “accord­ing to Jamaican ver­nac­u­lar is any­one they view as vest­ed with power.
Those of a lighter skin col­or, monied or edu­cat­ed or all of the fore­gone is cer­tain­ly not shy about being the big fish in the lit­tle pond.
A con­vo­lut­ed sys­tem of patron­age and elitism.

Then there is the impov­er­ished urban black youth who were once tools of the polit­i­cal class. As a mat­ter of sur­vival, many were forced to align them­selves to either of the two polit­i­cal parties.
Often times not nec­es­sar­i­ly out of choice but because of the zip code in which they come of age.

Over the years the lure of the big city the prospect of an eas­i­er life has act­ed as a mag­net to draw young men and women to Kingston and to some extent Montego Bay.
In very short order the vast major­i­ty of them are forced to rec­og­nize that the lure and lights of the city are like an unat­tain­able mirage.
Ultimately they too end up in the slums of the city, des­ti­tute, dis­en­chant­ed and disillusioned.
Politicians are ill-equipped to hand out good­ies today as they once were able to do in yes­ter­year. As such con­trol of the cities, urban youth have grad­u­al­ly slipped from their grasp.

Urban sprawl became a fac­tor, many of the dis­il­lu­sioned seek­ing a bet­ter life in the cities and towns end­ed up on lands they cap­ture in and around the met­ro­pol­i­tan areas. Shanty towns emerged in and around the met­ro­pol­i­tan areas of Kingston, Spanish Town, Montego Bay, May Pen and others.
Those Shanty-towns are now incu­ba­tors which pro­duce a nev­er end­ing line of gang­sters who engage in mur­der for hire, lot­to scam­ming, extor­tion, rob­bery, human traf­fick­ing and a pletho­ra of oth­er crimes.

From the zones of polit­i­cal exclu­sion(gar­risons)cre­at­ed by the politi­cians and the zinc and ply­board, shan­ty towns emerged young men and women hope­less, yet deter­mined to have a life of excess which they view as a life of success.

These young­sters can­not be count­ed on to till the soil or wait their turn for the shiny objects mon­ey can buy, they want it now.
The advent of the Internet and cable Television vast­ly com­pressed the world bring­ing into sharp focus the way the rich and famous live.
Jamaica’s young, men and women are not going to be told to work and wait when they can take it now they have the means.
Lotto-scam, mur­der for hire, rob­bery, pros­ti­tu­tion, human traf­fick­ing, drug-deal­ing, extor­tion and every oth­er vice is accept­able as long as it brings in the money.

God and Church are scoffed at, derid­ed as out­dat­ed relics of the past, rep­re­sen­ta­tive car­i­ca­tures of the fail­ings of pre­vi­ous generations.
As a result, the Church is no longer sacro­sanct, they are prime tar­gets to be robbed, the hal­lowed halls of church­es and tem­ples no longer engen­der rev­er­ence, not for the men and women of the cloth not even for a high­er pow­er God.
High pow­ered weapons have sup­plant­ed the mys­ti­cism of divine pow­er for­mer gen­er­a­tions rev­er­enced and sought.
The num­ber of dead bod­ies cre­at­ed by a thug now defines the respect he receives in the streets. Like scalp on a Braves belt, they gath­er bod­ies unmind­ful or uncon­cerned about the val­ue of life.

The hal­lowed halls of the church are just anoth­er place to take a life and where bet­ter to do so?
Doing so sends the mes­sage, the man behind the weapon is more pow­er­ful than the god of their victims.
“Not even God can save you”, fear in the hearts of oth­ers is what they crave.
It is ter­ror­ism plain and simple.

It is with­in that envi­ron­ment that a Bill to deal with crime is con­tem­plat­ed and passed yet the focus is not on the bar­barism of the killers but on the actions and strate­gies to be used to root them out. It is on that basis that it is doomed to fail and it will fail.
God help us comes to mind but then again God helps those who help themselves.
This prob­lem requires deci­sive action, unfor­tu­nate­ly, the peo­ple tasked with the solu­tion are the peo­ple who cre­at­ed the prob­lem in the first place.
If you believe social inter­ven­tion will change this you are even more stu­pid than I thought.

Patrick Powell was found guilty in a Kingston crim­i­nal court of fail­ing to hand over his firearm to law enforce­ment offi­cers when he was ordered to do so by the police as the prime sus­pect in the mur­der of 17-year-0ld Kingston College stu­dent Khajeel Mais in 2011.
Mais was shot while trav­el­ing in a taxi in Havendale on July 1, 2011.

Patrick Powell was charged with the mur­der of the Kingston College stu­dent after ini­tial­ly flee­ing the Island and lat­er returning.
Since then Powell was tried for the mur­der and exonnerated.

Under Jamaican law, Powell faces a max­i­mum of one year in prison or J$300’000, that’s the equiv­a­lent of US$2’500.
It seems to me that Patrick Powell who is iden­ti­fied as a busi­ness­man will not have any prob­lem decid­ing what course of action to take.
As ridicu­lous as the puni­tive ceil­ing on this offense is, the tri­al judge Vaughn Smith offered Powell that if he sur­ren­ders the firearm before his sen­tenc­ing on August 9, it would help in pos­si­bly low­er­ing his sen­tence for fail­ing to hand over his gun and ammu­ni­tion to the police for inspection.
“Wow”

For those of you who are won­der­ing, how is it pos­si­ble that a sus­pect in a mur­der case, who is accused of using a reg­is­tered firearm in the com­mis­sion of that homi­cide, can refuse to hand over the weapon to police you are not alone.
That a tri­al judge could be hold­ing out car­rots to this offend­er as an induce­ment to turn the firearm in is an atrocity.

It is impor­tant that we con­sid­er the sequence of events and the respon­si­bil­i­ties each per­son have under the law.
Having a reg­is­tered firearm is a priv­i­lege, not a con­sti­tu­tion­al right in Jamaica. The firearms act has clear guide­lines which reg­is­tered own­ers must com­ply with in order to remain registered.

The moment a firearm is no longer reg­is­tered, for what­ev­er rea­son, it becomes an ille­gal weapon.
The legal­i­ty by which the hold­er is allowed to have a reg­is­tered weapon is pred­i­cat­ed on the hold­er’s fideli­ty to the core stip­u­la­tions of the gov­ern­ing act.

The rules gov­ern­ing ille­gal firearms are also clear. According to the records, Patrick Powell has not report­ed the weapon stolen. He nev­er report­ed it lost. Yet from what we have learned it is no longer registered.
This makes him guilty of hav­ing an ille­gal firearm.

MURDER 

Anyone who is a licensed hold­er of a firearm in Jamaica, who is accused of using such firearm in the com­mis­sion of a crime is bound by law to com­ply with the demand from law enforce­ment to hand over the weapon.
Now con­sid­er that Powell a licensed firearm hold­er who was accused of a homi­cide in which the firearm was alleged to be the weapon used, bla­tant­ly thumbs his nose at the sys­tem and refus­es to hand over the weapon to police on demand.
As a result of his bla­tant and unbowed defi­ance, he walked out of a Kingston court­room a free man while the fam­i­ly of Khajeel Mais is left to won­der where is the jus­tice for them.

Why would any legal firearm user turn over his/​her weapon giv­en sim­i­lar cir­cum­stances in the future?
I ask these ques­tions because it is impor­tant that these ques­tions get asked of the legislators>
“What are you doing why gap­ing holes like these are not plugged? “Why are there no laws which make the refusal to turn the weapon over com­men­su­rate with the penal­ty which would have been met­ed out to a per­son con­vict­ed of murder?

As crime con­tin­ues to sky­rock­et on the Island there is no short­age of ideas on what must be done to address this gal­lop­ing homi­cide rate.
Among the ques­tions asked is, why is the mur­der rate so high and the incar­cer­a­tion rate so low?
The answer to those ques­tions may be found in these gap­ing cause­ways in the laws which give poten­tial offend­ers like Patrick Powell and oth­ers much lever­age to break the most seri­ous laws know­ing there would be pre­cious lit­tle if any consequences.

Jamaican Prime Minister Andrew Holness con­tin­ue to harp on a non­sen­si­cal nar­ra­tive he con­coct­ed as he tries to save face against the con­stant­ly dete­ri­o­rat­ing secu­ri­ty sit­u­a­tion in the country.
That nar­ra­tive is that the new­ly craft­ed Special Zones bill he is shep­herd­ing through the leg­isla­tive process will be very pro­tec­tive of human rights.
Holness has gone to great lengths to say repeat­ed­ly that police will not be kick­ing in doors to go after criminals.
If I am read­ing the PM’s state­ments cor­rect­ly the new law will not do Jack shit about the dis­mal secu­ri­ty sit­u­a­tion on the Island, it will fur­ther pla­cate human rights activists at the expense of inno­cent dead Jamaicans.

I do under­stand the pol­i­tics behind the Prime Minister’s del­i­cate bal­anc­ing act.
After all, Jamaica is large­ly a crim­i­nal sup­port­ing nation which does not take too kind­ly to the rule of law.
Secondly, the PM is forced to deal with the dete­ri­o­rat­ing secu­ri­ty sit­u­a­tion while try­ing to hold onto a sin­gle seat major­i­ty in the legislature.

Juxtapose that with the intran­si­gent Political Opposition which has nev­er whol­ly sup­port­ed anti-crime ini­tia­tives and the pletho­ra of sup­posed human rights lob­by groups and it becomes clear­er why the PM is going to such great pains to preach human rights as he tries to grap­ple with the dan­ger­ous sit­u­a­tion which is only get­ter worse.

Now some may find it incred­u­lous that my posi­tion on this is may be con­strued to be flip­pant and or dis­mis­sive of the impor­tance of human rights guarantees.
As a for­mer law enforce­ment offi­cer, I believe all crimes should be pun­ished. How that pun­ish­ment is admin­is­tered or what that pun­ish­ment should be should be com­men­su­rate with the specifics of each par­tic­u­lar crime.
I do not believe that aggres­sive­ly root­ing out Jamaica’s urban ter­ror­ists is anti­thet­i­cal to or con­flicts with human rights of decent law-abid­ing peo­ple who are too poor to move out of the urban slums.
It is a faux lie which has dom­i­nat­ed the dis­course, cre­at­ed by cer­tain ele­ments with a vest­ed inter­est in the chaot­ic mur­der sit­u­a­tion. Its intent is to shut down any mean­ing­ful dis­cus­sion or solu­tions which would effec­tive­ly cau­ter­ize the cycle of sys­temic vio­lence under the guise that going in and root­ing out ter­ror­ists is sim­i­lar to abus­ing inno­cent people.

The Prime Minister a prod­uct of the lib­er­al left­ist buf­foon­ery which emanates out of that Campus in Mona has latched onto the faux nar­ra­tive and is now shack­led to it.
As a can­di­date for the job he now holds Holness promised Jamaicans would be able to sleep with their win­dows and doors open if they elect­ed him Prime Minister.
Regardless of the verac­i­ty of the alle­ga­tions which will sure­ly come out of the secu­ri­ty forces inter­ac­tion with mem­bers of the pub­lic once the zones are autho­rized, Holness will also own those alle­ga­tions of abuse as well.
He has said cat­e­gor­i­cal­ly there will be no abuse, the goal is about pro­tect­ing human rights.

I have con­sis­tent­ly said this new law will have the effect of a child emp­ty­ing a pail of water in the Ocean.
The men with the high pow­ered weapons will sim­ply move to oth­er parts of the coun­try once the secu­ri­ty forces are sta­tioned in an area.
Imagine a law which is being sold as a law which will guar­an­tee human rights as against root­ing out ter­ror suspects.
As a for­mer front-line I cop I espouse root­ing out the shoot­ers then whomev­er and what­ev­er can move in and do their social inter­ven­tion , or what­ev­er the hell they do.

Jamaica Defense Force Major Basil Jarrett, the civ­il-mil­i­tary coöper­a­tion offi­cer at the JDF, told the Media that “The PMVs have been a great tac­ti­cal asset as we can now move into an area to quick­ly and safe­ly deliv­er troops or extract secu­ri­ty per­son­nel or detainees if need­ed,” Jarrett said. “The PMVs are rugged, impos­ing, and flex­i­ble enough to be used in a num­ber of emer­gency sit­u­a­tions, includ­ing inter­nal secu­ri­ty. They are resis­tant to small arms gun­fire, impro­vised explo­sive devices, and oth­er per­son­nel threats, and give the sol­diers increased con­fi­dence to go into the most hos­tile territories.”

While the Prime Minister line up the deck chairs on the sink­ing Titanic the pro­fes­sion­als who are tasked with deal­ing with events on the ground sees things differently.

Jarrett’s descrip­tion of what the armored per­son­nel car­ri­er is capa­ble of is not the lin­go of a used car sales­man try­ing to pass off a lemon to an unsus­pect­ing buyer.
Those char­ac­ter­is­tics are exact­ly what are required to breach the Urban slums in which the heav­i­ly armed mili­ti­a­men operate.
Jarrett fur­ther point­ed out that when a joint army/​police patrol team came under fire from gun­men in Denham Town, upon request and arrival of PMV sup­port, there was a ceasefire.

You only have a cease­fire in an active sit­u­a­tion of war.
That it would require armor to quell the fire­pow­er of the mili­ti­a­men is rather telling and ought to tell sen­si­ble Jamaicans exact­ly to what depths their coun­try has sunken.
The usu­al hacks and shills will tell you this is noth­ing new its all under con­trol. I agree it’s not new but it is cer­tain­ly not under control.
They will tell you it’s polit­i­cal to speak out about it because this par­ty is in pow­er or that par­ty is in power.
I per­son­al­ly do not give a rat’s ass about which par­ty holds pow­er. I care about my coun­try and it’s dis­in­te­gra­tion trou­bles me.

It required a Military response 7 years ago to annex Tivoli Gardens to Jamaica and depose a transna­tion­al crim­i­nal who was too big for the Island’s secu­ri­ty forces to even challenge.
It required a full-blown mil­i­tary cam­paign to bring that enclave under control.
Since then that International crim­i­nal has been arrest­ed and is serv­ing time in a United States Federal prison.
However, since the events of 2010, the West Kingston Constituency seat being held by for­mer KSAC Mayor Desmond McKenzie has con­tin­ued to dete­ri­o­rate into a frac­tured enclave for com­pet­ing gangs.

From reports, the gangs are all com­pet­ing for the con­trol once held by Christopher Duddus Coke the extra­dit­ed criminal.
The idea that this prob­lem can be addressed while cen­ter­ing the focus on human rights is sim­plis­tic, stu­pid and laugh­able in its idi­ot­ic naïveté.
If the PM and oth­ers know that their focus is bull­shit, an act of putting wall­pa­per over the huge gap­ing hole in the wall, then it leaves us to ques­tion their desire to take strong reme­di­al action against the Island’s killers.

Despite the high per­cent­age of self-absorbed, self-impor­tant ingrates among the 2.8 mil­lion Jamaicans on the Island and even some in the dias­po­ra the high­ly imper­fect police force con­tin­ue to plod on amidst the lack of ade­quate and respectable pay, lack of respect, lack of equip­ment, lack of sup­port, and lack of appreciation.
Not to men­tion the Administrative and insti­tu­tion­al imped­i­ments erect­ed by suc­ces­sive admin­is­tra­tions of both polit­i­cal par­ties to thwart their efforts.

It’s impos­si­ble to say just how many lives have been saved even tem­porar­i­ly, a reprieve even, to live a lit­tle bit longer as a result of the lat­est rev­e­la­tions by the police on the num­ber of ille­gal guns and ammu­ni­tion they have removed from the streets since the start of the year.

Four hun­dred and forty-nine (449) guns and almost 8’000 rounds of ammu­ni­tion is noth­ing to scoff at.
It is enough guns and ammu­ni­tion to sup­ply a small army or sev­er­al mili­tias as in Jamaica’s case.
Even though most of the shoot­ers have no mil­i­tary train­ing, almost 8’000 rounds of ammu­ni­tion could eas­i­ly have result­ed in the deaths of hun­dreds more than the over 700 who have met their end since the start of the year.

Amidst the grand­stand­ing and pos­tur­ing, it is very impor­tant that Jamaicans whether at home or abroad, take a moment to step back from these num­bers and digest what they mean.

If at all you are a Jamaican and you would like to see the blood­shed stop, it is impor­tant to con­sid­er what the removal of these caches of guns and ammu­ni­tion mean.
Bravo to the police offi­cers and mem­bers of the mil­i­tary who back them up, for stand­ing up and plac­ing them­selves between mer­ci­less mili­ti­a­men and the good law abid­ing peo­ple deserv­ing of their sacrifice.
Several of whom have already made the ulti­mate sac­ri­fice in ser­vice to an ingrate nation since the start of the year.

In a per­fect world, rain would fall only on the just. We live in an imper­fect world, so a ris­ing tide rais­es all boats.
The ingrates who should absolute­ly not ben­e­fit from your efforts actu­al­ly do ben­e­fit from your sacrifice.
It’s sim­ply the way the world works.
Keep remov­ing the guns but bet­ter yet find ways to stop them com­ing in-in the first place. If the police could ever get to the point where it is able to fol­low the caches com­ing in and fol­low­ing the evi­dence where it leads I would be a very hap­py man.
Why?

The lying hus­tlers who run the coun­try would all be in jail.
Those unjust who received the rain they did not deserve, the boats which should not be ele­vat­ed by the ris­ing tide…
It would be well worth it to see those unjust dry up for want of rain, how good it would be to see those cer­tain boats sink as the tide raise only the deserv­ing boats.

.….….….….….….….….….….….….……
COPS SEIZE NEARLY 8’000 ROUNDS OF AMMO, 449 GUNS SINCE JANUARY

KINGSTON, Jamaica — The police, through its com­mu­ni­ca­tion arm, the Corporate Communications Unit (CCU), is report­ing that 449 guns and 7,899 rounds of ammu­ni­tion have been seized across the island since January 01.

According to sta­tis­tics released today, Area Four, which com­pris­es of Kingston Central, Kingston East, Kingston West, St Andrew Central and St Andrew South, led the tal­ly with 135 guns seized up to July 9.

They were close­ly trailed by Area One — Hanover, St James, Trelawny and Westmoreland — which account­ed for 28 per­cent (128) of the firearms seized.

Meanwhile, 51 per­cent (4015) of the assort­ed rounds of ammu­ni­tion seized for the peri­od was found in Area One with St James alone account­ing for 3,476 rounds of the ammu­ni­tion, the police said, adding that Area Four account­ed for 20 per­cent or 1,556 rounds.

Portland and St Mary had the least sig­nif­i­cant fig­ures for both firearm and ammu­ni­tion seizures with only three firearms seized in Portland and eight in St Mary for the review period.
Both parish­es also record­ed remark­ably low fig­ures for ammu­ni­tion seizures with 21 and 39 rounds respec­tive­ly. http://​www​.jamaicaob​serv​er​.com/​l​a​t​e​s​t​n​e​w​s​/​C​o​p​s​_​s​e​i​z​e​_​n​e​a​r​l​y​_​8​0​0​0​_​r​o​u​n​d​s​_​o​f​_​a​m​m​o​,​_​4​4​9​_​g​u​n​s​_​s​i​n​c​e​_​J​a​n​u​a​r​y​?​p​r​o​f​i​l​e​=​1​228