The rampant murder in Jamaica is so severe that making mention of a particular case or writing about a single instance seem discriminatory and unmindful of the fact that the taking of each and every life is the same in God’s sight.

No life is more impor­tant than the oth­er , as a for­mer street cop I know this all too well , I saw the dead bod­ies in the slums and I saw them in the upscale neigh­bor­hoods of upper upper Saint Andrew.

Despite my pol­i­cy of not treat­ing any death as more impor­tant than anoth­er, I some­times break with that tra­di­tion to speak specif­i­cal­ly on a par­tic­u­lar killing not because the par­tic­u­lar decedent/​s life is more valu­able than that of oth­ers but because of the cir­cum­stances of their indi­vid­ual demise.
There is much talk regard­ing the com­plex­i­ties of the Island’s crime sit­u­a­tion . If you lis­ten to the Police Commissioner you would walk away with a shrug, because you would be utter­ly con­vinced that the only peo­ple who are being killed on the Island are peo­ple engaged in the lotto-scam.
Whether or not the peo­ple being mur­dered are lot­to-scam­mers and their affil­i­ates would cer­tain­ly not change the fact that the Island is expe­ri­enc­ing astro­nom­i­cal­ly high homi­cide rates which places it at or near the top of the world’s most mur­der­ous nations.
Using the met­ric I pre­vi­ous­ly out­lined those killing should offer no com­fort to any­one seri­ous­ly plugged into whats hap­pen­ing on the Island as it relates to crime.
A dead lot­to-scam­mer is a dead Jamaican, a dead gang mem­ber is a dead Jamaican. We should see the pars­ing of deaths, ” because of this or because of that” as a sign that they have no answers for the exist­ing prob­lems. Or they have the answers but their hands are tied.

The Jamaican peo­ple have the answer to crime they obsti­nate­ly refuse to use it .They have allowed a small sub-set of peo­ple to tell them how mur­der­ers are to be treated.
(1) You can’t hang them ! Privy Council…
(2) You can shoot them ! (pha­lanx of human rights eat a food-ers)
(3) Police can­not shoot them! INDECOM , also see #2
(4) Can’t jail them for life and throw the keys away! Trial lawyers and oth­er bleed­ing hearts.
Hug them up, Yaaaaa.…

Jamaica’s Crime Not Rooted In The Ghettos.…

As a for­mer police offi­cer I have seen first hand the con­se­quence of crime on our coun­try . If you decide to look at the killings as the Police high com­mand has done and remove the gang killings and those sup­pos­ed­ly asso­ci­at­ed with the lot­to-scam you may extrap­o­late from the remain­der of those sta­tis­tics that the sec­tor tak­ing the brunt of the killings is the small busi­ness sector.
In may cas­es , (accord­ing to my sources ) those mur­ders are a direct result of the ram­pant extor­tion rack­et on the Island .
On the oth­er hand many of the peo­ple who pass as legit­i­mate busi­ness peo­ple are actu­al­ly heav­i­ly involved in seri­ous crimes, as I wrote just last week.

Over the last two to three decades over thir­ty thou­sand Jamaicans have been mur­dered by some esti­mates . It is impor­tant that those sta­tis­tics are digest­ed in the con­text that the Island is not engaged in a civ­il war, and that the pop­u­la­tion is only 2.8 million.
On Monday night two more Jamaicans lost their lives in a hail of gun­fire . According to Police Fifty-eight-year-old Andrew Davis and 50-year-old Helen McGoo were shot mul­ti­ple times as they sat inside their car, just after clos­ing their bill pay­ment and lot­tery tick­et busi­ness about 7:45 pm. The two were approached by a gun­man who opened fire at them. They were rushed to the hos­pi­tal where they were pro­nounced dead. The police has ruled out rob­bery as a motive as noth­ing was tak­en from the couple.

Jamaica’s crime prob­lem invari­ably will get far worse before it gets bet­ter. As long as the Nation’s leg­is­la­tion and law-enforce­ment is heav­i­ly influ­enced by Criminal trail-lawyers, bleed­ing heart crim­i­nal sym­pa­thiz­ers and the social­ist intel­li­gentsia which has it’s head so far up it’s own ass it can­not smell the shit.
The prob­lem of crime will not be fixed because many law-mak­ers dou­ble as defense lawyers, who active­ly defend mur­der­ous crim­i­nals then walk into the Nation’s par­lia­ment to debate laws. If we are to fix the crime prob­lem we must throw out the entire shit-house and not just the shit.
Jamaica is a coun­try where some of the peo­ple in pol­i­tics on both sides of the polit­i­cal divide are active­ly engaged in crim­i­nal conduct.

As long as the Island’s jus­tice sys­tem is pop­u­lat­ed with Judges , pros­e­cu­tors and defense lawyers who came from the same left­ist bas­tion in Mona St Andrew crime will con­tin­ue. As long as the Jamaican peo­ple allow a select few to decide what is right for them while they who decide live in gat­ed com­mu­ni­ties which are ade­quate­ly policed and pro­tect­ed by armed pri­vate secu­ri­ty com­pa­nies blood will con­tin­ue to stain the side­walks and street corners.
Ordinary Jamaicans must pre­pare to come out with their water-hoses and push brooms and con­tin­ue to wash away the blood and the brain mat­ter of their loved ones from the pave­ments and street cor­ners across the Island.
Ask your­selves why they refuse to fix the police depart­ment? Placing a PhD at the head of a decrepit paper tiger is not mod­ern­iz­ing the police department.
Creating an antag­o­nis­tic anti-police agency to fight with the police must be seen for the smoke-screen it is. If the police can­not do it’s job because of low morale and per­se­cu­tion the polit­i­cal class has free rein to con­tin­ue to raid the pub­lic cof­fers unchecked ‚who is to hold them accountable?
The police ser­vice can­not be a real police ser­vice unless it is free from the shack­les of polit­i­cal con­trol, polit­i­cal dic­tates, polit­i­cal manip­u­la­tion regard­less of what you are told.
When the polit­i­cal class and those who live above Cross-Roads are locked away in jail for their crimes it will be time for us to say we are mak­ing progress as a nation.
Until then they are blow­ing smoke up your ass.

In his con­tri­bu­tion to the bud­get debate of 2016 Prime Minister Holness rather briefly spoke to the issue of crime toward the end of his presentation .
In brief the Prime Minister indi­cat­ed that his Administration is con­sid­er­ing revis­it­ing the bail act, with a view to pre­vent­ing some per­sons charged with mur­der form receiv­ing bail.
https://​mike​beck​les​.com/​p​r​i​m​e​-​m​i​n​i​s​t​e​r​s​-​p​r​e​s​e​n​t​a​t​i​o​n​-​b​r​e​a​t​h​-​f​r​e​s​h​-​a​ir/

Frankly I would per­son­al­ly have liked to see the Prime Minister inform him­self more on this issue. I would also have pre­ferred that he spent more time speak­ing to the ques­tion of crime, and in par­tic­u­lar use his high office to edu­cate the pub­lic and his col­leagues on the oppo­si­tion side of the isle on the debil­i­tat­ing effect crime is hav­ing on the country.

In a recent arti­cle I wrote I laid out some straight for­ward facts which shows that for many on the Island crime means mak­ing a liv­ing. People now depend on death to put their pots on fire, more deaths mean more food.
The nation has lost it’s abil­i­ty to appre­ci­ate the val­ue and the sanc­ti­ty of life . Countless years of inor­di­nate­ly high cost of the most basic neces­si­ties have numbed the peo­ple’s abil­i­ty to care, it’s every man for himself.
One per­son said to me the oth­er day Jamaicans now laugh at a pass­ing hearse, not lament­ing that anoth­er of their neigh­bor has met his/​her demise, but admir­ing­ly query (a who mek dat de dup­py) who killed the deceased ?

It’s as if the nation is devoid of soul, the con­stant killings are not cause for con­cern but rea­sons for cel­e­bra­tion, occa­sions to dress up and par­ty . From the car­pen­ter to the mason to the under­tak­er the bands­men to the sound sys­tem and all ven­dors in between , every­one eats from the car­cass­es of the dead like vul­tures tear­ing at the pun­gent decay­ing car­cass­es, while every­one else cov­ers their noses at the stench and the utter mor­bid­ness of it all.
These are the chil­dren of aus­ter­i­ty, the gen­er­a­tion of viper Raymond Wislon the head of the police union referenced.
What else did we expect?

Someone asked me years ago how could Palestinians blow them­selves up to make a point , how could they destroy their own lives?
I asked him whether he was aware that the peo­ple destroy­ing their lives are chil­dren who grew up under the boot-heels of Israeli occupation?
That they had no con­cept of life out­side despair, anger, revenge, and mar­tyr­dom, to them life is dif­fer­ent than those of their Israeli neigh­bors on the oth­er side of the fence.
The dif­fer­ences are as stark as the dif­fer­ence between night and day.
https://​mike​beck​les​.com/​d​e​a​t​h​-​b​u​s​i​n​e​s​s​-​j​a​m​a​i​c​a​-​m​a​y​b​e​-​p​e​o​p​l​e​-​n​o​t​-​w​a​n​t​-​e​n​d​-​c​r​i​me/

At the time Holness promised to revis­it the bail act I knew that there would be blow-back from the usu­al quar­ters. After all this is Jamaica we are talk­ing about, this is the place where every tom , dick and har­ry has an opin­ion about every­thing even if they have no idea how it affects them one way or the other.
What I did not know is exact­ly where the first bunch of lib­er­al hot air would come from first?
Would it come from the dumb sheep whose fam­i­ly mem­bers are get­ting slaugh­tered while they cel­e­brate the butchers?

Would it be from the politi­cians who sit in the Nation’s par­lia­ment only because the peo­ple who live in the con­stituen­cy they rep­re­sent are real­ly are trib­al cultists who look for gov­ern­ment largess to sur­vive? The kind of largess which keep them sub­ju­gat­ed and depen­dent unable to think out­side their parochial exis­tence, anoth­er kind of slave plantation?
Or would it come from the Criminal defense Lawyers , many of who are active crim­i­nals them­selves and many more active­ly enhanc­ing the process of crim­i­nal­i­ty on the island?
Would it come from the hal­lowed halls of the Intellectual ghet­to where the edu­cat­ed are the lib­er­al­ly slant­ed ide­o­logues who make up much, if not all of nation­al life?
Would it come from the busi­ness sec­tor which thrives on the blood-let­ting , or would it be the pletho­ra of bleed­ing heart par­a­sites lin­ing up sup­pos­ed­ly in defense of the poor and dis­pos­sessed under the ban­ner of human rights , as long of course as they can eat a food?

I believe this time it was the very vul­tures who pre­tend to defend the free­doms of the inno­cent, even as they ignore the dai­ly slaugh­ter of the inno­cent, the defense­less, the elder­ly and those so young they are unable to pro­tect themselves.
Nothing else mat­ters as long as they are paid.
It came as no sur­prise that the noble con­cept of pub­lic ser­vice is lost on them. The very ser­vice police offi­cers , fire­men, teach­ers, doc­tors and oth­ers freely give.
It is impor­tant that as one pon­der crime and what sus­tains it that we rec­og­nize remark­ably that though the fix is in the peo­ple’s grasp they con­tin­ue to hand the knife to the per­son doing the stabbing.
Where there is no vision the peo­ple sure­ly perish.

As was expect­ed, mem­bers of the pri­vate Bar have come out swing­ing against Prime Minister Andrew Holness’s announce­ment of the Government’s inten­tion to have the Bail Act amended.

Mr Holness made the dis­clo­sure in his bud­get pre­sen­ta­tion on Tuesday, but did not elab­o­rate, stat­ing only that the inten­tion was for an amend­ment to the act “such that per­sons charged with mur­der will be inel­i­gi­ble for bail under cer­tain circumstances”.

Without details of the Government’s pro­pos­al, we are unable to give our view one way or the oth­er. However, read­ers of this col­umn will know that we have often argued the point that bail is too eas­i­ly grant­ed to some accused indi­vid­u­als and that there needs to be a review of the law.

We can­not for­get the bru­tal mur­der of Special Constable Troy Foster in Malvern, St Elizabeth, in January 2013 by gun­men who engaged a police patrol in the town.

After the shoot­ing, it emerged that one of the gun­men — Tyrone Edmond, who was also shot dead in that encounter — was out on bail, hav­ing been charged with the mur­der of 60-year-old pen­sion­er, Mr Cecil Bennett in Top Hill, St Elizabeth, in 2010.

We also remem­ber very well that in August 2012 one of the three sus­pects held for the cold-blood­ed mur­der of 26-year-old used car deal­er Mr Michael Rochester was on bail. The sus­pect, the police report­ed, was fac­ing charges of mur­der and shoot­ing with intent.

There have been myr­i­ad cas­es in which offend­ers on bail have com­mit­ted seri­ous crimes, includ­ing mur­der. Indeed, one infa­mous gang leader, who was arrest­ed and charged for a triple mur­der, was released on bail only to be arrest­ed again and charged with a fourth mur­der three months lat­er. But, sur­pris­ing­ly, he was grant­ed bail again.

After all that, who can blame the police and indeed pub­lic pros­e­cu­tors for feel­ing frus­trat­ed? Indeed, the police have often lament­ed that the ease with which some accused indi­vid­u­als are grant­ed bail is hob­bling their crime-fight­ing efforts.

We recall some years ago Assistant Commissioner of Police Wray Palmer express­ing a desire on behalf of the Police Officers’ Association that the courts review the admin­is­tra­tion of bail.

“We need to con­sid­er the free­dom of a vio­lent crim­i­nal ver­sus the secu­ri­ty of the nation,” Mr Palmer said at the time.

It is a view that was shared by for­mer Prime Minister PJ Patterson who, in 2005, called for a review of the pol­i­cy gov­ern­ing bail.

“There are too many cas­es of too may per­sons who have been bailed intim­i­dat­ing wit­ness­es or com­mit­ting oth­er offences,” Mr Patterson told senior jour­nal­ists at a Jamaica House news briefing.

This prob­lem, we note, is not unique to Jamaica for, in October 2012, British news­pa­pers pub­lished Government data show­ing that every 10 days a mur­der is com­mit­ted in Great Britain by offend­ers on bail.

According to those sta­tis­tics, at least 37 crim­i­nals were con­vict­ed of mur­der while on bail for anoth­er offence in the year 2011 — an aver­age of three every month.

In addi­tion, the data showed that in 2011, a total of 65,627 crim­i­nals were con­vict­ed for a new offence they had com­mit­ted while on bail.

While the fig­ures here in Jamaica are not as fright­en­ing, we can­not ignore the real­i­ty to which they speak.

Jamaica needs to get to the point where the prin­ci­ples of jus­tice and the rights of indi­vid­u­als are observed, while the safe­ty of the com­mu­ni­ty is protected.
http://​www​.jamaicaob​serv​er​.com/​e​d​i​t​o​r​i​a​l​/​T​h​e​r​e​-​i​s​-​n​e​e​d​-​f​o​r​-​a​-​t​o​u​g​h​e​r​-​B​a​i​l​-​A​c​t​_​6​2​193

As Prime Minister Holness seek to begin the process of dealing with the existential threat crime poses to Jamaica it cannot be lost on him that pretty much everything in Jamaica is a top-down affair.
Crime being no different has at it’s source , well placed powerful people who will fight tooth and nail to ensure that the monster is never tamed.

It is impor­tant to con­tem­plate the con­tin­ued growth of crime with­in those para­me­ters. If the pow­er­ful inter­est groups were inter­est­ed in Jamaica being crime-free I would not be writ­ing this blog.
One of the under­ly­ing prob­lem with­in the Criminal jus­tice sys­tem as I read it recent­ly is that the Island can­not find enough good lawyers will­ing to serve as judges.
The pri­ma­ry argu­ments com­ing out of lawyers polled is that the mon­ey is not good enough.
Remarkably, what jumped out at me was the self­ish­ness of the lawyers who respond­ed to the media query, not a sin­gle one felt the need to give back to their coun­try through pub­lic service.

Most coun­tries look­ing to devel­op a strong bench which will look out for the inter­est of the peo­ple, farm their judges from the pros­e­cu­tion side of the Isle.
In Jamaica they do not do that they source Judges from the pri­vate bar.
Is there any won­der that the Prosecutors have such a dif­fi­cult time gain­ing a con­vic­tion in the courts which give rad­i­cal new mean­ing to the term “crim­i­nal courts”?

There is a huge sub-set of the Jamaican pop­u­la­tion which has seri­ous fidu­cia­ry inter­est in the pro­lif­er­a­tion and pro­mul­ga­tion of crime.
Transparency International’s report­ing on this is quite illu­mi­nat­ing.( no pun intend­ed).
Whether it is the pha­lanx of sup­posed human rights lob­by­ists or the crim­i­nal defense lawyers, whether it’s the well placed upper Saint Andrew crowd who employ the con­tract killers, or the new breed which final­ly got exposed to a lit­tle edu­ca­tion at the hal­lowed left­ist halls of the intel­lec­tu­al ghet­to, they are equal­ly opposed to seri­ous laws against criminals.

Some of those who seem most respectable in the busi­ness world are the worst crim­i­nal offend­ers yet, they make mil­lions and none are the wis­er to their lives of crime. Largely because of the incom­pe­tence of the Police Department and the inabil­i­ty of the “crim­i­nal courts sys­tem” to pros­e­cute peo­ple with yel­low col­or and curly hair.
Damn, it is so bad the sys­tem even refused to seri­ous­ly con­sid­er a clear cut crim­i­nal com­plaint against kinky-haired Kern Spencer , and he does­n’t have curly-hair nor yel­low skin.

Many years ago while I was young detec­tive aide at the Constant Spring CIB a man I had nev­er seen came to the office and report­ed that he brought into the coun­try a con­tain­er load of toys which he sourced out to a cer­tain man whose fam­i­ly name is a sta­ple in busi­ness cir­cles around the country.
As many Jamaicans are well aware some peo­ple are untouch­able at least as far as the Jamaican police are concerned.
The gen­tle­man in ques­tion was sent to me in per­son as he was at his wits end, unable to col­lect a cent for his entire con­tain­er load of toys from the par­tic­u­lar well placed, well con­nect­ed businessman.
After sit­ting him down and doing an inter­view I real­ized that he was not Jamaican even though he loved our coun­try. Unfortunately for him the per­son who was hold­ing his prop­er­ty knew he was in the coun­try illegally(overstayed his per­mit) and was pre­pared to exploit that to it’s fullest.

After tak­ing his affi­davit I con­tem­plat­ed my actions going for­ward, if the busi­ness man hold­ing his prop­er­ty took respon­si­bil­i­ty that he owes the enor­mous sum of mon­ey to the com­plainant, it becomes a civ­il mat­ter there is no more action that I as a police offi­cer could take , he would need a lawyer to sue to recov­er his prop­er­ty, or be finan­cial­ly compensated .
For a Jamaican in a sim­i­lar predica­ment that’s a daunt­ing prospect, he would like­ly die before the courts arrived at a resolution.
For a for­eign­er he could for all intents and pur­pos­es kiss his mon­ey good­bye and the busi­ness man was well aware of this.

I decid­ed to pay him a hail-Mary vis­it(long-shot), with me was my good­ly part­ner Dadrick Henry.
Dadrick Henry and I had a good-cop, bad cop thing going . I would lead with the pleas­antries and if needs be Dadrick would show the bad cop per­sona. It worked won­ders for us.
We sat in our car the morn­ing stak­ing out his store in one of the many plazas on Constant Spring Road with us was the com­plainant. I want­ed to get his reac­tion to the com­plainant when we walked into his office, the very rea­son he decid­ed not to pay the debt may be the very best thing I had going for my plan of get­ting him to say he does not intend to pay for the mer­chan­dise in which case his hold­ing them with­out pay­ing for them would amount to a crime.

We wait­ed only about 10 min­utes after which he drove up in his spank­ing new BMW auto­mo­bile and went to the upper lev­el of the two floor strip mall in which his busi­ness was located.
We gave him an addi­tion­al ten min­utes to get set­tled and with audio tape turned on in my coat pock­et we entered his office and iden­ti­fied ourselves.
He was extreme­ly cour­te­ous and accom­mo­dat­ing. To this day I believe he thought he would sim­ply pla­cate us then drop us a twen­ty dol­lar for lunch and that would have been the end of the mat­ter. Over-con­fi­dence, Arrogance, and high-mind­ed­ness did him in.
Wrong cop!

He gra­cious­ly offered us a seat upon which he closed his office door, he there­after went on to school me in the law gov­ern­ing ille­gal immi­grants and end­ed con­fi­dent­ly by telling me that the ille­gal immi­gra­tion sta­tus of the com­plainant gives him the right not to pay him a red cent.
Ah yes “if fish would sim­ply shut it’s mouth he would­n’t get caught with a hook” my great aunt always said.
I got what I came for those with whom I served know I rel­ished tak­ing down these big fish.
All true but I was not in his office as an immi­gra­tion offi­cer. I was not an Immigration offi­cer, I was there with a view to deter­min­ing whether or not a crime was com­mit­ted and yes he did com­mit a crime.
I got up from my seat and thanked him for his hos­pi­tal­i­ty , then I told him Mister ******* you are under arrest for fraud­u­lent con­ver­sion place your hands behind your back right now”.
In two shakes of a cat’s tail I had him cuffed he was in absolute shock , how could this hap­pen peo­ple like them do not get placed in handcuffs?
He begged to be allowed to call one of his employ­ees I allowed it . The look on the face of his well coiffed uni­formed employ­ee when she walked in was priceless.
He instruct­ed her to call his fam­i­ly mem­bers , which I also allowed , the com­plainant want­ed his mon­ey not a dragged out court case.

In a few min­utes the office was filled with fam­i­ly mem­bers , every­one clutch­ing their pearls at what had just occurred. ” Gasp” please keep this between us , please do not allow this to get to the media”.
Me ? this is all in your hands and you bet­ter be quick about it. In less than a half of an hour the com­plainant received every cent of his two hun­dred thou­sand dollars.
In the late 80’s that was a hell of a lot of money.

One thing about this skin­ny lit­tle detec­tive was that no one was above the laws in my book .
The thanks and offers of a com­pen­sa­tion com­ing from the grate­ful com­plainant was solace for a job well done.
We declined !!!

Seeing the reac­tion on the offend­er and his fam­i­ly mem­bers faces was worth more than gold to us.
No one was above the law in my book , as a police offi­cer I nev­er cared who broke the law , if the evi­dence leads to you , you are going to jail.
Yes that brought a cer­tain noter­i­ty which got me in the cross-hairs of the polit­i­cal class and when they chose to they trans­ferred me for a shoot­ing I was­n’t even involved in , on a night I was­n’t even at work. Now you under­stand my undy­ing affec­tion for the police hier­ar­chy [sic]
In the end the peo­ple spoke and the feck­less police high com­mand had no choice but to return me to where they trans­ferred me from.
I loved being the peo­ple’s cop.

I learned a long time ago that s**t does not flow upstream. Crime in Jamaica has pow­er­ful sponsors .
Maybe one day I will write a book, I had a great time serv­ing the Jamaican people.