House Republicans Finally Pass An Obamacare Repeal And Replacement

MOMENTOUS DAY IN AMERICA AS HOUSE REPUBLICANS VOTE TO REPEAL THE AFFORDABLE CARE ACT.

According to our friends over at Huffpost.

After years of promis­es and months of delays, House Republicans passed their ver­sion of an Obamacare repeal and replace­ment Thursday, muscling the far-right leg­is­la­tion through their cham­ber by fever­ish­ly pres­sur­ing mod­er­ates in the clos­ing days.

Republicans passed the bill 217 – 213, with 20 Republicans vot­ing “no” and not a sin­gle Democrat vot­ing in support.

But what seems like a vic­to­ry for House Republicans may ulti­mate­ly be their down­fall.

Democrats were of two minds about Republicans advanc­ing the bill, which would gut some of Obamacare’s most pop­u­lar pro­vi­sions (includ­ing pro­tec­tions for peo­ple with pre-exist­ing con­di­tions as well as the Medicaid expansion).

On one hand, Democrats des­per­ate­ly want­ed to pro­tect President Barack Obama’s sig­na­ture law. On the oth­er hand, Democrats believe ― per­haps cor­rect­ly ― that this extreme­ly con­ser­v­a­tive bill can’t pass the Senate, and that House Republicans may have just hung a pro­found­ly unpop­u­lar leg­is­la­tion around the necks of some of their most vul­ner­a­ble members.

As Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D‑Calif.) told Republicans dur­ing her floor speech before the vote, Democrats plan to tat­too every pro­vi­sion of this bill to the fore­heads of Republicans. “You will glow in the dark,” Pelosi said.

While Republicans were cheer­ing as they crossed a pass­ing thresh­old, Democrats began singing to their coun­ter­parts a pop­u­lar anthem, “Na-na-na-NA, na-na-NA, hey, hey, hey! Goodbye!

A num­ber of vul­ner­a­ble Republicans also held off on vot­ing for the bill until it was clear lead­er­ship need­ed their vote. Of par­tic­u­lar note, Carlos Curbelo (R‑Fla.), Darrell Issa (R‑Calif.), and Peter Roskam (R‑Ill.) all wait­ed to see if their votes would be need­ed before they sup­port­ed the bill. Ultimately, lead­er­ship need­ed all of them.

When Democrats passed the health care law in 2010, many mem­bers knew it was com­ing at the expense of their seats. They did it, how­ev­er, because it was pol­i­cy they deeply believed in, pro­tect­ing mil­lions of sick and poor Americans while grow­ing the num­ber of insured in the coun­try to record highs.

Republicans marched off this poten­tial polit­i­cal cliff know­ing their bill would unin­sure mil­lions, under­mine pro­tec­tions for the sick and poor, and prob­a­bly face lit­tle chance of becom­ing law ― and they did it with­out a revised score from the Congressional Budget Office.

But at least it’s off their plate.

That was the think­ing among many mem­bers who just want­ed to advance the process to the Senate and ful­fill a promise that every Republican ran on: To repeal and replace Obamacare.

As long as we get anoth­er vote on the con­fer­ence report, which we will, then there’s all kinds of ways to block [it] in the future if it doesn’t work out.Rep. Daniel Webster (R‑Fla.)

A num­ber of the last remain­ing hold­outs on the GOP health care leg­is­la­tion said in the clos­ing days that they just want­ed to move on. One vul­ner­a­ble Republican, Rep. Martha McSally of Arizona, told mem­bers in a closed door meet­ing on Thursday that they just had to “get this fuck­ing thing done,” accord­ing to mem­bers and aides present.

Rep. Daniel Webster (R‑Fla.), one of the last Republicans to flip from no to yes, changed his posi­tion after he got assur­ances from President Donald Trump, Vice President Mike Pence, and Speaker Paul Ryan (R‑Wis.) that they would address Webster’s con­cern about Florida hav­ing to pick up a claw­back in fed­er­al fund­ing for seniors in nurs­ing homes, even though that fix isn’t in the leg­is­la­tion and lead­ers haven’t agreed on what they’ll do.

We got sev­er­al on line,” Webster said Thursday. “We’re work­ing on those, we’re going to get some scores and so forth before we actu­al­ly com­mit, and I’m will­ing to do that.”

Pressed that he was, in essence, vot­ing to pass the leg­is­la­tion before he knows what will ulti­mate­ly be in it, Webster said he was just advanc­ing the process.

There’s plen­ty of votes between now and the end. This is for this vote,” he said.

As long as we get to a process,” Webster added. “As long as we have a con­fer­ence, as long as the Senate has to vote, as long as we get anoth­er vote on the con­fer­ence report, which we will, then there’s all kinds of ways to block [it] in the future if it doesn’t work out.”

Republicans are also vot­ing on this lat­est leg­is­la­tion with­out a CBO score, a fact Republicans either shrugged off or denied, claim­ing that an ear­li­er score was sufficient.

We already had the Congressional Budget score when we did the main bill,” Rep. David McKinley (R‑W.V.) told reporters Thursday morn­ing. “These are amend­ments that only per­fect­ed, [and] do not add costs.”

McKinley added that the CBO score could “only get bet­ter” with the lat­est amend­ments, but when pressed how he knew that, McKinley ignored the question.

The amend­ments that McKinley believes will improve the leg­is­la­tion were crit­i­cal to get­ting the bill over the fin­ish line. The first amend­ment, which brought rough­ly 20 Freedom Caucus mem­bers who were vot­ing no to yes, would allow states to opt out of the Obamacare pro­vi­sions ensur­ing that peo­ple with pre-exist­ing con­di­tions are charged the same amount as healthy peo­ple, as well as the pro­vi­sions man­dat­ing that insur­ers cov­er 10 Essential Health Benefits ― things like lab ser­vices, mater­ni­ty care, and emer­gency room visits.

That amend­ment, worked out between mod­er­ate leader Rep. Tom MacArthur (R‑N.J.) and Freedom Caucus Chairman Rep. Mark Meadows (R‑N.C.), was key to reviv­ing health care talks, after the first ver­sion of the bill was pulled from the floor at the end of March.

That MacArthur and Meadows’ amend­ment will be dif­fi­cult for the CBO to score, as they’ll have to pre­dict whether states opt out of those Affordable Care Act pro­vi­sions and set up a high-risk pool for sick peo­ple. (One of the con­di­tions of a state waiv­ing those reg­u­la­tions is that it estab­lish­es a high-risk pool.)

Republicans argue the high-risk pools are a suf­fi­cient pro­tec­tion for those peo­ple with pre-exist­ing con­di­tions, though, his­tor­i­cal­ly, those pools have been under­fund­ed and peo­ple in them have paid much high­er pre­mi­ums and deductibles. The Center for American Progress esti­mat­ed ear­li­er this week that the Republican health care bill under­funds the high-risk pools by $200 bil­lion over 10 years.

In a small bow to mod­er­ates, GOP lead­ers agreed to accept an amend­ment that would add $8 bil­lion over five years for states that waive those Obamacare reg­u­la­tions to help peo­ple fac­ing high­er pre­mi­ums. Upton, who was a “no” vote on the bill ear­li­er in the week, said lead­er­ship told him $5 bil­lion would cov­er the costs of those high­er pre­mi­ums and he got $8 bil­lion, though Upton doesn’t know where those fig­ures came from and the Center for American Progress esti­mates it would only cov­er the costs of about 80,000 peo­ple ― a tiny por­tion of the peo­ple who could be affect­ed by the change.

Either way, that amend­ment brought Upton and fel­low Energy and Commerce mem­ber Rep. Billy Long (R‑Mo.) back to a “yes” vote, and it was lat­er treat­ed as a key rea­son­ing for Reps. David Young (R‑Iowa,) Jeff Denham (R‑Calif.), and David Valadao (R‑Calif.) ― three poten­tial­ly vul­ner­a­ble Republicans who had been hold­ing out ― to flip to a “yes” vote.

Those three mem­bers were key to lead­er­ship mov­ing ahead, but there were dozens more Republicans who said they were unde­cid­ed about the leg­is­la­tion that lead­er­ship had to win over.

While this bill’s pas­sage will be treat­ed as a vic­to­ry for Paul Ryan and Donald Trump ― and, at least in the short-term, it is ― Republicans have chief deputy whip Rep. Patrick McHenry (R‑N.C.) to thank for shoring up sup­port among many doubt­ful mem­bers. McHenry worked the floor fran­ti­cal­ly in the week lead­ing up to the vote, con­vinc­ing fence-sit­ting Republicans to help lead­er­ship out by vot­ing “yes.”

Of course, Meadows and MacArthur were also instru­men­tal in reviv­ing the bill, and Trump’s force of char­ac­ter may have helped per­suade some mem­bers not to cross him. But on the president’s first real leg­isla­tive bat­tle, he showed that he can lose and he can “win” ― if you believe Republicans pass­ing any bill at any cost con­sti­tutes a win ― as long as he most­ly stays out of the spe­cif­ic negotiations.
http://​www​.huff​in​g​ton​post​.com/​e​n​t​r​y​/​h​o​u​s​e​-​r​e​p​u​b​l​i​c​a​n​s​-​f​i​n​a​l​l​y​-​p​a​s​s​-​a​n​-​o​b​a​m​a​c​a​r​e​-​r​e​p​e​a​l​-​a​n​d​-​r​e​p​l​a​c​e​m​e​n​t​_​u​s​_​5​9​0​b​5​e​1​f​e​4​b​0​e​7​0​2​1​e​9​5​6​4​3​6​?​n​c​i​d​=​i​n​b​l​n​k​u​s​h​p​m​g​0​0​0​0​0​009

Tip Of The Day..

Young peo­ple who crave excite­ment become gang members.
The media often glam­or­ize the gang lifestyle. » Young peo­ple who can­not resist peer pres­sure may join because their friends are in gangs.
They may feel pres­sured to join to be part of the “in” crowd. » Young peo­ple who are fear­ful often feel that being a gang mem­ber will keep them safe.
If they are chal­lenged by oth­ers, their gang/​crew will help them retal­i­ate because in the gang cul­ture, no chal­lenge goes unanswered.
Perversely, this idea of “safe­ty” leads to increased vio­lence. » Youth who do not under­stand the con­se­quences do not ful­ly under­stand the risks of being in a gang. Risks include arrest, phys­i­cal assault and in some cas­es, death. » Young peo­ple are often recruit­ed by old­er gang mem­bers to com­mit their crim­i­nal acts, because the adults feel that laws are more lenient on juveniles.
In Jamaica the laws are lenient on all crim­i­nals so the lat­ter line does not apply. However lax law enforce­ment and a porous and delin­quent jus­tice sys­tem encour­ages and enhances the process of crim­i­nal­i­ty and Gang activ­i­ty it was designed to remedy.

Talk to you next time…

Broken System Of Justice /​the Foxes Are Running The Hen-house..

Well what do you know?

If you are still won­der­ing why there are so many homi­cides in Jamaica amidst the hype about“one love “and the oth­er b**s**t Jingles they use to lure unsus­pect­ing tourists in, look no fur­ther than the courts.
It’s not just the courts which are con­tribut­ing to the high kill rate , but they play a large role in con­tribut­ing to it.
It is extreme­ly dif­fi­cult for the Police to take mur­der­ers off the streets, pri­mar­i­ly because of a lack of train­ing, tools and remu­ner­a­tions to name a few of the depart­men­t’s don’t have.

Portia Simpson Miller the for­mer Prime Minister

On the rare occa­sion that a mur­der­er is arrest­ed for a crime , one would log­i­cal­ly assume it would make sense to keep him in cus­tody and expe­dite his tri­al so that the soci­ety can send a clear mes­sage mur­ders will not be tolerated.
Well if you thought that is the strat­e­gy you are wrong.
As soon as they are brought in by the Police the Judges who are friends with the high priced lawyers who rep­re­sent the killers release them on bail.

Oh by the way if you are won­der­ing where poor inner- city res­i­dents (gen­er­al­ly the shooters)get mon­ey to afford these high priced lawyers to defend them ?
Your guess is as good as mine.
Now in order to under­stand the dynam­ics of the high mur­der rate you have to con­sid­er who pays the lawyers.
You also have to con­sid­er that the lawyers and judges gen­er­al­ly all grad­u­ate from the same col­leges , they hang out togeth­er and they all come from the same dirty pool.

Bruce Golding

So the strat­e­gy is to release them back onto the streets and drag the case on and on and on after which it’s thrown out for want of prosecution.
Victims and their fam­i­lies be damned.
Now it mat­ters not that the want of pros­e­cu­tion is some­times facil­i­tat­ed by the very sys­tem which is sup­posed to pun­ish offenders.

Out of that help from the sys­tem the crim­i­nal under­world craft­ed it’s own strat­e­gy to stay out of jail for good.
Simply kill the witnesses!!!
Check mate.

Justice Minister Delroy Chuck

There is so much to unpack from whats dri­ving the homi­cide rate in our country.
In order to under­stand it one has to divest him­self of the notion that Government (par­ty nueteral)is act­ing in the best inter­est of cit­i­zens and the Judges are hon­est people.
If you are able to facil­i­tate that men­tal divorce you will then become out­raged to learn that the Island’s Justice Minister Delroy Chuck pro­posed that all cas­es on the court dock­ets over 5 years be purged for good.
Including Murder cases !!!

Every liv­ing per­son with the abil­i­ty to think, must know that ‑that is a homi­cide enhance­ment motion.
Much like the INDECOM Act, hasti­ly thrown togeth­er and forced onto the coun­try by Bruce Golding and his cronies , includ­ing Holness ‚with the bless­ings of the sim­ple mind­ed Portia Simpson Miller and her band of miscreants.

Since it is not too dif­fi­cult to under­stand that if you are pre­pared to toss mur­ders , rapes and oth­er seri­ous cas­es, crim­i­nals are going to do their part to make sure that cas­es do not get tried before the 5 year cut off date.
Delroy Chuck is no fool he is a well edu­cat­ed lawyer , so every­one must under­stand that he knows exact­ly what he is doing when he makes such a proposal.
Neither Chuck or any oth­er indi­vid­ual must have the right to make such momen­tous decisions.
There is a rea­son mur­der does not have a statute of limitation .
It is a vio­la­tion against com­mon law. That means there does­n’t have to be a statute cre­at­ed by man to make the tak­ing of anoth­er human life pun­ish­able with seri­ous puni­tive respons­es includ­ing the mur­der­ers own death.
From the begin­ning of record­ed his­to­ry it has been the ulti­mate crime.
Against man and God.
For my read­ers who do not under­stand what that means here goes. There are no time lim­its on pros­e­cut­ing a per­son for killing anoth­er human being.
Whenever you are caught you are going to be pun­ished 50 or a hun­dred years lat­er, it does not matter.

This is why Jamaicans have to look at the peo­ple they put in pow­er with a seri­ous eye . More impor­tant­ly they have to know what peo­ple stand for before putting them in office.
You don’t vote for an indi­vid­ual sim­ply because he/​she is part of the par­ty you like.
Purging court dock­ets under the guise that it will free up the courts and sub­se­quent­ly make the sys­tem more flu­id and effi­cient, will pro­duce the exact oppo­site. It Will cre­ate expo­nen­tial­ly more mur­ders by offend­ers who under­stand all they have to do is frus­trate the process for 5 years .
Their high priced lawyers and cor­rupt judges know exact­ly how to get that accomplished.

Docket purge hap­pens day in day out on it’s own . Hiring more judges at the Resident Magistrate lev­el quick­ly resolves the backlogs,.
These lawyers you hire to run the coun­try knows that. That’s the fix, not reward­ing mur­der­ers and oth­er dan­ger­ous felons with absolution.
So whats behind this idea to purge court dockets?
Could it be that they have peo­ple on them they do not want to face the courts?
Maybe ‚but that is hard­ly the rea­son they could sim­ply toss a judge some mon­ey at the tri­al lev­el or even cook up an appeal for those already con­vict­ed and with enough mon­ey they can get any­one off any charge.

So the rea­son has to be a pay­back to the crim­i­nals in their constituencies .
You nev­er see smoke with­out fire, there will be no one in that Gordon House to say , “wait just a minute this is not a good idea”.
Because it serves their inter­est not the inter­est of the public.
A pub­lic which have now fall­en in love with the killings and for the most part , are fix­at­ed on prof­i­teer­ing from the killculture

IN THE MEANTIME

Peter Abrahams’ alleged killer gets bail

The 61-one-year-old farmer who was impli­cat­ed in the death of vet­er­an jour­nal­ist Peter Abrahams was offered $300,000 bail when he appeared in the Kingston and St Andrew Parish Court.Norman Tomlinson of Cyprus dis­trict in Red Hills, St Andrew, who is the hus­band of Abrahams’ helper, was offered bail by Parish Judge Sanchia Burrell last Friday.

Bail was offered on con­di­tion that he reports Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays at the Constant Spring Police Station and sur­ren­der his trav­el doc­u­ments. Abrahams was found dead at his home in Red Hills on January 18, with an injury to his head. The police say a post-mortem revealed that his injuries were delib­er­ate­ly inflict­ed. Tomlinson is sched­uled to return to court on June 26.
http://​www​.jamaicaob​serv​er​.com/​n​e​w​s​/​p​e​t​e​r​-​a​b​r​a​h​a​m​s​-​8​2​1​7​-​a​l​l​e​g​e​d​-​k​i​l​l​e​r​-​g​e​t​s​-​b​a​i​l​_​9​7​6​6​6​?​p​r​o​f​i​l​e​=​1​607

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Tip Of The Day..

We con­tin­ue to speak to the Jamaican Police about exe­cut­ing safe arrests , par­tic­u­lar­ly in light of mount­ing evi­dence of prop­er pro­to­cols not being followed.

♦So the first order of busi­ness in exe­cut­ing an arrest is speed.
Once an offend­er is told in sharp , clear and con­cise lan­guage that he/​she is under arrest , the next com­mand must be , turn around and place your hands behind your back.
The rea­son for order­ing the offend­er to turn away from you the offi­cer, and place his/​her harm behind the back, is to mit­i­gate poten­tial harm to you the officer.
It also gives a clear indi­ca­tion right away to you the offi­cer whether this offend­er intends to resist arrest or not.

♦ The next step is to move swift­ly and decid­ed­ly to the offend­er and place him in hand­cuffs , always with hands cuffed behind the back.
If the offend­er is bel­liger­ent , argu­men­ta­tive , and non-com­pli­ant, officer/​s must bring the offend­er to the ground and exe­cute the arrest as swift­ly as possible .
♦In exe­cut­ing an arrest there should be no cir­cum­stances in which an offi­cer or two strug­gles with effect­ing an arrest while anoth­er offi­cer is stand­ing around like a casu­al observer.
In the event that hap­pens the depart­ment should forth­with send that offi­cer back for retrain­ing ‚or he or she should be dis­missed from the service.

YouTube player

Bystanders who inter­venes , obstructs, goads or oth­er­wise inter­feres with an arrest must forth­with be placed under arrest and charged for obstruct­ing Governmental Administration or Assisting the prin­ci­pal in resist­ing arrest depend­ing on the statute.

(1) Where police fail to fol­low estab­lished guide­lines in effect­ing safe arrests in Jamaica, and (2) the United States where some Police offi­cers use the arrest process to exact revenge and ret­ri­bu­tion on arrestees for myr­i­ad reasons.
I believe there is a ami­ca­ble mid­dle ground .
As I said in a pre­vi­ous arti­cle, when an offend­er is told to turn away from the arrest­ing offi­cer and place his hands behind the back of his head, it gives the arrest­ing offi­cer a chance to find out to a cer­tain degree whether the offend­er intends to resist,
(unless that offend­er decides to play Possum) .
In which case the offi­cer is trained to deal with that situation.
There is a mid­dle ground which does not always have to include either polar oppo­sites if exe­cut­ed correctly.
There is a grey area between Rambo brutes and incom­pe­tent wimps.

Resisting Arrest Can Be Lethal…

Watching Jamaican cops exe­cute arrests is like root canal , rather painful to live through.
As a pub­lic ser­vice I have tried to use this medi­um to not only cri­tique the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem but to inform , edu­cate, and opine on how we can make it better.

The Jamaican Legislature in this regard is like an old train track , it sim­ply lays there regard­less of what hap­pens, it gets over­grown with weeds, debris stays exact­ly where it is left on it, regard­less of the dan­ger to com­ing trains.
So since we can­not rely on the leg­is­la­ture to do any­thing about this epi­dem­ic of resist­ing arrest in our coun­try, it behoove the police to acquire and use best prac­tices , even if they have to sources those prac­tices from YouTube videos.

The longer it takes for offi­cers to exe­cute an arrest the more dan­ger­ous the sit­u­a­tion becomes.
It shows a lack of abil­i­ty on the part of the officer/​s , it embold­ens the offend­er and it encour­ages bystanders to get involved.

♦So the first order of busi­ness in exe­cut­ing an arrest is speed.
Once an offend­er is told in sharp , clear and con­cise lan­guage that he/​she is under arrest , the next com­mand must be , turn around and place your hands behind your back.
The rea­son for order­ing the offend­er to turn away from you the offi­cer, and place his/​her arms behind the back, is to mit­i­gate poten­tial harm to you the officer.
It also gives a clear indi­ca­tion right away to you the offi­cer whether this offend­er intends to resist arrest or not.

♦ The next step is to move swift­ly and decid­ed­ly to the offend­er and place him in hand­cuffs , always with hands cuffed behind the back.
If the offend­er is bel­liger­ent , argu­men­ta­tive , and non-com­pli­ant, officer/​s must bring the offend­er to the ground and exe­cute the arrest as swift­ly as possible .
♦In exe­cut­ing an arrest there should be no cir­cum­stances in which an offi­cer or two strug­gles with effect­ing an arrest while anoth­er offi­cer is stand­ing around like a casu­al observer.
In the event that hap­pens the depart­ment should forth­with send that offi­cer back for retrain­ing ‚or he or she should be dis­missed from the service.

♦ Officers must all move in to exe­cute the arrest swift­ly and safe­ly for all involved includ­ing the offender.
They should also ensure that no one inter­venes to inter­fere in the arrest.
As such, if there are sev­er­al offi­cers on scene one offi­cer must ensure that no one gets close to offi­cers engaged in effect­ing that arrest.
A bystander wish­ing to inter­vene can eas­i­ly grab an offi­cer’s gun and cre­ate untold harm to officers.

As such any bystanders who refus­es to move to a safe dis­tance from offi­cers, incites the per­son being arrest­ed to resist arrest or oth­er­wise inter­feres, must also be arrest­ed immediately.

The issue of exe­cut­ing arrests safe­ly is crit­i­cal to both offi­cer safe­ty and that of the offender .
Just last week two peo­ple lost their lives in a sit­u­a­tion from all indi­ca­tions which sug­gest that prop­er arrest pro­to­cols were not observed .
Constable Leighton Hanson of the Constant Spring Police was killed alleged­ly by an offend­er he tried to take into cus­tody, but clear­ly did not fol­low the estab­lished protocols.

He lost his life after the offend­er report­ed­ly grabbed his weapon and shot him. He was killed by mem­bers of the JDF who were pass­ing and wit­nessed the incident.
Every per­son who is told that he is under arrest is capa­ble of mur­der­ing a police officer.
No one wants to go to jail .
They snap and do things they nev­er thought they would do.
Subsequently each and every offi­cer must ensure that they are pre­pared to deal with any sit­u­a­tion the moment they decide to arrest an offender.

For the safe­ty of all, the arrest must be done swift­ly , deci­sive­ly, and with authority.
That does not mean abusively.
Every per­son who is told that he is under arrest has a duty under the law to sub­mit to being arrest­ed , regard­less of whether he/​she thinks the arrest is jus­ti­fied or not.
You do not have a right to fight with a police officer .
The police is giv­en the pow­er to use appro­pri­ate force to ensure that you sub­mit to the arrest .

It is impor­tant that every per­son under­stand this oblig­a­tion under the law.
If you resist and try to cause harm to the arrest­ing offi­cer , the offi­cer have a right to use the nec­es­sary force to bring you under compliance.
Here’s what is crit­i­cal to under­stand, the arrest­ing offi­cer has the lat­i­tude based on his/​her assess­ment of the dan­ger to him or her­self to use even lethal force to sub­due you as a result of the threat he/​she per­ceives to him/​herself.
Why would you engage in a fight with some­one who is autho­rized to use any lev­el of force, includ­ing lethal force to sub­due you?

What do you think is going to hap­pen when you resist arrest?
Do you think that a prop­er­ly trained offi­cer who knows he is doing his duty by the book is going to walk away because you decide to resist arrest?
Guess again .
You will have your day in court .You will also have a right to an attor­ney who will advise you of your rights includ­ing your right to civ­il action if you believe you were wronged .

We can­not have a soci­ety in which every arrest has to be accom­pa­nied by violence.
Constable Leighton Hanson is dead , I hear no state­ment which would indi­cate that a sin­gle leg­is­la­tor under­stand the need, much less have the inten­tion to pro­pose changes which would make resist­ing arrest a felony.
That law could be named the Hanson act in hon­or of that slain officer.
This prob­a­bly won’t hap­pen where there is no vision out­side the bang­ing on desks and the insults which per­me­ate what hap­pens in Gordon House when the 63 mis­cre­ants get in there.

Every time I ask, I am told that there is prop­er train­ing on how best to exe­cute arrests .
I have not seen that pro­fes­sion­al exe­cu­tion in arrest videos that make their way onto social media platforms.
Newly installed Commissioner of police George Quallo would be well advised to ensure that what­ev­er his depart­ment has on arrest train­ing, is revamped and re-redesigned .
Clearly what exist is not work­ing .Additionally his depart­ment issues the week­ly force orders to the pub­lic, a move I said was a bad one when Owen Ellington for­mer com­mis­sion­er embarked on it.
Nevertheless it can be a medi­um used to edu­cate the pub­lic about the dan­gers of resist­ing arrest until hope­ful­ly some­thing seri­ous is done about this practice.

Texas Teen Jordan Edwards Was Shot And Killed By Police This Weekend, And Cops Are Now Changing Their Story

The media may have start­ed los­ing inter­est in the Black Lives Matter move­ment, but new infor­ma­tion about the death of Texas teenag­er Jordan Edwards illus­trates that the under­ly­ing prob­lem of police vio­lence against African-Americans remains as per­va­sive as ever.

After Edwards, 15, was shot in the head through the front pas­sen­ger win­dow of a car leav­ing a house par­ty in the Dallas sub­urb of Balch Springs on Saturday, police claimed that the killing was nec­es­sary because the vehi­cle had been back­ing toward the offi­cers “in an aggres­sive man­ner,” accord­ing to a report by NPR. On Monday after­noon, how­ev­er, Chief Jonathan Haber had to retract that account and call into ques­tion whether the offi­cer who killed Edwards had jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for doing so.

In fact, the car with five teenagers inside was mov­ing for­ward, not back­ward, and away from the offi­cers, not toward them. There was no alter­ca­tion, known or oth­er­wise,” writes NPR’s Wade Goodwyn. “Nevertheless one of offi­cers fired a rifle mul­ti­ple times into the pas­sen­ger win­dow, killing young Jordan Edwards. None of the teens were car­ry­ing weapons, nor were they drunk.”

Goodwyn added, “Chief Haber said his review of the officer’s body cam­era video indi­cat­ed the shoot­ing may not meet his department’s standards.”

Although the offi­cer has been put on admin­is­tra­tive leave, Edwards’ fam­i­ly attor­ney Lee Merritt insists this will not be enough.
http://​www​.salon​.com/​2​0​1​7​/​0​5​/​0​2​/​t​e​x​a​s​-​t​e​e​n​-​j​o​r​d​a​n​-​e​d​w​a​r​d​s​-​w​a​s​-​s​h​o​t​-​a​n​d​-​k​i​l​l​e​d​-​b​y​-​p​o​l​i​c​e​-​t​h​i​s​-​w​e​e​k​e​n​d​-​a​n​d​-​c​o​p​s​-​a​r​e​-​n​o​w​-​c​h​a​n​g​i​n​g​-​t​h​e​i​r​-​s​t​o​ry/

Tip Of The Day…

On issu­ing guid­ance to low­er courts on the issue of Police Reasonable Force, the US Supreme Court’s guide­lines are as follows.

The Supreme Court cau­tioned courts exam­in­ing exces­sive force claims that “the cal­cu­lus of rea­son­able­ness must embody allowance for the fact that police offi­cers are often forced to make split-sec­ond judg­ments – in cir­cum­stances that are tense, uncer­tain, and rapid­ly evolv­ing – about the amount of force that is nec­es­sary in a par­tic­u­lar sit­u­a­tion.” The Court also stat­ed that the use of force should be mea­sured by what the offi­cer knew at the scene, not by the “20/​20 vision of hind­sight” by a Monday-morn­ing quar­ter­back. In sum, the Court fash­ioned a real­is­ti­cal­ly gen­er­ous test for use of force lawsuits.

Jamaica is not gov­erned by American law yet I thought I would use this guide­line as a barom­e­ter of (1) How the most pow­er­ful court in the world sees and artic­u­lates this issue and (2) the guid­ance it gives to the court sys­tem in the United States as it relates to the lat­i­tude law enforce­ment should have in appre­hend­ing vio­lent non-com­pli­ant offenders.

It must be said that the pow­er to use all nec­es­sary force to sub­due an offend­er must only be com­men­su­rate with the lev­el of resis­tance, or just enough above, to gain con­trol of the offender.
Immediately the sub­ject is restrained and cuffed no phys­i­cal force must be applied to the subject.
Any force applied to a cuffed offend­er who has stopped resist­ing is exces­sive force and out­side of the guide­lines giv­en to law enforce­ment officers .

In fair­ness to the Jamaica Constabulary Force this pol­i­cy has been the long­stand­ing pol­i­cy of the depart­ment for as long as I can remember.
Officers who approach sub­jects with the intent to arrest must be pre­pared to engage in a strug­gle, no one wants to go to jail.
On that basis offi­cers have a respon­si­bil­i­ty to them­selves to pro­tect their own lives .
Use the com­men­su­rate force and cau­tion to secure the offend­er leave the gib­ber­ish to the cyn­ics, Monday-morn­ing-quar­ter­backs and in Jamaica’s case the vil­lage lawyers.

PM’s Statement A Day Late…

On May 29th I wrote the following :::::
As Police offi­cers and cit­i­zens lives con­tin­ue to be snuffed out in alarm­ing num­bers, the Government is death­ly silent.
In oth­er coun­tries when a police office is killed there is mas­sive push-back from their soci­eties and cer­tain­ly Government.
Under both Political par­ties stew­ard­ship, the ruth­less killing of Police offi­cers illic­it crickets……..
Deafening silence……….
Not Portia, Not Peter Phillips and damn sure not Andrew Holness.
These mis­guid­ed lit­tle morons sit by and make no state­ment, as if the death of police offi­cers is beneath them, the per­rog­a­tive of under­lings to address.
Who the fuck do they think they are ?

I took a lot of flack by sup­port­ers of the Prime Minister who point­ed out that the Honorable Prime Minister had indeed issued a state­ment on the death of con­sta­ble Leighton Hanson and Detective sergeant Thompson anoth­er offi­cer killed albeit days after being shot by hoodlums.
What pains me is that there are police offi­cers and past police offi­cers who are more inter­est­ed in mak­ing the case for politi­cians than they are at lob­by­ing for bet­ter work­ing con­di­tions for them­selves, their col­leagues and for­mer colleagues.

Fact I wrote the Article on April 29th find link here.
https://​mike​beck​les​.com/​g​o​v​e​r​n​m​e​n​t​s​-​l​a​c​k​-​o​f​-​d​e​c​i​s​i​v​e​-​a​c​t​i​o​n​-​r​e​s​p​o​n​s​i​b​l​e​-​f​o​r​-​c​o​p​-​k​i​l​l​i​n​gs/

Then on Sunday the Prime Minister issued this state­ment a full day lat­er than my Article was published.

Andrew-Holness

I deeply regret and I am sad­dened at devel­op­ments over the week­end which have result­ed in two mem­bers of the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF) los­ing their lives due to the vicious actions of crim­i­nal elements.

Police Commissioner, George Quallo, along with the brave and coura­geous men and women of the secu­ri­ty forces have the full sup­port of the Government in their unre­lent­ing fight to pro­tect the cit­i­zen­ry and them­selves against crim­i­nal elements.

Detective Sergeant Thompson and Constable Hanson are heroes. I thank them for their coura­geous actions in con­fronting crim­i­nal ele­ments. Regrettably, they lost their lives. I am deeply hurt at the out­come and our thoughts and prayers are with their fam­i­lies, friends and the JCF at what is a very dif­fi­cult time, not only for the Constabulary but for all well-think­ing mem­bers of soci­ety. Indeed, the loss of life of any inno­cent per­son due to vio­lence and crime should be strong­ly con­demned. Members of our secu­ri­ty forces risk their lives to pro­tect us on a dai­ly basis. We must sup­port them. In a bid to give the secu­ri­ty forces the most suit­able pos­si­ble envi­ron­ment to cau­terise and elim­i­nate crim­i­nal activ­i­ty, the Government of Jamaica renews its com­mit­ment to secure the pas­sage of leg­is­la­tion, includ­ing the zones of spe­cial oper­a­tions and com­mu­ni­ty devel­op­ment bill which was recent­ly referred to a joint select com­mit­tee of Parliament.

It’s increas­ing­ly clear that deci­sive action must be tak­en by all well-think­ing stake­hold­ers, includ­ing law­mak­ers on both sides of the polit­i­cal aisle, in a bid to thwart crim­i­nal ele­ments who are not bash­ful about tak­ing the lives of inno­cent Jamaicans and con­fronting the men and women of the Constabulary who are tasked to serve and protect.I am urg­ing the Security Forces not to lose heart but to remain pro­fes­sion­al and com­mit­ted to safe­ty and secu­ri­ty in Jamaica. I am also urg­ing all Jamaicans to sup­port the Government in efforts to make the nec­es­sary social and leg­isla­tive inter­ven­tions to sig­nif­i­cant­ly reduce crime and violence.

I give the Prime Minister cred­it for at least issu­ing a state­ment albeit late, it was much more than the People’s National Party leader and Prime Minister did while in office.
Nevertheless being shamed into speak­ing out , ought not be the way we treat the men and women of the secu­ri­ty forces who risk all so that we all can sleep at night.
I stand by my state­ment that the Government did not speak out at the killing of Constable Hanson.
He did speak out , but only after we chid­ed the gov­ern­ment for it’s failures.

How Dare Jamaicans For Justice Try To Wash The Blood From It’s Hands Now?

We thought we would shine a lit­tle light on the hypocrisy of anti-police group Jamaicans for Justice (JFJ);
How dare JFJ the crim­i­nal sup­port­ing , anti police lob­by cry croc­o­dile tears for fall­en police officers.
Having stabbed the Police in the back since 1999, this ene­my of the state lob­by has the unmit­i­gat­ed gall to pre­tend to care about dead cops after rous­ing the crim­i­nal rab­ble against law enforce­ment for almost 18 years.

Could it be that the tide is turning?
Could it be that in the court of pop­u­lar opin­ion enough Jamaicans are awak­en­ing to the fact that tear­ing down their police force is unsustainable?
Could it be that that dis­con­tent is start­ing to fil­ter out and they are hear­ing the rumblings”?
Is it pos­si­ble that the sight of a dead cop in uni­form with blood ooz­ing from his head or face may have lit a spark in the Jamaican people?

JFJ does not get to stir the pot, feed the flame, and add fuel to the fire of anti-police sen­ti­ment and as soon as the blood start flow­ing they wash their hands and pre­tend that there is no blood on their hands.
The blood has been on their hands as it has been on the hands of INDECOM, the Politicians and those who sup­port crim­i­nal­i­ty on the Island.

Jamaicans for Justice does not get to launch a pre­emp­tive strike to now cur­ry favor because the mood of the peo­ple are begin­ning to change.
You don’t get to spend 18 years sow­ing seeds and then deny the harvest.

Jamaicans for Justice (JFJ) , INDECOM, Families against state ter­ror­ism, the Public defend­ers office all have a role in this and they must be held account­able for what they have done to our coun­try and the lack of respect for the rule of law.
Every hon­est , law abid­ing Jamaican know that the police must be scru­ti­nized, no ques­tion about that .
Nevertheless what they have done to our coun­try in embold­en­ing crim­i­nals and tear­ing down the rule of law is unforgivable.

This must come to an end and it must end now.

SAID THE ANTI-POLICE LOBBY

Human rights lob­by group, Jamaicans for Justice (JFJ), is call­ing for more to be pro­vid­ed for the wel­fare of mem­bers of the Jamaica Constabulary Force. 
This fol­lows Friday’s killing of Constable Leighton Hanson on Constant Spring Road in St Andrew. Hanson was appre­hend­ing a man when he was shot in the head.
Advocacy Manager at JFJ, Rodje Malcolm, in an inter­view with RJR News said the wel­fare of mem­bers of the force is “essen­tial to security”.
In a state­ment on Saturday, JFJ said the inci­dent brings into sharp focus the high-stress envi­ron­ment in which many police offi­cers work and the need for ade­quate psy­cho-social sup­port sys­tems for them.
The human rights lob­by group is urg­ing the Police High Command and the gov­ern­ment to give more sup­port to the well-being of police offi­cers on and off duty in par­tic­u­lar their work­ing con­di­tions, phys­i­cal safe­ty, and stress management.
JFJ says these must be among the pri­or­i­ties for Police Commissioner George Quallo.

READ AND SHARE TO SHOW YOUR SUPPORT FOR OUR COUNTRY AND THE MEN AND WOMEN WHO WORK TO KEEP IT SAFE

Tip Of The Day..

Upon approach­ing your car, look to make sure no one is hid­ing in or around the vehi­cle, espe­cial­ly in the back seat. Check your tires for flats. Keep win­dows rolled up, except for a small open­ing for ven­ti­la­tion and keep the doors locked at all times.

Keep valu­ables secured in the trunk, not lying on the seat next to you. Put your purse on the floor of your car. Plan your route before you leave. Displaying a map will send a mes­sage that you’re unfa­mil­iar with the area.

Old Cast Iron Bridge, St. Catherine — Erected in 1801.

When stopped in traf­fic, always leave enough space between your car and the one in front of you. This will allow you to pass eas­i­ly, if neces­sary. Keep your car well main­tained and the gas tank at least half full to avoid get­ting stranded.

Should you sus­pect that you are being fol­lowed, make sev­er­al turns down active streets. If the vehi­cle con­tin­ues to fol­low, head for the near­est police sta­tion, fire house, or open store. Avoid
dri­ving to your home. If some­one attempts to force you off the road, remain calm and blow your horn con­tin­u­ous­ly to attract atten­tion. If forced off the road, stop, put your car in reverse and back away.

A Culture Of The Police Bway..

Our coun­try need a men­tal makeover.
There is too much tol­er­ance for misconduct.
Too much empa­thy for wrong.
Too much ratio­nal­iz­ing for wrongdoers.
Too much” it’s not a big deal”, to social disorder.
I watched this atti­tude devel­op as a kid.
I watched it take on a life of its own to the point the peo­ple who enforce our laws became the enemy.

They were labeled Babylon, a term coined by mis­guid­ed Rastafarians who are still fight­ing a war , their ene­my still undefined.
But Rastafarians were not the problem,they sim­ply coined the term.
The term Babylon became a pejo­ra­tive , a term of deri­sion and dis­re­spect for those who upheld the laws , for the Rastafarians the term was intend­ed for a wider sys­tem of injus­tice as they saw it.
For the soci­ety look­ing for scape­goats the term was appose. Society latched onto it and made it a scar­let let­ter of dis­dain for the Police.

So they demo­nized our law enforcement,and placed on them blame for every mal­a­dy which ailed the society.
Because the peo­ple who make the deci­sions are above reproach .[sic]
Beyond being held respon­si­ble for the cor­rup­tion , crimes and inequities they engage in.
They blamed the Police for every stu­pid igno­rant choice they ever made at the vot­ing booth, rather than hold the peo­ple they vot­ed for responsible.
The soci­ety sowed blame ‚dis­re­spect, hate, their every dis­ap­point­ment is pinned on the police.
The chil­dren grow up learn­ing to be dis­re­spect­ful of the Police bway , fire bun pan baby­lon .
While their par­ents curt­sied and pros­trat­ed them­selves at the feet of the so called big man the politi­cian.
The filthy decep­tive , thiev­ing scum­bags who give guns to their sons to kill their neigh­bor’s sons.
Shockingly they now feign won­der at the bla­tant dis­re­spect their young peo­ple have, not just for the rule of law, or our offi­cers, but for every soci­etal norm their par­ents valued.

Clovis car­toon

Are the police to be blamed for some of the things which ails them ?
Yes , you bet !
But the police as a group, have giv­en much more in sweat,blood , and sac­ri­fice than any oth­er group of Jamaicans .Period !!!
Why won­der at the whirl­wind of anar­chy now?
You cul­ti­vat­ed and nur­tured it.
The ene­mies of the peo­ple ‚ene­mies of the state, they sit safe­ly in Gordon House and that makes me angry.
I have nev­er seen a sin­gle one of those scum­bags lying in the streets dead , blood ooz­ing from their heads.
I have nev­er seen any of them left to die in one of the Island’s shit­ty Hospitals like Detective Sergeant Lynch was ‚after he was shot chas­ing crim­i­nals who had mur­dered innocents.
Sergeant Lynch had very chance to sur­vive but his life was worth noth­ing to his civil­ian boss­es who sent him out to pro­tect and serve.
A headache, and they are off to Miami or new York for treatment.

My batch-mate Detective Sergeant Cowan too was shot and injured by men in the Rema Area years ago.
He too had all the chance in the world to sur­vive , but the gov­ern­ment did not think his life was worth sav­ing either, so he too died from his injuries.
The list of brave and not so brave Police Officers and our col­leagues in the Military who made the ulti­mate sac­ri­fice to our coun­try is endless.
Yet the nation’s ille­git­i­mate lead­ers have no idea how many .
Neither do they care.
And they have no inten­tion of stop­ping it.

THEY SIDED WITH SELF SERVING LIARS AND CHARLATANS:

Carolyn Gomes

Rather than side with our nations war­riors who risk life and limb to bend the arc of crime in our country,this band of mis­cre­ants sided with a bunch of elit­ists and arranged to fur­ther erode trust and con­fi­dence in our law enforce­ment by cre­at­ing and putting in place an agency dia­met­ri­cal­ly opposed to police.
One seen as a dear friend to mur­der­ers and gang­land oper­a­tives, INDECOM was born.

Well known street cop Renetto Adams spoke in-art­ful­ly about this years ago .
He said Jamaica would pay dear­ly for it’s sup­port for criminals.
His words have boomeranged with marks­man-like accu­ra­cy and alacrity.

Like moles , the Elitists are bur­rowed into the infra­struc­ture of the society.
They sit on boards , they are on the bench , the are in the legal fraternity.
They are in Ministries and Institutions of high­er learn­ing, they are everywhere.
Some got their because of their hatred. ani­mus and dis­dain for the police.
Just ask the media about that ‚for decades they dom­i­nat­ed the mes­sag­ing because they con­trolled the megaphone..
People were told to stone police sta­tions as a means to air their displeasure.
Police offi­cers were degrad­ed to jankru on nation­al tele­vi­sion, for dar­ing to stop and ques­tion a crack head news­cast­er, out buy­ing drugs in Barbican late at night.

So don’t shed your damn croc­o­dile tears now that your chil­dren are killing inno­cent peo­ple, includ­ing police offi­cers left right and center .
You taught them to do the things they are doing.
Stop act­ing damn sur­prised, you refused to place the blame where the blame real­ly belonged.
You took the dis­re­spect which should have been placed on Manley , Seaga, Patterson,Portia, Golding , Holness and the band of crim­i­nals around them and you dumped your anger on the police.

Deal with the mess you cre­at­ed, you pre­tend­ed that our coun­try can be policed the way devel­oped coun­tries are.
In the mean­time the politi­cians are safe with their police details.
They must think you are real­ly stupid.

DON’T FORGET TO SHARE THIS ARTICLE TO SHOW YOU STAND WITH THE RULE OF LAW IN JAMAICA.

Tip Of The Day..

Police Officers

In the age of ubiq­ui­tous video and mush­room­ing over­sight, how can you ensure that your use of force does not bring unwant­ed dis­cred­it upon you,and your department?
Know the law, and com­ply with it.

Where an offi­cer has prob­a­ble cause to believe that the sus­pect pos­es a threat of seri­ous phys­i­cal harm, either to himself/​herself, or to oth­ers, it is not con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly unrea­son­able to use dead­ly force to stop that threat.

Rest in peace con­sta­ble Leighton Hanson

Government’s Lack Of Decisive Action Responsible For Cop Killings

Almost dai­ly I write about crime in Jamaica . I also get on the air­waves and talk about it at times.
I do so not because I am fix­at­ed with the neg­a­tive things hap­pen­ing in our country.
I do so because I under­stand that pre­tend­ing that we are going to build wealth and pros­per­i­ty with­in spaces dom­i­nat­ed by mur­der may­hem and chaos is sim­ply delu­sion­al at best, or worse a bla­tant lie being per­pet­u­at­ed on the nation.
As I said to a for­mer col­league ear­li­er today in pri­vate, when I con­sid­er the safe­ty and secu­ri­ty of our coun­try I do not think of the People’s National Party as part of the solu­tion for rein­ing in the lawlessness.
There sim­ply has been no prece­dent in the his­to­ry of the PNP to act on crime and social disorder.
The PNP has cap­i­tal­ized on law­less­ness in order to craven­ly dom­i­nate state power.

The Party does so using the tac­tic of populism.
Their pop­ulist “do what­ev­er you want wink and nod: has turned Jamaica into what it is today, one of the world’s most vio­lent, crime rid­den nations tee­ter­ing pre­cip­i­tous­ly on the brink of becom­ing a failed state.

So we are left with the Jamaica Labor Party the oth­er major polit­i­cal party.
The labor par­ty was the par­ty of fis­cal dis­ci­pline, the par­ty of law and order, it was the par­ty which cared about workers .
It was Bustamante who spent almost two years in prison for dar­ing to chal­lenge the exist­ing mores of the rul­ing Colonial mas­ters on behalf of ordi­nary workers.
It was Bustamante who bared his chest to sol­diers and said “shoot me and let my peo­ple go”,
It was Bustamante who kept our coun­try out of a calami­tous West Indies Federation , which was to col­lapse soon after Jamaica withdrew.
It was under Bustamante that our coun­try was placed on a sol­id foot­ing of auton­o­my and self determination.
Not the Ivy league edu­cat­ed Norman Manley.

That par­ty is no longer around.
This Labor Party is not the par­ty of Herbert Eldemire , Donald Sangster and it damn sure isn’t the par­ty of the Rt. Hon Hugh Lawson Shearer.
Is it still an improve­ment over the pathet­ic pow­er hun­gry PNP which is only after steal­ing from state funds ?
Absolutely yes.
Nevertheless it was the Labor Party which refused to extra­dite Christopher Coke.
It was the new JLP which allowed Tivoli Gardens to mat­u­rate into the moth­er of all Garrisons.
It was the JLP which gave the nation INDECOM.
It is the JLP which refus­es to repeal the atro­cious cop killing law and for that the par­ty must be held accountable.
And it is the JLP which now has the pow­er to move deci­sive­ly against the nation’s ter­ror­ists, and it has not done so.

Until The Prime Minister Fires Terrence Williams He Is Responsible For Every Innocent Life Lost To Marauding Criminals ..

♦At the intro­duc­tion of the INDECOM act I said it would embold­en crim­i­nals , almost 7 years lat­er there is irrefutable evi­dence that crim­i­nals and ordi­nary folks alike are embold­ened to not only break the laws but they open­ly assault and kill Police officers.
♦ At the roll out of the law I said the atti­tude of the com­mis­sion­er of INDECOM Terrence Williams, would send a clear and unequiv­o­cal mes­sage that they have an ally and pro­tec­tor in INDECOM.
They do.
♦I said crime would increase and increase exponentially.
It has.
♦I pre­dict­ed a spike in homicide.
There has been.
♦I said cops would be killed .
The evi­dence is clear they are being killed.

And so yes­ter­day anoth­er cop had his life snuffed out in broad day­light, in his uni­form because two things occurred .
He was too scared of INDECOM to effect the arrest the cor­rect way .
And his killer knew it was okay to resist arrest and kill a cop.
The sit­ting Administration stead­fast­ly refus­es to say this was ill-con­ceived, we will revis­it the law. .
On that basis every dead cop, every law abid­ing cit­i­zen who dies is the respon­si­bil­i­ty of the government .
The blood is on their hands.

As Police offi­cers and cit­i­zens lives con­tin­ue to be snuffed out in alarm­ing num­bers, the Government is death­ly silent.
In oth­er coun­tries when a police office is killed there is mas­sive push-back from their soci­eties and cer­tain­ly Government.
Under both Political par­ties stew­ard­ship, the ruth­less killing of Police offi­cers illic­it crickets.….…
Deafening silence.….…..
Not Portia, Not Peter Phillips and damn sure not Andrew Holness.
These mis­guid­ed lit­tle morons sit by and make no state­ment, as if the death of police offi­cers is beneath them, the per­rog­a­tive of under­lings to address.
Who the fuck do they think they are ?
The Police have not released an offi­cial state­ment on the mat­ter thus far.

Clearly this force is not learn­ing any­thing regard­ing mod­ern polic­ing pro­to­cols and it’s mem­bers are pay­ing a high price for the incom­pe­tence of it’s leadership.
The offi­cer was mur­dered and a senior offi­cer in kha­ki dress was seen on the scene no one lift­ed a fin­ger to offer first aid.
The scene was not closed off imme­di­ate­ly, anoth­er breach of protocol/​Passers by pho­tographed and video taped the dead officer.
The videos and images are plas­tered across social media .
Motorists drove on the side­walks to get to where they were going,in a sit­u­a­tion where the entire area ought to have been closed to all traffic.
Clearly there was no obser­va­tion of any estab­lished best prac­tices, an insult to the fam­i­ly of the dead officer.
This Police force con­tin­ue to be the Barney Fyffe of law enforcement .

On the issue of train­ing , I have been talk­ing about this for years. Simply observe estab­lished norms across oth­er police depart­ments, then train and oper­ate acordingly .
Only in Jamaica is it frowned upon when offi­cers order crim­i­nals to the ground at gun­point in order to effect an arrest.
Had this offi­cer observed these basic stan­dards, he would have been alive today.
I served in the JCF between January 1982 until October 1991 .
You best believe dur­ing my servuce when I order you to get down on your knees you are going to do as I say.

Every offi­cer has a right to go home to his/​her fam­i­ly, the same way Andrew Holness , Peter Phillips, and Terrence Williams does.
They should nev­er be appre­hen­sive that some bureau­crat will sit in judge­ment of them , when they are the ones risk­ing their lives.

This case brings tears to my eyes , I too was sta­tioned at Constant Spring.
Word is that the oth­er offi­cer with the slain offi­cer ran away.
On the night I was shot the oth­er two key­stone cops ran away, one was a detec­tive cor­po­ral, the oth­er a District Constable.
I under­stood the actions of the dis­trict con­sta­ble then ‚but the corporal.…?
He would lat­er be pro­mot­ed to the Rank of Senior Superintendent after I left the department.
A reflec­tion of how the force has regressed over the years because of polit­i­cal manip­u­la­tion and strangulation.
Despite being shot that night I was able to sin­gle hand­ed­ly remove anoth­er brand new weapon and ammu­ni­tion from the streets.

I offer my con­do­lences to the fam­i­ly of con­sta­ble Leighton Hanson, your son gave his life to an ungrate­ful nation.
Notwithstanding you should be eter­nal­ly proud.
Your son’s sac­ri­fice was not in vain .
He died so that peo­ple less than him­self and unde­serv­ing of his life’s work and sac­ri­fice may live.
Unfortunately for you ‑you are now left to grieve his loss.
We offer our love and prayers.

PLEASE DO NOT FORGET TO SHARE THIS ARTICLE , IF NOTHING IT DEMONSTRATES TO THE GOOD MEN AND WOMEN WHO RISK THEIR LIVES FOR OTHERS THAT WE CARE ABOUT THEM.

Tip Of The Day..

STREET SAFETY TIPS FOR YOUR SURVIVAL.

Halse hall great house clarendon
  • Be aware of your sur­round­ings at all times and trust your instincts. If you think you are in an area you should not be, you prob­a­bly are.
  • Know where you’re going and the safest way to get there, par­tic­u­lar­ly when mov­ing about the city dur­ing hours of dark­ness. Walk/​run in well-trav­eled, well-lit areas avoid­ing short cuts through alleys and park­ing lots.
  • Have a plan of action in mind. Decide where you would go and what you would do should some dan­ger­ous sit­u­a­tion occur. Know where the near­est police/​fire sta­tion is locat­ed, how to con­tact the police in the event of an emer­gency, what estab­lish­ments are open late where you could seek refuge if need­ed, etc.
  • Walk with con­fi­dence on the street and at a good, steady pace. Keep your head up, observe your sur­round­ings, and don’t look down at the ground.
  • Carry a whis­tle or sim­i­lar type of noise­mak­er. In the event of an emer­gency, the sound may scare off a would-be attacker.
  • Take spe­cial care when jog­ging or bik­ing. Vary your route, go with a friend, and avoid iso­lat­ed areas.
  • Do NOT wear head­phones or lis­ten to music. These can dis­tract you from being aware of your sur­round­ings and who may be approach­ing you.
  • Keep purs­es and pack­ages tucked secure­ly between your arms and body. Don’t over­load your­self with pack­ages and bags – it is dis­tract­ing and it can make you look defenseless.
  • Carry only what you need. Don’t car­ry a large amount of cash or numer­ous cred­it cards and avoid wear­ing flashy and exces­sive amounts of jewelry.
  • Exercise cau­tion when using ATM machines. Only use ATMs locat­ed in well lit, well traf­ficked areas those phys­i­cal­ly locat­ed in stores are the safest.

If You are Being Followed:

  • Show you are sus­pi­cious and turn to look at the per­son. It sends a clear mes­sage that you will not be tak­en by surprise.
  • Change direc­tions. If some­one is fol­low­ing you on foot, cross the street and vary your pace. If the per­son fol­low­ing you is in a car, turn and walk in the oppo­site direction.
  • Go into the near­est store or pub­lic place. If the per­son fol­lows you, ask to use (or find) a phone and call for help. If there isn’t a store or pub­lic area near­by, keep mov­ing. If you have to scream (or blow your whis­tle) to draw atten­tion to your sit­u­a­tion, do it.

If You are Robbed:

  • DO NOT RESIST, espe­cial­ly if you know or believe the rob­ber to be armed. The best course of action is to hand over mon­ey and what­ev­er oth­er belong­ings are demand­ed as quick­ly as pos­si­ble and try to dis­en­gage from this con­fronta­tion­al, and poten­tial­ly dan­ger­ous. Remember, belong­ings can always be replaced, but you cannot.
  • Try to remain calm. Note the rob­ber’s appear­ance and report the crime imme­di­ate­ly to the police.
  • Talk to you soon..

Extradited Scammers Just The Tip Of The Iceberg: Government Vision-less…

The sight of 8 Jamaicans cuffed and shack­led under the watch­ful eye of United States Federal law Enforcement Officials should be a wake up call for Jamaicans of all stripes.
One of the things Jamaicans cher­ish most is the idea of our right to self deter­mi­na­tion, auton­o­my and most of all our sovereignty.
The idea of Jamaicans shack­led and cuffed leav­ing our shores to face Justice abroad should wake even the most intel­lec­tu­al­ly indo­lent to the fact that our world has become expo­nen­tial­ly more interconnected.
As a con­se­quence actions tak­en by our Nationals at a home will have seri­ous con­se­quences abroad even though he/​she may have nev­er set foot out­side Jamaica.

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These are the real­i­ties of today and the inter­con­nect­ed nature of our world is not unrav­el­ing despite Brexit or the rise of white Nationalism across Europe and the United States.

This writer takes no pride in say­ing I told you so . I would rather that Jamaican offi­cials move stri­dent­ly and deci­sive­ly to choke off the avenues of crim­i­nal­i­ty which are forc­ing Jamaicans to engage in these practices.
It may rea­son­ably be argued that the incred­i­bly poor gov­er­nance which the nations lead­ers have pro­vid­ed since 1962 has forced our peo­ple into lives of crime with Government’s silent acquiescence.

Christopher Coke being tak­en away by US Federal Agents..

Because of the Interconnected nature of our world transna­tion­al crimes like the lot­to scam (wire fraud) are being com­mit­ted across continents.
This makes vic­tims of cit­i­zens of coun­tries the per­pe­tra­tors have nev­er set foot on.
With the ease of which large sums of monies can change hands these days in a mat­ter of min­utes the task of track­ing , appre­hend­ing and bring transna­tion­al crim­i­nals to jus­tice takes on added significance.

Jamaica’s oblig­a­tions to International char­ters and oth­er agree­ments makes it manda­to­ry that it adheres to, and hon­or law­ful request by oth­er mem­ber states when our nation­als have com­mit­ted crimes against their citizens.

For years this writer has warned that this would be hap­pen­ing . For years I wrote that if Jamaica refus­es to put in place strin­gent and effec­tive meth­ods to cur­tail the ram­pant crim­i­nal­i­ty in the soci­ety oth­ers will do it for us, and we will not be hap­py about the way they do it.

If the Tivoli incur­sion which led to Christopher (dudus) Coke’s even­tu­al arrest in 2010 and the oth­er instances of Jamaicans leav­ing in cuffs to face real jus­tice over­seas is not warn­ing enough,the new batch of 8 won’t make a dif­fer­ence to the brain dead.
Unfortunately for Jamaica this is only the tip of the ice­berg, this prac­tice will be stepped up with alarm­ing alacrity.

Alleged Scammer being led to airplane .

We under­stand that as much as 500 more are to be extra­dit­ed for their parts in this scam.
The num­ber of Jamaicans leav­ing in chains will even­tu­al­ly start resem­bling the images of our fore-par­ents com­ing to the west­ern world hun­dreds of years ago.

The dif­fer­ence being that our ances­tors were guiltless.
If you don’t dis­ci­pline your chil­dren soci­ety pro­vides a penal sys­tem to dis­ci­pline them for you.
Refusing to pay seri­ous atten­tion to crime, and unwar­rant­ed inter­fer­ence in law enforce­ment by Jamaica’s polit­i­cal lead­ers (many , crim­i­nals them­selves) have seri­ous­ly erod­ed the rule of law and placed our coun­try pre­cip­i­tous­ly close to being a failed state despite the noise to the contrary.

Lax law enforce­ment and a lack of seri­ous­ness about crime has served to attract crim­i­nals to our coun­try rather than repel them.
In fact Jamaicans liv­ing abroad who play by their host coun­try’s rules delib­er­ate­ly break Jamaica’s law once they step off a plane at either of the Island’s two International Airports.

Lotto scam­mer 28-year-old Damion Barrett of Norwood, St. James being led away to be flown out of the Island.

Like flies to feces crim­i­nals flock to places where they are allowed to com­mit crimes with the least chance they will be held accountable.

We now see Jamaica attract­ing crim­i­nals from Europe and oth­er parts of the world , includ­ing Chinese crim­i­nals who would be sum­mar­i­ly exe­cut­ed if the crimes they com­mit in Jamaica were com­mit­ted in China..

We also see a pro­lif­er­a­tion of Mosques in our country.
This does not mean that Muslims are all killers who blow up places, but where they go we can also see that those who share some aspects of the faith also attach them­selves to those locales with the intent to do harm to others.

Just Another Day Of Grenades And Dead Cops Welcome To Jamaica..

WARNING

Jamaica’s lead­er­ship can be stuck on stu­pid or they can cast off the unsus­tain­able man­tle of empa­thy, aid and com­fort they have afford­ed crim­i­nals in the past and begin to under­stand the seri­ous­ness of the times and the con­se­quences to our nation’s sur­vival in an ever chang­ing world.
This is not alarmist by any stretch of the imag­i­na­tion, those who think it is, should talk to the police offi­cers who were faced with grenade toss­ing crim­i­nals a few weeks ago.

women are not immune

There is noth­ing sov­er­eign about a coun­try’s nation­als being tak­en out of that coun­try to face tri­al in another.

Now I want you all to pic­ture this .
Imagine 500 Jamaicans being tak­en out in handcuffs.
They nev­er set foot in the United States but the crimes they com­mit­ted involved Americans.
On that basis they are removed , tried and sen­tenced and sent to prison only to add to the list of depor­tees already flood­ing the Island.

As if that is not scary enough, now imag­ine ter­ror­ists com­ing to our coun­try as a result of our lax atti­tude toward crime. 
They set up shop so they can car­ry out attacks against America’s Interests or Canadian, French, British or any oth­er Nation’s interests.

How do you think those nations are going to respond to Bombings which kill their nationals?

It behoove Jamaica’s lead­ers to pull their heads from their ass­es and stop lis­ten­ing to the Elitist and the ego-mani­a­cal lit­tle kings they cre­at­ed to talk about human rights.


It’s time to take the steps Jamaica must take to end this non­sense before it engulfs every­one and turn our coun­try into a ter­ror­ists wasteland.
What exact­ly is the rea­son behind Jamaica’s polit­i­cal lead­ers refusal to deal effec­tive­ly with crime ?

Even with the pas­sage of new leg­is­la­tion sup­posed to send a mes­sage to orga­nized crim­i­nals, con­vic­tions result in J$2000’000 fines or 6 months imprisonment.
Conversely those extra­dit­ed to the United States are sen­tenced to twen­ty years for their part in the same crimes.

Clearly the law­mak­ers are doing the nation’s law abid­ing cit­i­zens a ter­ri­ble dis-ser­vice which will have dev­as­tat­ing con­se­quences in the not too dis­tant future.
Pretty soon we will have reached a point of no return.

Tip Of The Day…

HELPFUL POLICE SAFETY TIPS WHICH WILL HELP PREVENT HAVING YOUR HOME BURGLARIZED

Historic King’s House Jamaica , home of the Governor General.(adapted)
  • Invest in sol­id doors and good qual­i­ty locks on doors and win­dows. This includes on all slid­ing glass doors as well. Make it not only dif­fi­cult but also time con­sum­ing for a bur­glar to gain entry.
  • Whenever you go out­side, lock the door and take the key with you, even if you are just step­ping next door or out mow­ing the backyard.
  • Don’t put valu­ables where they can be seen from the win­dow, espe­cial­ly items that can be eas­i­ly carried.
  • Be sure your garage door can be secured. Do not leave it open when you are away, an emp­ty garage broad­casts your absence.
  • When you aren’t home, set a timer set to turn inte­ri­or lights on and off at vary­ing inter­vals as though your home was still occupied.
  • Don’t keep large amounts of cash or real­ly valu­able jew­el­ry around the house.
  • If some­one comes to your door ask­ing to use the tele­phone, make the call your­self. Don’t invite them in.
  • Don’t hide a spare key under the door­mat or under a flower pot. Thieves know all the good hid­ing places.
  • Plant thorny bush­es under all win­dows. Trim back any trees or shrubs near doors and win­dows to elim­i­nate hid­ing places for would-be thieves.
  • Invest in a good secu­ri­ty sys­tem along with motion sen­sor lights installed out of reach.
  • Don’t leave lad­ders out­side. Keep any tools that could be used to break in your home safe­ly locked away in a garage or shed.
  • Get a bark­ing dog or “Beware of Dog” sign. If you own a dog and go out of town, have some­one come in and care for your dog in your home.
  • Always dou­ble check doors at night and lock all windows.
  • Engrave all valu­ables such as stere­os, microwaves, video cam­eras, with your dri­ver’s license num­ber. Videotape the con­tents of your home. Keep the video and the list of all valu­ables in a safe place, such as a safe­ty deposit box.

Community Relations Or Lack Of Discipline?

Two images of police officers caught on camera at the recent Jamaica carnival are drawing diametrically and viscerally different opinion in the way they are perceived.

I have no desire to dive into this debate myself, large­ly because of the lev­el of ener­gy a debate of this type requires with arguably neg­li­gi­ble returns.
As is cus­tom­ary the pros and cons are balka­nized in their posi­tions which no amount of per­sua­sion is ever going to change.
It is on that note that I refuse to get involved, except to point out a few facts.

Senior Cop and rev­el­er.
(Image adapt­ed)

It’s one thing to be caught in a snap moment in time as Steve Brown The super­in­ten­dent is, but the actions of the con­sta­ble in that video cer­tain­ly rais­es more than eyebrows.
It raised my blood pressure.

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Those who see noth­ing wrong with the imagery of these two offi­cers argue stri­dent­ly that the dire need for bet­ter police com­mu­ni­ty rela­tions vast­ly super­sede any per­ceived neg­a­tives any­one could point to in these imagery.
To bol­ster their argu­ments they point to police offi­cers in devel­oped coun­tries engag­ing in sim­i­lar conduct.
Where the lines are in that think­ing, are yet to be defined by supporters.
What they nev­er both­er to say is that, those devel­oped coun­try’s police depart­ments also have a prob­lem with their offi­cer’s actions when they occur.

NYPD cop daggering.

On the oth­er hand there are those opposed who say we can have good rela­tions with the pub­lic with­out engag­ing con­duct sim­i­lar to that of that constable .
In fact many say the uni­form of a police offi­cers is a sym­bol of respect ‚it should nev­er be degraded .
Engaging in behav­ior of this type they argue , dimin­ish­es the author­i­ty of the police and places every­one at risk when offi­cers lose focus from the task at hand.
All rea­son­able points , how­ev­er when we con­sid­er the crimes offi­cers have been accused of being engaged in, I won­der whether this is not mild in comparison.
It may rea­son­able be said how­ev­er that it is exact­ly actions of this type which has char­ac­ter­ized and pre­cip­i­tat­ed the decline in the qual­i­ty of our police ser­vice, not just in Jamaica but in larg­er coun­tries as well.

It’s hard to see a mea­sur­able pos­i­tive from these images , even as they seem to be becom­ing par for the course.

The actions of police are always scru­ti­nized, as such offi­cers have a duty to be as cir­cum­spect as is human­ly pos­si­ble at all times.
Younger offi­cers some­times get caught up in the moment of an event, and some­times have eye­brow rais­ing instances in their conduct.
Older more sea­soned offi­cers do not have such lux­u­ry , they know what is expect­ed of them and they have a duty to act accordingly.
They are sup­posed to have built-in reac­tions for all occur­rences with­out seem­ing cold uncar­ing or aloof.
The notion that these actions speak to lev­els of coöper­a­tion between police and pub­lic is hard to fath­om and may very well be tes­ta­ment to the lev­els to which the JCF has sunk.
Many cops remind me back in the day they were afraid to even smoke in their uniform.
Conversely my civil­ian friends are quick to remind me that cops in bars with assault weapons drink­ing alco­hol does not do it for them either.

Revelers will do what they do but offi­cers must main­tain a line of decorum..

Is it the end of the world that an offi­cer get caught up in the moment when a gyrat­ing rev­el­er gets way to close?
No!!
But the offi­cer is there to pro­tect the rev­el­er who may already have had too much to drink, or may have been to high on adren­a­line or some­thing else .
The offi­cer has to have an imag­i­nary line in his/​her head that he/​she does­n’t cross and does­n’t allow oth­ers to cross.
It’s not about being stiff and unfriend­ly , it is about being aware that as an offi­cer you have a respon­si­bil­i­ty to be on alert for the pro­tec­tion of all par­ty goers.
It is dif­fi­cult to argue you can be com­plete­ly alert while engag­ing in daggering.
The fact that it is hap­pen­ing all across dif­fer­ent police depart­ments in parts of the world does not mean it’s right.

Police in Boston Mass. react­ed immideate­ly bombs went off at the marathon.

Even when we argue that it is crit­i­cal­ly impor­tant to exploit all avenues which will fos­ter bet­ter com­mu­ni­ty police rela­tions, we still can­not lose sight of the fact that we are liv­ing in dan­ger­ous times. On that note offi­cers have to be cog­nizant that there are peo­ple will­ing to kill oth­er inno­cent human beings to vent their anger and dis­plea­sure at some per­ceived injustice..
Terrorists are always on the prowl for what are called soft targets .
Please do not say this does­n’t hap­pen here.
Crime and ter­ror hap­pen wher­ev­er oppor­tu­ni­ties are present.

Bombs went off killing inno­cent and unsus­pect­ing marathoners.

It is always up to the Police and oth­er first respon­ders to be vig­i­lant and aware , ever ready to leap into action.
It is not that easy to act to pre­vent mass loss of life and to arrest poten­tial killers if as an offi­cer you place your­self in a posi­tion in which you become a vic­tim as well.
If we set aside the pros and cons of the optics and con­tem­plate only the fun­da­men­tals of what is like­ly to hap­pen in cir­cum­stances like these, it’s prob­a­bly a lot eas­i­er to know what side to come down on.

Tip Of The Day..

Simple com­mon sense approach­es can save you a whole lot of headache and pain.
Leaving pock­et-books, Jeweler box­es, or pack­ages which appear to con­tain valu­ables is an open invi­ta­tion for thieves to break into your vehi­cle, even if the con­tain­ers are empty.

Thieves scout­ing out a group of auto­mo­biles will invari­able chose to break into the one which has pack­ages vis­i­ble inside.
It does not mat­ter that the pack­age is empty.
Imagine cred­it cards, dri­ver’s licence, and oth­er per­son­al doc­u­ments which have all your per­son­al infor­ma­tion, includ­ing your home address in the hands of face­less strangers?
Even if they did not find any­thing, you will be left hold­ing the bag for a smashed win­dow or a dam­aged door-lock.

The Flat Bridge Bog Walk St Catherine…

Oh by the way, always lock your doors, no mat­ter how safe you think your neigh­bor­hood is .
Most crimes are crimes of opportunity .
Talk to you next time.