The quick dis­patch with which two mur­der accused were charged with killing (JUTC) bus dri­ver Albert Barnes aid­ed by CCTV tech­nol­o­gy should give the police, busi­ness and home own­ers and most impor­tant­ly the Government rea­son to believe crime in Jamaica can be brought under control.
Police are not mir­a­cle work­ers, as such Investigators have to have a series of things work­ing in their favor in order for them to effec­tive­ly solve seri­ous crimes like homi­cides. And yes one can­not dis­count the impor­tance of a lit­tle luck even with the best sci­en­tif­ic evi­dence and eye­wit­ness­es to crimes.

In small crime rid­den nation-states like Jamaica where resources allo­cat­ed to polic­ing are scarce and in many cas­es non-exis­tent, it is dou­bly impor­tant that stake­hold­ers help in their own per­son­al secu­ri­ty and that of their property.
Gone are the days when stake­hold­ers can stand by believ­ing it is up to law enforce­ment alone to guar­an­tee their secu­ri­ty in an ever chang­ing and more vio­lent world.

The fact that these two mur­der­ers were brought into cus­tody so swift­ly is a teach­able moment for all involved includ­ing the crim­i­nal-cod­dling courts which is like­ly sali­vat­ing at sum­mar­i­ly turn­ing these vio­lent mur­der­ous ver­min back onto the streets to kill again even as they too will pay lip-ser­vice to the astro­nom­i­cal mur­der rate on the Island.
Jamaica is one of the few coun­tries where alleged mur­der­ers are allowed out on bail. I am not exact­ly sure just where else in the world mur­der­ers are allowed out on bail but I will do due dili­gence to come up with answers for that question.
I’m not par­tic­u­lar­ly impressed with talk about “inno­cent until proven guilty” from nei­ther the vil­lage lawyers nor the trained ones who col­lect pay­checks to free these scum.
The rights of an accused mur­der­er can­not be guar­an­teed at the expense of the wider soci­ety which is not accused of any wrong doing.
It fol­lows there­fore that those accused of mur­der be kept locked up even while we ensure they are not abused or vio­lat­ed. Societies sim­ply have to err on the side of caution.

The Jamaican Judicial branch of Government is the antithe­sis of com­mon sense. The major­i­ty of those sit­ting on the crim­i­nals and and the appeals bench are flam­ing ide­o­log­i­cal lib­er­als who have zero respect for the feel­ings of peo­ple vic­tim­ized by bru­tal criminals.
Not to be out­done the Legislative branch which is large­ly a bunch of crim­i­nal defense lawyers dou­ble-dip­ping as leg­is­la­tors ‚are even worse than their con­tem­po­raries on the bench.
The con­tempt I have for both group, if felt by more Jamaicans would ensure a more account­able and safer Jamaica for all.
The leg­isla­tive branch failed to attach the nec­es­sary puni­tive teeth to the penal code.
The Judicial branch turn crim­i­nals loose based on it’s warped Utopian world-view. The abil­i­ty of judges to sup­plant the rule of law with their indi­vid­ual views must now come to an end.
Even though some in lead­er­ship posi­tion both blind and intel­lec­tu­al­ly chal­lenged sing the prais­es of the Island’s judges those very judges must take respon­si­bil­i­ty for their indi­vid­ual and col­lec­tive role in fur­ther­ing the mur­der of inno­cent Jamaicans by their uncon­scionable lib­er­al stance on the Bail Act.
It’s time for manda­to­ry min­i­mum sen­tenc­ing for cer­tain cat­e­go­ry of crimes.

NOTICE SHOOTERS IN CUSTODY

According to the Jamaican Police two men are in cus­tody for the December 21^st shoot­ing of Dr. Raymoth Notice the for­mer Mayor of Spanish Town.
Notice was alleged­ly shot while wash­ing his car at his home near the town of Bog Walk in St. Catherine.
This page applaud the police in the arrest of the two men whose names have not been released, even as I ques­tion how they are able to bring cas­es like these involv­ing well con­nect­ed peo­ple to clo­sure this swift­ly and effi­cient­ly while the same is non-exis­tent for poor­er less influ­en­tial Jamaicans.
I am not privy to the cir­cum­stances with­in the Investigations which pre­cip­i­tat­ed the speedy arrest of the two indi­vid­u­als in cus­tody, nev­er­the­less as a mat­ter of con­science I implore the police to attach the same lev­el of impor­tance ‚alacrity and urgency to oth­er case involv­ing Jamaicans who do not have the ben­e­fit of high name recognition.
For it’s in the fair and equi­table dis­pen­sa­tion of jus­tice that all our peo­ple will feel that they too mat­ter, that they have a stake in our coun­try which invari­ably will make them part­ners in the fight against crime.

POLICE CHARGE TWO WITH KILLING OF (JUTC) DRIVER

The Half-Way-Tree Police have report­ed charg­ing Garfield Walters, 22, and George Ballentine, 28, both of Bedward Gardens, with the killing of Albert Barnes.
According to Jamaican media Barnes was dri­ving a JUTC bus along Bedward Crescent, Kingston 7 on December 29 when explo­sions were heard. He was lat­er found with a gun­shot wound to the chest and was tak­en to hos­pi­tal where he died while being treated.
According to Police Walters sur­ren­dered to the Yallahs Police in St Thomas on Friday, January 01, while Ballentine was picked up by the police dur­ing an oper­a­tion in August Town, St Andrew on January 04. The police say a .380 semi-auto­mat­ic pis­tol and 24 rounds of ammu­ni­tion were tak­en from Ballentine.

The police are yet to say whether they are able to deter­mine if the weapon tak­en from Ballentine was the one used to kill mis­ter Barnes.
So the police do have the abil­i­ty to solve crime in Jamaica when there is pub­lic pres­sure to solve a par­tic­u­lar case. On that basis Jamaicans must demand that going for­ward the police attach the very same lev­els of impor­tance to each and every mur­der they are tasked with solving.
I ful­ly under­stand that not every mur­der will be solved, yet I am con­fi­dent that though woe­ful­ly under-staffed , under-equipped, and under-paid the police can bring more crim­i­nals to justice.
This of course will require greater moti­va­tion and appre­ci­a­tion from the polit­i­cal boss­es and greater under­stand­ing of polic­ing and lead­er­ship from the brass of the force.

Policing has changed in Jamaica some say for the bet­ter, thus far the crime num­bers tell a dif­fer­ent story.
A known mur­der­er caught with a gun in custody?
The fear of being hauled before the courts on mur­der charges has crip­pled the police’s abil­i­ty to effec­tive­ly remove mur­der­ers from the streets with the knowl­edge they will nev­er return .
Lets not kid our­selves these vis­cous killers will not be put away by the present crop of crim­i­nal cod­dling judges who sits on the Island’s benches.
For the lib­er­al élite on the Island that is progress.
In the end the lib­er­al social­ist courts will find a way to dis­cred­it the evi­dence against these two scum­bags and they will be returned to the streets to kill again and again.
By the way even before they are returned to the streets per­ma­nent­ly they will be let loose on bail.
It is safe to assume these two have killed before, maybe sev­er­al times pri­or to killing mis­ter Barnes.
The case will drag on and on and on until it is tossed from the dock­et that is the way killers are reward­ed in Jamaica.

DUPPY FILM STILL AT LARGE HOWEVER

In the mean­time the cop-killer (dup­py film) is no clos­er to being caught today than when he snuffed out the lives of two police offi­cers at Poor Man’s Corner in St. Thomas last December.
What this blog­ger has heard is large­ly talk from one mem­ber of the police hier­ar­chy whom I per­son­al­ly know could not catch a fly stuck to a glue pad.
Why are the fam­i­lies of slain offi­cers not sub­ject to the same cour­tesy of atten­tion giv­en to the Notice and Barnes family?
In oth­er coun­tries when a cop is killed police drop every­thing and attend to bring­ing that cop-killer to justice.
Why is the same lev­el of atten­tion not being brought to bear on find­ing and elim­i­nat­ing (dup­py film)?
Why is this cop killer’s body not on a slab at Maddens?
As police offi­cers when you bring these unapolo­getic killers in you are ser­vic­ing the needs of the soul-less social­ist élite.
Officers must decide whether they are going to con­tin­ue risk­ing their lives for them while pay­ing no atten­tion to the killers of their fall­en comrades.

The Jamaican Court of Appeal has a new President in the per­son of Justice Dennis Morrison QC.
Morrison was sworn in at Kings House yes­ter­day January 4^th.
Morrison comes from the Defense side of the Isle which seem to be the case every time a judge is cho­sen to hold high office in Jamaica.
Probably more sig­nif­i­cant is that Morrison lec­tured and tutored at the Normal Manley Law School and was President of the Jamaica Bar Association.
In this hum­ble blog I have con­sis­tent­ly point­ed out that though no sin­gle issue is respon­si­ble for the over­all crime sit­u­a­tion on the Island there is much to be said about the lax and lib­er­al stance of the Jamaican court sys­tem regard­ing vio­lent criminals.
There is hard­ly any place more lib­er­al than the Norman Manley Law School or the University Campus of the west Indies.
Juxtapose that with the fact that Morrison comes from the crim­i­nal defense side of the Isle, it offers key insights into where crim­i­nal appeals will be going in the near future.
The Island’s crim­i­nal defense lawyers and their clients has much to cel­e­brate in this appointment.
It can­not be over-empha­sized that if the rule of law is to be main­tained the Courts at every lev­el must uphold it’s end of the bar­gain, a task at which it has failed dismally.
Which has led this writer to con­clude that in all seri­ous­ness it can­not be that the courts wants crim­i­nals off the streets as many well mean­ing Jamaicans do and all should in light of the court’s actions over the decades.

Addressing the swear­ing in event the Island’s Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller said quote:
“A cohe­sive soci­ety is the fun­da­men­tal plat­form on which invest­ments are attract­ed and sus­tain­able eco­nom­ic growth is built. A cohe­sive soci­ety requires that our peo­ple believe in their hearts that the sys­tem pro­vides them with access to jus­tice when they require it,”
The speech-writer gets it but did Miller under­stand what she read?
Here’s the part which real­ly got me pissed, Simpson miller acknowl­edged the chal­lenges faced by those who work toward the deliv­ery of jus­tice, while mak­ing men­tion of the vol­ume of cas­es which gets to the courts on a dai­ly basis.
“With the awe­some vol­ume of their work, which forces the appel­late judge to work late into the night and invari­ably on week­ends, we can­not over-empha­size the grat­i­tude and appre­ci­a­tion we have for our nation’s judges,” .
I won­der how those cas­es end up in the courts?
No men­tion of the haz­ardous and crit­i­cal job the police does not a sin­gle men­tion of their sacrifice.
No police no damn case before the kan­ga­roo courts so the lib­er­al social­ists on the bench­es can turn them loose.

So I want to speak direct­ly to you serv­ing mem­bers of the police depart­ment who are run­ning behind this clown risk­ing your lives for her and her régime, here’s what it comes down to.
She does not care one shit about you even to men­tion the sac­ri­fice you make.
She does not care about your mur­dered colleagues.
On every occa­sion that offi­cers are mur­dered this clown is silent.
To be dissed even as you sac­ri­fice is hurt­ful, to be dissed by her sim­ply takes the cake.
You can be dissed by better.…..

JUSTICE: The qual­i­ty of being just; right­eous­ness, equi­table­ness, or moral-right­ness: Dictionary​.com.

VENGEANCE: pun­ish­ment inflict­ed in retal­i­a­tion for an injury or offense :Merriam-Webster.

Whether its the con­niv­ing cal­cu­la­tive release of infor­ma­tion on the week­end by Staten Island District Attorney Daniel Dononan Jr, that there would be no crim­i­nal charges against the cop who used an out­lawed choke-hold to mur­der Eric Garner .
Or whether it’s Cleveland Prosecutor Tim McGinty fol­low­ing the same tact announc­ing in the calm of the Yuletide sea­son that there would be no charges against the cop who sum­mar­i­ly gunned down 12 year-old Tamir Rice the duplic­i­ty is the same.

When is it ever legal or law­ful to gun down a 12 year-old child and no one is held account­able, and in par­tic­u­lar one who is trained to pro­tect life ?
Or are they?
There are a cou­ple of things which went wrong that can­not be denied or brushed aside by McGinty.
(1) Why did the dis­patch­er not tell patrol (offi­cers going to the scene) that the caller to the 911 cen­ter had inti­mat­ed that the gun may have been a fake?
(2) Why did the two cops not pull up at a safe dis­tance and order Rice to drop the weapon?
(3) Why did the offi­cers lie that they ordered Rice to drop the weapon when clear­ly they did not?
(4) Wasn’t it clear after they shot the child they knew it was bad so they lied to cov­er up what they did?
(5) Why did they not ren­der first aid to the dying 12-year-old even as a pass­ing FBI Agent stopped by and attempt­ed to resus­ci­tate the mor­tal­ly wound­ed child?
(6) Should the fam­i­ly of Tamir Rice just go away and shut up even though Timothy Loehmann who killed their son was deemed unfit by anoth­er police depart­ment and the Cleveland brass knew about it?

Timothy Loehmann was specif­i­cal­ly fault­ed for break­ing down emo­tion­al­ly while han­dling a live gun. During a train­ing episode at a fir­ing range, Loehmann was report­ed to be “dis­tract­ed and weepy” and incom­mu­nica­tive. “His hand­gun per­for­mance was dis­mal,” deputy chief Jim Polak of the Independence, Ohio, police depart­ment wrote in an inter­nal memo. The memo con­cludes with a rec­om­men­da­tion that Loehmann be “released from the employ­ment of the City of Independence”. Less than a week lat­er, on 3 December 2012, Loehmann resigned. According to the Gaurdian​.com Cleveland offi­cer who fatal­ly shot Tamir Rice judged unfit for duty in 2012.

JUST ANOTHER SMALL OBSERVATION !
Not speak­ing to Bill Cosby’s inno­cence or guilt in the litany of sex­u­al alle­ga­tions against him, I still won­der just how author­i­ties can dredge up infor­ma­tion to sub­stan­ti­ate crim­i­nal charges against the embat­tled come­di­an even though in all of the cas­es save one the statute of lim­i­ta­tions have expired.
Might I add also that even in the sin­gle case in which Cosby is charged crim­i­nal­ly the statute is slat­ed to expire in a month.
What is the rush at all cost to charge Cosby with a crime?
Speaking at a press con­fer­ence after the charges Prosecutors said it was their duty to file charges. Umph I won­der why it;s nev­er their duty to bring charges when Black peo­ple are mur­dered but it’s always their duty to move moun­tains when the sus­pect is black?

A MILLION DOLLAR BAIL FOR 78 OLD BILL COSBY AND THE SURRENDER OF HIS PASSPORT ON A SINGLE COUNT OF AGGRAVATED INDECENT ASSAULT.
How iron­ic that a 2004 case of aggra­vat­ed sex­u­al assault can be made out against a black man but even when we see mur­der with our own eyes we are told we should not believe what we see?
Two sep­a­rate jus­tice sys­tems and they are unashamed , it is dis­gust­ing , it is insult­ing, it is nauseating.

Whether or not Bill Cosby is guilty of the alle­ga­tions against him is irrel­e­vant in this con­text, it is the absolute dou­ble stan­dards and the das­tard­ly inequity in a crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem which prides itself on the notion of fairness .
It is and has always been a farce and a fraud.

After 9 parish­ioners were sum­mar­i­ly slaugh­tered as they sat in Bible study in their Church base­ment in Charleston South Carolina by deranged beast Dylan Roof, the head of the FBI James Comey said he had already dis­count­ed ter­ror­ism. According to Comey, the lack of polit­i­cal moti­va­tion for the killer’s actions mean’t the alleged shoot­er was not a domes­tic terrorist. 

Comey went on to say ‘Terrorism is act an of vio­lence done or threat­ens to in order to try to influ­ence a pub­lic body or cit­i­zen­ry so it’s more of a polit­i­cal act and again based on what I know so more I don’t see it as a polit­i­cal act. Doesn’t make it any less hor­rif­ic the label but ter­ror­ism has a def­i­n­i­tion under fed­er­al law,’.

The FBI direc­tor’s own char­ac­ter­i­za­tion is an astound­ing indict­ment of him, it goes to the heart of how race fac­tors into every aspect of the jus­tice sys­tem from the low­est munic­i­pal­i­ty to the high­est cor­ri­dors of the supreme court.
♦Dylan Roof went to the Church that evening to kill Black people.
♦ Roof’s stat­ed inten­tion was to do the killings which he hoped would spark a race war.
Comey said ter­ror­ism is an act of vio­lence done or threat­ens to in order to try to influ­ence a pub­lic body or citizenry.
Dylan Storm Roof exact­ly intend­ed and expect­ed that the killing of 9 inno­cent peo­ple as they sat in Bible study that evening would influence(a pub­lic body or cit­i­zen­ry), Black peo­ple to retal­i­ate against whites spark­ing a race war.
The only log­i­cal rea­son one could deduce from Comey’s own words that Dylan Roof does not qual­i­fy as a domes­tic ter­ror­ist is that Comey does not believe Black Americans are (1) A pub­lic body or (2) qual­i­fy as cit­i­zens of the United States.

THIS IS BARACK OBAMA’S (FBI)DIRECTOR…
Addressing cops in Chicago Comey would blame Black Lives Matter activists for cops not doing their jobs.

Comey described a “chill wind” that had gone through law enforce­ment in the wake of viral videos of the police over the past year. Comey’s remarks seemed to be an endorse­ment of the so-called “Ferguson effect,” which sug­gests that exces­sive scruti­ny of law enforce­ment is to blame for the uptick in crime. Comey said offi­cers in one major city felt “under siege” because they were being record­ed when they exit­ed their vehi­cles. “They were hon­est and said they don’t feel much like get­ting out of their cars,” Comey said accord­ing to the Huffingtonpost​.com Ryan J Reilly.

First off Cops who do not feel like get­ting out of the tax­pay­ers cars should find alter­na­tive employment.
The idea that hold­ing police offi­cers account­able for their actions is tan­ta­mount to plac­ing them under siege is incred­i­bly insult­ing to the intel­lect of Black peo­ple who have for hun­dreds of years have been the vic­tims of police abuse and ter­ror in this country.
What are black and brown cit­i­zens to do then sim­ply shut up and look away as their sons and daugh­ters, moth­ers and fathers are being killed with­out offer­ing up any resistance?
It is insan­i­ty on the part of the Black pop­u­la­tion to have faith in the FBI to con­duct fair and impar­tial inves­ti­ga­tions on their behalf in light of this entrenched racial intran­si­gence and lack of empa­thy com­ing from the very mouth of the direc­tor himself.

TAMIR RICE
After tak­ing a whole year to make a rul­ing on the mur­der of (12) year old Cleveland Ohio child Tamir Rice, Prosecutor Tim McGinty in the peace quite and seren­i­ty of the Yuletide sea­son announced that his Grand Jury has decid­ed that there will be no charges against Timithy Loehmann the offi­cer who shot and killed twelve year old Tamir Rice.
Now as a father or four sons and mul­ti­ple nephews all of whom are strap­ping black men my heart bleeds for this family .
As a for­mer Police offi­cer , the broth­er of a for­mer police offi­cer, the Uncle to a young California Police Officer and cousins and friends who are still serv­ing police offi­cers, I am painful­ly aware of the police offi­cers side of the sto­ry as well.
There is an old say­ing in America which goes like this , “If a pros­e­cu­tor wants to indict a ham sand­wich he can”.
The grand jury process was cre­at­ed to pro­tect the integri­ty of the process pre­vent­ing inves­ti­gat­ing offi­cers from being biased when they inves­ti­gate inci­dents involv­ing their col­leagues. It has become just a tool for pros­e­cu­tors, (Mark Garagos defense Attorney).

Tim McGinty did not want those cops pros­e­cut­ed so he used his office as defense coun­sel for Timothy Loehmann, that is the gen­er­al con­sen­sus by a large per­cent­age of ratio­nal thinkers who watched this process play out.
When the Prosecutor goes out of his way to use the office to hire wit­ness­es to argue against an indict­ment which he is sup­posed to be seek­ing it is a gross insult to the process and a slap in the face of the fam­i­lies which are left behind to grieve for their loved ones.
If Prosecutors are going to sub­vert the very process they are sworn to pro­tect where does it leave cit­i­zens whom are abused by the Government?
Prosecutors have a respon­si­bil­i­ty to do their jobs fair­ly and objec­tive­ly. There is nev­er any hes­i­tan­cy or con­flict when they have the oppor­tu­ni­ty to pros­e­cute mem­bers of the pub­lic, and there is a cer­tain glee when they get to pros­e­cute Black citizens.
It fol­lows there­fore that if they can­not pros­e­cute cops for com­mit­ting crimes they should step aside. If pros­e­cu­tors can­not extri­cate them­selves from the cozy rela­tion­ships they share with police to effec­tive­ly uphold the laws as is required by their oath then the very oath they take is a lie.
Standing in the way of the appoint­ment of spe­cial pros­e­cu­tion just so they can pro­tect crim­i­nal behav­ior by cops is crim­i­nal conduct.
A pros­e­cu­tor who is over­ly chum­my with the police should nev­er have the pow­er to cir­cum­vent the process with his/​her own bias­es to pro­tect a guilty police offi­cer from prosecution.
It is incred­i­bly harm­ful to the process, the fam­i­lies who are left behind to grieve and it is harm­ful to police offi­cers who have to go out dai­ly and patrol dan­ger­ous neighborhoods.

WHERE HAVE WE SEEN THIS BEFORE?

Richmond County District Attorney Daniel Donovan, Jr did not want NYPD cop Daniel Pantaleo indict­ed for mur­der­ing Eric Garner in the process Donavan used his office as defense coun­cil for Pantaleo ‚all the time giv­ing the fam­i­ly of mis­ter Garner the impres­sion that the Grand Jury he impan­eled would be fair and impartial.
In the end we all know Donovan did the exact oppo­site, he made sure that the cop-apol­o­gist grand jury he put togeth­er would not indict. Cops are not held account­able on Staten Island a bas­tion for cops , and fire­fight­ers and their fam­i­lies. Is that Justice ?
In fact Donovan’s office did not even request an indict­ment , which is the sole pur­pose for pros­e­cu­tor impan­el­ing a grand jury in the first place.
Tim McGinty did not ask for an indict­ment either yet both char­la­tans came out and offered plat­i­tudes and nuanced cocka­mamie to the fam­i­lies of the mur­dered victims.
“There is no ques­tion that a grand jury will do pre­cise­ly what the pros­e­cu­tor wants, vir­tu­al­ly 100% of the time,” says James Cohen, a law pro­fes­sor at Fordham University who spe­cial­izes in crim­i­nal pro­ce­dure. “This was, as was the case in Missouri, orches­trat­ed by the prosecutor.”

According to the web­site Gothamist​.com While most legal experts believed that the grand jury did not have enough evi­dence to prove a mur­der charge, the grand jury could have charged Pantaleo with manslaugh­ter or crim­i­nal­ly neg­li­gent homicide.

“In this case, you had video­tape, and the video­tape is pret­ty darn clear,” Cohen says. “The video showed that the offi­cer engaged in a long-pro­hib­it­ed con­duct, a choke­hold, and it does­n’t seem to make any dif­fer­ence to the jury. And that’s because the pros­e­cu­tor decid­ed that there should be no indict­ment for any crim­i­nal behavior.”

Randolph McLaughlin, a law pro­fes­sor at Pace Law School and civ­il rights attor­ney, agreed.

“The grand jury is a tool of the pros­e­cu­tor. At a min­i­mum, it was neg­li­gent, it was reck­less, it was some lev­el of homi­cide. Surely they could have indict­ed this offi­cer on any num­ber of charges and let the pub­lic hear, let a tri­al hap­pen, expose to the light of day what went on here. This man is a pub­lic ser­vant, and he com­mit­ted these acts as a pub­lic ser­vant, wear­ing the uni­form of a pub­lic ser­vant, and he should be called to account for it.”

When a mem­ber of the pub­lic com­mits an offence whether it’s inten­tion­al or not that per­son gen­er­al­ly has to go before a court of law to answer for what he or she has done. It is through that process that infor­ma­tion is aired out , boils are lanced and anger sub­sides through the fair and equi­table dis­pen­sa­tion of justice.
It can­not be that some peo­ple , (sta­tion incon­se­quen­tial) are immune from that process when they break the laws.
No one should be above the laws, when that hap­pens anger brews and ani­mos­i­ty develops.
This has been the way white men in America does busi­ness for hun­dreds of years when it comes to deal­ing with oth­ers and par­tic­u­lar­ly their hat­ed Black Countrymen.
Is that inju­di­cious use of pow­er going to be sus­tain­able into perpetuity?
What do they expect will hap­pen when the peo­ple aggriev­ed rise up and say no more?

Whether a police offi­cer’s con­duct is crim­i­nal or not in sit­u­a­tions where pub­lic out­cry is intense it ought not be the pre­rog­a­tive of pros­e­cu­tors to cir­cum­vent the process by which jus­tice is arrived at. It makes a mock­ery of the process and a das­tard­ly lie that this is the best there is anywhere.
Best for whom?
Police offi­cers have an extreme­ly dif­fi­cult job . They are gen­er­al­ly asked to make split sec­ond deci­sions as a mat­ter of life and death. They are asked to deal with the worst of the worst , and they are asked to run to dan­ger when the rest of us run from it.
I know this all to well and it is with that knowl­edge that I speak fair­ly on the sub­ject , under­stand­ing both sides of the equation.

Laws in the United States are incred­i­bly lib­er­al in favor of police offi­cers . Additionally there is much pub­lic sup­port for the role and work of police offi­cers across the board even in cas­es where it clear­ly ought not be so.
It is with that in mind that police offi­cers should be mind­ful that they do not betray the trust and con­fi­dence placed in them . It is also impor­tant that polic­ing be done with open minds and a lack of prejudice.
It is nev­er okay to kill some­one and sim­ply say I’m sorry.
Sorry does not bring a dead per­son back.
Prosecutors who mis­use their office to short cir­cuit the process by pro­tect­ing crim­i­nal behav­ior does more harm to the process than the errant cops themselves.
This must stop.

The hypocrisy of the Jamaican media is astounding.
For years the lit­tle radio-heads and their more self absorbed con­tem­po­raries in the Editorial rooms of the news­pa­pers, and tele­vi­sion sta­tions open­ly sup­port­ed chaos in the streets.
The Police could do noth­ing right when they enforced the traf­fic laws the very bas­tards who sit in these lit­tle rooms in these lit­tle media out­lets would open­ly sup­port insur­rec­tion against law enforce­ment for doing their job.
The loud mouth ghet­to queen Barbara Gloudon many years ago told a caller to stone police sta­tions because the caller had a grouse against the police.
We would lat­er see police sta­tions burned to the ground and police offi­cers murdered.

In the eight­ies anoth­er of the lit­tle shit­heads open­ly referred to police offi­cers as” jonkro” because one of their crack-addict­ed col­league was accost­ed while try­ing to pur­chase crack cocaine in Barbican square.

These lit­tle self appoint­ed cham­pi­ons of the poor nev­er both­ered to think through events before they pon­tif­i­cat­ed and took sides. Police offi­cers enforc­ing traf­fic laws were by default oppres­sors for doing exact­ly what they were paid to do.
Nevertheless Monday December 28^th the Gleaner Editorial page laments that the police have sur­ren­dered the streets to lawlessness.
Quote…

“Most of Jamaica’s roads, par­tic­u­lar­ly in urban areas, are a free-for-all, where legal bus­es and taxis bore and race and pick up and drop off pas­sen­gers at will. The ille­gals, or ‘robots’, make a mock­ery of the law and under­mine those who invest their time and mon­ey by fol­low­ing pro­ce­dure, only to be out­jos­tled and out­prof­it­ed in plain sight of the police — jeop­ar­dis­ing the very state-owned bus ser­vice. Molynes Road, Red Hills Road, Half-Way Tree and down­town Kingston are cen­tres of anar­chy. If Dr Williams’ men have aban­doned the streets to rogues and bad­men, they could at least tell us”. Editorial: Have Police Given Up The Streets?

Word of advice to the Gleaner…
The shit is just begin­ning to hit the fan , just wait a lit­tle more, you want to see anar­chy just wait.
The (inde­com) Act which all of you clam­ored for is just begin­ning to set­tle in.
While it set­tles in police offi­cers are check­ing out at the first oppor­tu­ni­ty. This year alone over 600 cops will sim­ply lay down arms and walk away , leav­ing the coun­try to it’s own devices.
Maybe (inde­com) or some of the lim­it­less sup­ply of know-it-all blab­ber mouths will step up and defend the coun­try against the bur­geon­ing crim­i­nal under­world which has cement­ed itself in the country.
Just wait until the new gen­er­a­tion of vipers arise, these are they which will have come up in the age of (inde­com), They know police won’t touch them, restrain , or con­strain them , many of you will be run­ning to the hills as Marcus Garvey predicted,looking for a place to hide.
You want­ed (inde­com) you got (inde­com) and you have the lit­tle self-aggran­diz­ing Napoleonic Fuehrer at the helm you all want­ed so zip it!

lit­er­al­ly every traf­fic encounter between police and traf­fic offend­ers result in an esca­la­tion because the peo­ple are gross­ly law­less and undis­ci­plined thanks to the aid­ing and abet­ting of the media which encour­aged then to fight with police and dis­re­gard laws.
The com­mon refrain is that the “police a stap dem food.” Of course in Jamaica” every man affi eat food“no mat­ter how they go about it.
“Anything a any­thing” right?

For decades right wing talk radio in America encour­aged big­ots and xeno­pho­bic mal­con­tents to spew all kinds of racist invec­tive at peo­ple they deem dif­fer­ent, peo­ple they love to hate. Today the gen­er­a­tion of whites com­ing of age are just as racist and maybe more vio­lent­ly so than those which exist­ed in the 50’s and 60’s .

As a child grow­ing up in Jamaica talk radio was laced with anti-police invec­tive. Ronald Thwaites, Wilmott Perkins, Barbara Gloudon, Garnett Roper and a host of oth­er nit-wits made careers from the pro­mul­ga­tion of anti-police propaganda>
Now that the chick­en have come home to roost the very Media which watered the plants of anar­chy are in lamentation.
What bull?

Responding to the killing of two police offi­cers as they played a game of domi­noes at Poor-Man’s-Corner St Thomas United States Ambassador to Jamaica said this.

“In this sea­son of peace and togeth­er­ness, it is heart­break­ing to see these and oth­er sense­less mur­ders. To the mem­bers of the Jamaica Constabulary Force and oth­er law enforce­ment offi­cers across this island who risk your own safe­ty to pro­tect our lives I salute you. “I urge you to con­tin­ue to con­duct your duties hon­or­ably and pro­fes­sion­al­ly with­out fear or favor,” Moreno said in a release. “Too many times this year we have mourned the loss of offi­cers of the law and cit­i­zens mur­dered by vio­lent crim­i­nals. I want to echo the words of Commissioner of Police Dr Carl Williams: ‘As a nation, we must band togeth­er to pre­serve the rule of law and the safe­ty, secu­ri­ty, and human rights of every Jamaican.’ The United States will stand firm­ly with the police and peo­ple of Jamaica to stem this bloodshed,”.

This is not the first time Moreno has spo­ken out stri­dent­ly at the killing of the Island’s police offi­cers . At the bru­tal slay­ing of con­sta­ble Crystal Thomas Moreno spoke out harsh­ly against the lev­el of crim­i­nal­i­ty and the need to sup­port the efforts of law enforce­ment on the Island.
US GOVT STANDS WITH JAMAICAN POLICE BUT DOES THE JAMAICAN GOVT?

One hear­ing of the slaugh­ter of the offi­cers I was gripped with rage, it was the very first time in the 24 years since I left law enforce­ment that I wished I was able to pull on a pair of com­fort­able jeans , lace up my com­bat-boots, dou­ble check my Browning and ensure my two extend­ed clips are in good work­ing order , grab my M16 assault rifle with the retractable stock, my radio and see who was will­ing to come with me.
There is so much to be said about the state of affairs in Jamaica that it makes one feel almost resigned to the fact that our beau­ti­ful coun­try is pret­ty much already a failed state.

I real­ized if you wear a cer­tain fra­grance after a while you don’t smell it any­more . The same is true for many in Jamaica who smile and tell you just how won­der­ful things are, they sim­ply can­not smell the shit anymore.
As is cus­tom­ary the killing of police offices nev­er gets a men­tion from the nations high­est polit­i­cal office, nor from the rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the British Monarch.
To some extent men­tion­ing the fact that the Prime Minister have not a sin­gle word of con­dem­na­tion for the bru­tal slay­ing of offi­cers gives the impres­sion that I believe the occu­pant of that office have the men­tal capac­i­ty to under­stand the impli­ca­tions of these acts so I won’s say more about that.

As we speak Police Officers are engaged in pro­tect­ing the life of that imbe­cile and they are doing so over and above that which is required. Many are gophers and in most cas­es yard boys. Irrespective of the slight and dis­re­spect they will duti­ful­ly con­tin­ue to place their lives on the line to pro­tect and defend.
I’ll not speak to that either save and except to say in the strug­gle for jus­tice and equal­i­ty we will nev­er be able to untan­gle some from the degrad­ing con­fines of the slave plantation.

I would be remiss if I did not address the lax men­tal­i­ty of the offi­cers which result­ed in their deaths. Of course every­one should be able to sit in their com­mu­ni­ty with friends and enjoy a friend­ly game of domi­noes with­out fear of dying in a hail of bullets.
On the oth­er hand we can­not wish away the present state of affairs which exist in many parts of the world today , Jamaica being no exception.
A sense of aware­ness and real­ism should be para­mount to all , par­tic­u­lar­ly in Jamaica and more so those whose task it is to deal with those realities.

In my com­mu­ni­ty I don’t hear of many inci­dents of crime, even so I teach and cau­tion my fam­i­ly nev­er to be caught say­ing “I nev­er thought it could hap­pen here”>.
Most crimes are inci­dents of oppor­tu­ni­ty, peo­ple take advan­tage of oppor­tu­ni­ties when they believe they will get away with exploit­ing others.
It’s just com­mon sense not to leave ones’ self open to exploitation.
There are uncon­firmed reports at least one of the mur­dered offi­cers may have been threat­ened. If this is true it means some­one had a pre­med­i­tat­ed desire to elim­i­nate him. Why give some­one an easy oppor­tu­ni­ty to elim­i­nate you?
People have to get on with liv­ing their lives even with threats hang­ing over them I know , but sit­ting at a shop play­ing domi­noes is cer­tain­ly not the best way to pro­tect one’­self from harm.
Many years ago while I was a young offi­cer sta­tioned at the Constant Spring Police Station I received cred­i­ble intel­li­gence that a cer­tain Punk who comes from a fam­i­ly of law break­ers father includ­ed want­ed to elim­i­nate me because of the work I was doing in the Grant’s Pen area.
At that time there was no police sta­tion in Grants Pen .
Dadrick Henry , Parra Campbell myself and oth­ers were the Police sta­tion there.
That very night I strapped up and decid­ed I was going to head out I was nev­er a cop who know­ing­ly allowed crim­i­nals to threat­en me and sit on the intelligence.

It was just me and one , he know who he is I won’t men­tion his name he still lives in Jamaica. I always believed police must cul­ti­vate infor­mants, that was how I sourced the intel­li­gence. Secondly I believed firm­ly in hav­ing local knowl­edge. I will know where to find you at your mother;s house and yes at “yu gyal house”. Police need to know that these scum­bags are fiends so they won’t stay far from the women that enable them, both their moth­ers and those who sleep with them.
I knew where this scum­bag would be and at about mid­night me and One walked along the Shortwood Road gul­ly down to a foot­bridge which bridges both sides of the gully.
I expect­ed him to be in his girl’s lit­tle shack , he was­n’t , he was sit­ting on a log under a sin­gle lamp post , the lone light glowed omi­nous­ly in the warm sum­mer night.
By the time he saw us we were three feet away there was nowhere to run.
He began to blab­ber how he did­n’t want to die and peo­ple hat­ed him and want­ed the police to kill him. He was dressed in a cut-off pair of pants and wife beat­er under­shirt. While he blabbed his blad­der failed and the pissed snaked along as it mixed with the dirt like a mean­der­ing riv­er head­ing nowhere in particular.
My Partner was not par­tic­u­lar­ly as char­i­ta­ble as I was but I pre­vailed , I told the lit­tle punk as he looked down the bar­rel of my M16 Rifle “even if you thing of step­ping to me I will find you and I will kill you , there is no place for you to hide from me”>
We left him stand­ing there piss still stream­ing down his legs.

I nev­er quite got the idea of issu­ing warn­ings to police offi­cers about ele­vat­ed lev­els of threats against their lives. This is the new fan-dan­gled bull-shit UWI polic­ing I guess , every cop in Jamaica is always in mor­tal dan­ger just by virtue of being a police offi­cer. There is no ele­vat­ed threat lev­el Jamaica is a crim­i­nal cod­dling, crim­i­nal sup­port­ing society.
In a soci­ety as ours law enforce­ment is always going to be the ene­my. Every cop good or bad is always in mor­tal danger.
Police Officer Lattibudier was shot and injured , while con­va­lesc­ing at home they went to his home and killed him in his bed . This was almost thirty(30) years ago.
The  pot-bel­lied high com­mand does the depart­ment a dis-ser­vice by talk­ing about ele­vat­ed threat lev­els against cops.
Police offi­cers must be in the lead in under­stand­ing and dis­play­ing a sense of aware­ness. Even if two cops are at a local joint hav­ing a friend­ly game of domi­noes both offi­cer can­not be play­ing at the same time one per­son must be fac­ing out ready to act. These are sim­ple things which every offi­cer under­stood to the best of my recollection.
Twenty four years after leav­ing law enforce­ment when­ev­er I am seat­ed in a restau­rant, church or wher­ev­er I try as best as I can to be in a posi­tion in which I can best react to threats so I may pro­tect my life and that of my fam­i­ly. Yes 24 years lat­er, I’m old enough to know how to do it and young enough to get it done.

One gets the sense the Commissioner of Police Dr Carl Williams is a good man and one of integri­ty. It seem he means well but he is not the kind of leader who can get mem­bers of the JCF to where they should be in terms of being a com­pe­tent force which will be able to pro­tect their own lives much less pro­tect the public.
Let’s be rea­son­able a lot of peo­ple deserve the shit the killers deal out, cops can do noth­ing right for them. Notwithstanding there are still good peo­ple liv­ing in Jamaica who deserve a Government which is not a crime syn­di­cate and a com­pe­tent police force they can trust and support.

The rain falls on the just and on the unjust. When the day comes in which our Country has good prin­ci­pled lead­er­ship and good com­pe­tent law enforce­ment the police-hat­ing ass-wipes will also ben­e­fit but such is life.
The Commissioner of Police says and does all of the right things in terms of step­ping up and vis­it­ing with the fam­i­lies of slain police offi­cers but the Commissioner lacks that which in my mind is the first order of busi­ness, the strate­gic storm troop­er men­tal­i­ty of blan­ket­ing every com­mu­ni­ty until the killers are exterminated.
Hell yes I said exter­mi­nat­ed , they should nev­er be allowed to be set free by the crim­i­nal cod­dling left­ist courts sys­tem and yes FUCK (inde­com) they bet­ter not get in the way. Since the courts can­not be trust­ed to apply jus­tice police offi­cers must bring jus­tice to these killers.
Carl Williams does not have the know-how to do it.
The crim­i­nals who run the coun­try sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly destroyed the police depart­ment begin­ning with Percival Patterson the colos­sal can­cer which destroyed our coun­try passed it down to POOR-SHA , and more POOR-SHA.
This is the way the PNP par­ty want­ed it so when they steal there would not be a com­pe­tent 21^st cen­tu­ry police agency to inves­ti­gate and pros­e­cute them.
Today most of the Administration’s top sup­port­ers and func­tionar­ies are orga­nized crime fig­ures who are involved in all kinds of trans nation­al crimes.

WHAT IS THE STRATEGY FOR CATCHING COP KILLERS?
Some time ago I wrote an Article in which I sug­gest­ed that the Police be more proac­tive in the way it car­ries out it’s func­tion tak­ing into account the con­straints placed against it’s effec­tive­ness by the Government.
I argued then that Jamaica as a soci­ety grav­i­tat­ed to and lit­er­al­ly required hard nosed name brand cops. Like in every­thing else Jamaicans rec­og­nize and revere the best and they have scant regard for the rest.
They want name brand clothes, shoes and yes they demand name brand cops. If offi­cers do not com­mand their respect they are toast, those of us who served in a mean­ing­ful way know that the peo­ple test you them­selves, if you pass their test you are in for life with them and no one can harm you. If you are soft and inef­fec­tu­al you are a laugh­ing stock to be ridiculed and reviled.

Even the most hard­ened crim­i­nals fear name-brand cops. Their ways of polic­ing reaped immense ben­e­fits, that which can be seen and that which many are unable to see, name­ly in crimes not committed.
There has always been an under­val­ued ele­ment to what those offi­cers brought to cer­tain police areas sim­ply by being present in those localities.
Some of the meth­ods employed were not text-book meth­ods but they bore results.
I will not argue for breach­ing of civ­il rights under any cir­cum­stances but I will also say if you are dead there’s hard­ly any argu­ment to be made for rights is there?

Being fal­li­ble the police made mis­takes and the pop­u­la­tion made mis­takes too.
None as egre­gious than allow­ing Carolyn Gomes a pedi­atric Doctor with grand designs as cham­pi­on of social change in a Utopian sys­tem of rights secu­ri­ty be damned to dic­tate how polic­ing is done.
Out went cops who got the job done , in came the chair-warm­ers and the quotas.
Crime sky­rock­ets and every­one cow­ers in fear includ­ing the police.

At this stage it would bet­ter in my esti­ma­tion if the depart­ment is dis­band­ed and a fresh start attempt­ed focus­ing heav­i­ly on train­ing. The entire depart­ment needs reori­ent­ing to a state of pre­pared­ness. Policing is not the boy’s scouts.
There is no point in hav­ing police who are unable to arrest crim­i­nals, I hate to break it to them but that is what police do, they arrest crim­i­nals and some­times it’s not pretty.
A woman in a skirt and heels on her shoes with cell phone in hand is no damn use to her male coun­ter­part wrestling with a vio­lent offend­er who wants to do him harm and refus­es to sub­mit to arrest . Lets cut to the chase and deal with the facts we have all seen these cases.
Police offi­cers do not step back from and cow­er in fear crim­i­nals do . Police in Jamaica now endure being punched and the assailant sim­ply walk away.
On what plan­et I ask is that tolerable,?

With the Government starv­ing the depart­ment of resources the pot-bel­lied crew at the top of the force should use the few vehi­cles they have as mobile police sta­tions. This means plac­ing them strate­gi­cal­ly in grids with­ing their police areas each with two or more offi­cers capa­ble of deal­ing with urgent situations.
This will severe­ly impact the abil­i­ty of crim­i­nals to com­mit crimes and use high pow­ered motor­cy­cles and cars to quick­ly tra­verse the coun­try and avoid detec­tion what with new high­ways and all.

Each minute a cop killer is on the loose is anoth­er minute for him to do more harm or leave the coun­try. Jamaica is no stranger to cop killers being aid­ed and abet­ted by the sit­ting Government to leave the country.
This is some­thing People’s National Party Administrations are know for , they have done it before they will do it again . For all we know this scum­bag may already have been shut­tled out of the country.
The Police brass must devel­op grids which can eas­i­ly be col­lapsed in instances such as the killing of the two officers.
Search par­ties can­not be had-hock run in knock on a few doors and leave .
Officers must be brought into the col­laps­ing grid and the search done in sweeps leav­ing no stone un-turned. Anyone found har­bor­ing or found to have aid­ed the sus­pect must be sub­ject to the same fate as the prin­ci­pal offender.
Once offi­cers are tired they should be rotat­ed out of the search grid only after they are replaced with fresh offi­cers there should be no let up until jus­tice is brought to bear on these killers and whomev­er gives them aid and comfort.

By all accounts this guy Marlon Perry is a con­tract killer who has mur­dered sev­er­al peo­ple before alleged­ly killing the two cops.
He is alleged to have strong ties to …
You guessed it the sit­ting Government in Kingston.
In all of this the bloat­ed incom­pe­tent Police hier­ar­chy must take blame . In the same way they allowed the likes of Duddus Coke and oth­ers to metas­ta­size while they sat on their ass­es and did noth­ing it’s exact­ly what it is here.
There is no sys­tem of report­ing. No sys­tem of account­abil­i­ty. No sys­tem of mak­ing sure when you say “we will leave no stone un-turned “peo­ple know it’s not emp­ty rhetoric.

This is the envi­ron­ment in which crime grows and flour­ish. Despite polit­i­cal inter­fer­ence and strong arm­ing of law enforce­ment by the cor­rupt Government in Kingston the police still can do a bet­ter job than they are doing presently.
All of the real cops are gone now, what’s left is a bunch of demor­al­ized street cops who no longer see the need to risk any­thing> After all why should they at the top is a cadre of nin­com­poop who left the University of the West Indies and are reward­ed with senior positions.
Those are there for the paycheck.
Officers who once went the extra mile are side­lined and dis­re­spect­ed. Throw the cop-killing (inde­com) law into the mix and there is no rea­son for cops to do any­thing but col­lect the cou­ple of bucks they dole out each month and keep their heads real low.

If any­one expect any­thing inso­far as a strate­gic approach is con­cerned they are delud­ed, the ban-gut offi­cer corp are in it for the pay­check, they are paper cops.
Policing in Jamaica is sim­ply a mod­el­ing job , every­one is aware of it, none more-so than the hard­ened crim­i­nals who the very laws support.
When an area is known as a point for drugs and gun-run­ning yet it is allowed to con­tin­ue what’s the point of hav­ing a police department?
The price is many more dead civil­ians and .…
Aaah yes many more dead cops as well.

How Ironic ?
I received the News my good friend SSP Cornwall (Badda) Ford was retir­ing the same way most every­one else did, through the Jamaican media.
Those who know him from the many and var­ied sto­ries told and retold about his for­ays and exploits in the Police Department his Nickname (Bigga Ford) speaks to his phys­i­cal stature.
To the rest of us who real­ly know him the term (Badda Ford) is more appro­pri­ate, even as it does­n’t come close to telling the mag­ni­tude of his ser­vice to country.

Those who nev­er donned a uni­form in ser­vice to some­thing big­ger than them­selves ben­e­fit from the sac­ri­fices of those who do and that’s okay.
No one forces a police offi­cer or a mem­ber of the mil­i­tary to serve but they do anyway.
No not every­one will ful­ly appre­ci­ate the immense char­ac­ter which goes into some­one run­ning toward fly­ing fly­ing bul­lets and bark­ing guns so that oth­ers can be safe.

I wish I had a dol­lar for every instance I heard the argu­ment that “no one forced them and they get paid”. Nowadays I sim­ply smile either you get it or you don’t

SSP Ford’s immi­nent depar­ture from the JCF will book-end a chap­ter of real fear­less crime fight­ers, some Famous and oth­ers unsung. Ironically the JCF is now an Institution top heavy with gazetted offi­cers most­ly with degrees who could’t find their way out of a brown paper bag.
Ford came from a long line of crime fight­ers some of whom I was priv­i­leged to know and a few I had the dis­tinct plea­sure of work­ing with.
That list includes but is in no way con­fined to the well known.
Joe Williams. Keith (Trinity) Gardener. O C Hare. Anthony Hewitt. Altamoth (Parra) Campbell. Cornwall (Badda) Ford. Dadrick Henry. Isiah Laing. Mikey Scott and others.
As one for­mer street sol­dier speak­ing to the real street sol­diers like Spungy, O’connor, and the count­less heroes who kept Jamaica from boil­ing over into a failed state I lift my cap to you. Many of you have gone on , many still remain with us , you know your­selves and you know your con­tri­bu­tion to our country.
Yo did what you did with­out fan­fare , you did it for pre­cious lit­tle reward, but you did it for love of country.
I salute you.

Those who sit atop the con­stab­u­lary hier­ar­chy climbed on your shoul­ders , many occu­py­ing posi­tions unearned Ford spoke to this in his com­ments to the media.
Quote :  “The police force has made me and I have made my con­tri­bu­tion. I have made my mark. The police force as an insti­tu­tion is not a bad thing. It’s just that you have some police in it who are wicked and bad-mind­ed. You have peo­ple of all dif­fer­ent val­ues and standards,” 
It is report­ed that Ford will be leav­ing the depart­ment in ear­ly January 2016 uti­liz­ing the ear­ly retire­ment option avail­able to him.
No one knows more about the cor­rup­tion of some who serve and some who still serve of which Ford speak.
As a young Constable work­ing at the CIB Office at Constant Spring police pre­scient I was on Vacation leave and dri­ving a rent­ed car my kid broth­er loaned me to pick up a female friend from the Norman Manley International airport.

I was dri­ving East along Spanish Town Road when a car head­ing in the oppo­site direc­tion cut across my path and slammed into me.
The car had no head­lights, I nev­er knew what hit me.
I suf­fered cuts to my head and fore­head and oth­er injuries , the car I was dri­ving a Toyota star­let was lit­er­al­ly totaled.
Driving the unmarked car was a cer­tain police Corporal with whom I had served at the Mobile Reserve on the Ranger Squad .
He was on assign­ment to a plain­clothes squad based at police Area 4 which was on South Camp Road. With him were his team members.

Seeing it was him I asked him to radio the Denham Town Police which was the near­est sta­tion to the crash , I was bleed­ing , mem­bers of his team were also shak­en up but noth­ing seri­ous. An Inspector of police arrived and dealt with the acci­dent as it should be at the time when police ser­vice vehi­cles are involved.
The cer­tain cor­po­ral with whom I pre­vi­ous­ly had cor­dial rela­tion­ship did not want to lose his plum assign­ment at Area 4 so he con­coct­ed a scheme to cov­er his ass.

Fortunately Badda Ford was there when he told the Assistant Commissioner that I was escort­ing gun­men from Tivoli Gardens and crashed into him destroy­ing the car.
♦He nev­er quite explained how it was pos­si­ble for me to be escort­ing gun­men from Tivoli Gardens while head­ing in the direc­tion of Tivoli Gardens.
♦ H e nev­er both­ered explain­ing the absence of the peo­ple I was sup­pos­ed­ly escorting>
♦ He nev­er both­ered think­ing that the acci­dent was prop­er­ly inves­ti­gat­ed by an Inspector who could be called on for a detailed report of the crash.
♦ He did­n’t care that I knew absolute­ly no one from Tivoli Gardens.
♦ He did­n’t care that I was a hon­est hard work­ing police offi­cer who stood for fideli­ty and what’s right.
♦ The idi­ot­ic big bel­ly Assistant Commissioner for all intents and pur­pos­es would have gob­bled up the con­coct­ed sto­ry as gospel had Ford not jumped in and blast­ed him as a liar and a fraud.
Bigga Ford told him point­ed­ly he would tell me what he was telling the Assistant Commissioner so he should know when I con­front him he told me.
I left the force a few years lat­er , the then cor­po­ral went on to become a Superintendent.
Is there much won­der the Department is in the shape it’s in?
The same is true for count­less offi­cers of hon­esty and integri­ty who walked away leav­ing far too many with ques­tion­able characters .

I did not con­front that cor­po­ral imme­di­ate­ly, I wait­ed until I was in con­trol then I told him that despite the fact I had not said any­thing I knew what he did all along and yes I told him Supa Ford told me of his wicked con­coct­ed story.
He knew what time it was , I’m sure he pissed his pants, but for the God in me I would have.….…
Oh well.
The era of the super cops is now offi­cial­ly over.
One of my chief obser­va­tion about my coun­try­men is their pre­ten­tious nature. We pre­tend we are what we are not.
Jamaica is far and away not close to hav­ing a jus­tice sys­tem which works. Adopting a mod­el which even devel­oped coun­tries eschew is suicidal.
Of course in Jamaica every­one knows exact­ly how to do every­one’s job except their own.

So a pedi­atric Doctor became the tem­plate for set­ting polic­ing pro­to­cols, dozens of cops killed since , thou­sands of inno­cent civil­ians also.
Rather than fix the prob­lem they dou­bled down cre­at­ing anoth­er lay­er of antag­o­nism against law enforce­ment, plac­ing at it’s head an ego-mani­a­cal nar­cis­sist , more cops and more inno­cent civil­ians can pre­pare to die.
Ride off into the sun­set Badda Ford you served your coun­try well, you weren’t per­fect , none of us are but here’s hop­ing what­ev­er else you do look after el número uno , my friend , and do smell the flow­ers while you still can .
Peace my broth­er enjoy the next phase of your life.

Over the last three decades well over thir­ty thou­sand ( 30.000) peo­ple have been killed by crim­i­nals in Jamaica. It’s impor­tant to note that the coun­try is not engaged in a civ­il war. That guessti­mate was arrived at using sta­tis­tics from the Police report­ing on murders.
Additionally untold more have been shot and crit­i­cal­ly wound­ed lat­er result­ing in death. These are nev­er added into the mur­der totals, so by all accounts the num­ber of report­ed homi­cides are gen­er­al­ly con­ser­v­a­tive estimates.

As the killings con­tin­ue unabat­ed and arguably with increased feroc­i­ty there seem to be a sense of res­ig­na­tion with­in the pop­u­la­tion that noth­ing can be done to stop it.
The Police Department is plagued with myr­i­ad prob­lems which ren­ders it unable to cope effec­tive­ly as a force in pro­tect­ing the shrink­ing seg­ment of the pop­u­la­tion not involved in crim­i­nal conduct.
Corruption, incom­pe­tence, lack of struc­tur­al sup­port , low wages , and an over­all sense of demor­al­iza­tion are just a few of the issues which are ham­per­ing the police.
The polit­i­cal admin­is­tra­tion in Kingston is not about to help , from top down the admin­is­tra­tion is a tem­plate of cor­rup­tion and malfeasance .

Scandal after scan­dal which would have brought down admin­is­tra­tions in oth­er west­ern coun­tries have been swept aside result­ing in no con­se­quence for the thieves who are entrust­ed with run­ning the nation’s affairs.
This gives the aver­age per­son on the streets the sense that he too can com­mit breach­es of the law with­out con­se­quence. The crime sta­tis­tics in the Island Nation bears tes­ta­ment to that sense. By the con­clu­sion of the year 2015 the num­ber of Jamaicans killed at the hands of crim­i­nals is expect­ed to be in excess of 1200 . As I have argued repeat­ed­ly, these are huge amounts of killings for any coun­try but even more fright­en­ing for a small island with 2.7 mil­lion peo­ple and a land mass of 4,411 square miles.
During my brief decade in law enforce­ment I saw first-hand the dev­as­tat­ing con­se­quences crime has on fam­i­lies and on the psy­che of the nation overall.

In the 24 years since I left,crime has gone up expo­nen­tial­ly. Murders alone has increased between two hun­dred and fifty and three hun­dred per­cent­age points.
Those per­cent­age points are not mere sta­tis­tics they rep­re­sent once liv­ing breath­ing human beings whom were our broth­ers and sis­ters, aunts and uncles , moth­ers and fathers, our neigh­bors and friends.
Laws have not kept pace with the sit­u­a­tion on the ground, in fact Jamaica has dis­proved the old say­ing “crime does not pay”.
Crime does pay in Jamaica , it’s sim­ply a mat­ter of calculation.
A per­son want­i­ng to mur­der some­one for what­ev­er rea­son has pre­cious lit­tle to fear from the author­i­ties. Less than 50% of mur­der­ers are ever arrested,those arrest­ed are large­ly domes­tic homi­cides where every­one knows John killed his girl­friend Shauna-kaye .
More fright­en­ing is that even with those mea­ger homi­cide arrest num­bers only about 7% are con­vict­ed by the crim­i­nal friend­ly court system.
If you thought that the 7% con­vic­tion rate is bad it’s impor­tant that you know that even then the lib­er­al appeal courts over­turn con­vic­tions on the flim­si­est of tech­ni­cal­i­ties mak­ing it all but cer­tain the courts sys­tem has no agen­da to incar­cer­ate dan­ger­ous crim­i­nals but is more inter­est­ed in push­ing it’s rad­i­cal left­ist pro­gres­sive agen­da. By the time the appeal courts whit­tle the con­vic­tion rate down we are down to a shock­ing 1% actu­al­ly pay­ing for their crimes.

Poverty. Deportations . Government incom­pe­tence and com­plic­i­ty. A Weak inef­fec­tu­al crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem . Laws which ham­per effec­tive law enforce­ment are just a few of the fac­tors fuel­ing crime on the Island. The rough­ly 4 Jamaicans mur­dered dai­ly is a mere par for the course except when some­one of promi­nence becomes the vic­tim, in which case there is an out­pour­ing of out­rage and dis­gust and as my dear­ly depart­ed grand dad used to say , “like crème soda it fiz­zles and then it dies”.
Outrage done !
The Island’s archa­ic laws encour­ages crim­i­nal behav­ior , even when author­i­ties attempt to do some­thing in response to the bur­geon­ing rate of law­less­ness instead of tak­ing a stand against crim­i­nals they design laws to fur­ther impede and ham­per law enforcement.
In the end Jamaica is not a good place to raise a fam­i­ly or do busi­ness any more . Sad to say this will not change with the present lead­er­ship or should I say lack thereof.

I hope that with the com­ing new year Jamaicans will take a col­lec­tive intro­spec­tive look at the direc­tion our coun­try has been head­ing and ask them­selves are they bet­ter off than the year before, or the year before that?
If the answer is no as it should be then they must ask them­selves whether it’s okay to con­tin­ue sup­port­ing a Party and a Government which is gross­ly incom­pe­tent at best and worse case bla­tant­ly cor­rupt and crim­i­nal in nature?
Jamaicans have a col­lec­tive new year res­o­lu­tion to make and that should be to return the coun­try to a path of pros­per­i­ty and growth for their children.
That path is not to be found in the man­i­festo of the present administration.

Am I the only one offend­ed by Portia Simpson Miller’s propen­si­ty to jump at every oppor­tu­ni­ty to offer words of con­grat­u­la­tions and plat­i­tudes to sports stars, beau­ty pageants con­tes­tants, but nev­er have time to speak on burn­ing issues of the day.

The Jamaican Prime Minister in clas­sic dumb mute char­ac­ter has no word of sup­port for the fam­i­lies of police offi­cers when their loved ones are mur­dered in ser­vice to their country.
She is silent about the dai­ly blood­shed in our coun­try. As she is about the fact that the Jamaican dol­lar is for all intents and pur­pos­es a worth­less currency.
She is silent on the ram­pant cor­rup­tion which has plagued not just for­mer PNP Administrations but which seem to be the defin­ing theme of both her Administrations.

Most impor­tant­ly she had noth­ing to say about Dwayne Vaz’s nin­com­poop com­ments on a plat­form in St James urg­ing PNP sup­port­ers to pick up their guns against Jamaica Labor Party supporters.
I find it extra offen­sive that Miller who has done every­thing to secure and hold onto state pow­er has noth­ing for the peo­ple except Spanish Town Road ghet­to rhetoric and a kind of old style pol­i­tics the coun­try had already turned it’s back on.

Portia Simpson Miller can cheer-lead for sports stars, beau­ty con­tes­tants and what­ev­er else tick­les her fan­cy but it’s time she step aside if she loves Jamaica and in the name of God leave some­thing of the Island we know and love for the next generation.

Among the destruc­tive things the People’s National Party has done to Jamaica out­side the destruc­tion of the econ­o­my, impov­er­ish­ment of the pop­u­la­tion, mak­ing our cur­ren­cy worth­less, and destroy­ing the pro­duc­tive sec­tor, is the destruc­tion of the Island’s moral compass.

Several days ago Dwayne Vaz the PNP mem­ber of par­lia­ment for cen­tral Westmoreland caused great con­cern to Jamaicans both at home and abroad when he invoked the mur­der lyrics of impris­oned con­vict­ed mur­der­er Vybz Kartel on stage , induc­ing his sup­port­ers to load up their guns to take the fight to mem­bers of the oppo­si­tion Jamaica Labor Party.
Since then Vaz has walked back the com­ments after Jamaicans react­ed strong­ly to the notion that an elect­ed offi­cial could reck­less attempt to do any­thing , much less sug­gest that the Island return to the dark days of polit­i­cal executions.
Vaz is rel­a­tive­ly young but he is no pup , if he is old enough to sit in Parliament as a mem­ber of that body he is not too young to know wrong from right and if he is that stu­pid then he needs to step aside.
Jamaica cer­tain­ly does not need that kind of leadership.

Absent any pepu­da­tion of Vaz on the mat­ter is the Prime Minister whom for all intents and pur­pos­es can­not be tak­en seriously.
However Portia does not need to speak out she does not know wrong from right and nei­ther does the Jamaica Gleaner a once proud paper now shame­less­ly the mouth-piece of the rul­ing PNP .
December 17^th 2015 The Paper pub­lished it’s dai­ly let­ter of the day, titled :

“Low Di Yout Dem”…

For my read­ers who are not famil­iar with the Jamaican ver­nac­u­lar, ” Low Di Yout Dem” is a col­lo­qui­al inter­pre­ta­tion of “leave the young peo­ple alone”.
The let­ter reads as follows.

THE EDITOR, Sir:

It is a wel­com­ing sight to see the increased num­ber of young peo­ple in pol­i­tics. Like in our youth­ful days, they will err. It is not our duty as elders to shut them up or try to destroy them in the name of trib­al pol­i­tics. First, we must acknowl­edge that this is not the gen­er­a­tion of the 1950s and 1960s. Second, they are more expres­sive and advanced cul­tur­al­ly and/​or intel­lec­tu­al­ly. They will make mis­takes; why hang them?

There is an inter­view with Bob Marley that was done on his return from a Caribbean des­ti­na­tion in the 1970s. He spoke about adults wrong­ful­ly judg­ing young peo­ple. He said (and I para­phrase) that all ‘dem big peo­ple gwaan like sey dem was nev­er young; dem a gwaan like dem did born big’. This line of rea­son­ing helps us to reflect on our­selves as we judge the young. Let us take the case of young Dwayne Vaz and that Kartel song. I will also look at young Dayton Campbell, too, because when he speaks, there is a kind of avalanche of con­dem­na­tion. It was this blitz of con­dem­na­tion and hang­man’s noose shak­ing at young Dwayne Vaz; and look who is talk­ing! Lef di yute! We were once young and we made errors. There were elders that were in place to help us to grow and to respect rea­son. What is miss­ing from all of this is reason.

There is the argu­ment that Vaz used lyrics of a “con­vict­ed mur­der­er”. Is the prob­lem the music or is it Vybz Kartel? I agree with the protest, but make it civ­il and intel­li­gent. Dwayne Vaz is a young man, and like any one of our sons, treat him like your child. On Tuesday, I saw the slew of orches­trat­ed con­dem­na­tions of young Vaz. It was like he com­mit­ted ISIS types of crime. Was there this lev­el of con­dem­na­tion of the so-called flag killing in Portmore? We have some young peo­ple in Jamaica who have a lot of poten­tial and they must not be destroyed, but be assist­ed as they evolve. Do you real­ly believe that Vaz would do some­thing delib­er­ate­ly on the big stage to call for ret­ri­bu­tion and vio­lence? Give the youth a break!

I see the same trend of com­ments and con­dem­na­tion of young Dayton Campbell. Let him speak. Intelligent peo­ple can­not remain silent in the face of igno­rance. When and where he com­mits an error, do not fail him, help him to over­come that prob­lem. Where is that vil­lage that is expect­ed to raise the youth? It is a pity that in this sea­son of polit­i­cal cam­paigns there is this empti­ness of knowl­edge and rea­son in the poor nar­ra­tives of 21-cen­tu­ry pol­i­tics in Jamaica. In times like these we real­ly miss the incom­pa­ra­ble Michael Manley. The truth buried will rise again.

Louis E.A. Moyston
http://​jamaica​glean​er​.com/​a​r​t​i​c​l​e​/​l​e​t​t​e​r​s​/​2​0​1​5​1​2​1​7​/​l​e​t​t​e​r​-​d​a​y​-​l​o​w​-​d​i​-​y​o​u​t​-​dem.

As some­one who has more than once had the good for­tune of hav­ing an essay being des­ig­nat­ed Letter of the day I am dis­s­a­point­ed that the Gleaner thinks a let­ter which ask that the Jamaican peo­ple give a pass to a mem­ber of par­lia­ment because of his age is wor­thy of pub­li­ca­tion , much less let­ter of the day.
This let­ter is in and of itself the heart of what is wrong with Jamaica. No amount of quot­ing famous peo­ple changes that…
Vaz is not a youth he is a mem­ber of par­lia­ment and one who is in posi­tion to influ­ence real young people.
Making excus­es for him does noth­ing to help him, it shows the dement­ed state of men­tal retar­da­tion of those who excuse his behavior.
By the end of this year the very same youths will have mur­dered in excess of 1200 of their coun­try­men and women.
This writer and the Gleaner should be ashamed at want­i­ng to give a pass to some­one who have craved and pur­sued leadership.
Dwayne Vay is 34 years old , at his age I had com­plet­ed 10 years as a police offi­cer and had moved on and was 3 years into the sec­ond stage of my life.
Had any young police offi­cer wrong­ly killed or wound­ed a mem­ber of the pub­lic would the let­ter writer and the Gleaner be so benevolent?
Most police offi­cers are giv­en the enor­mous task of mak­ing life and death deci­sions at the ten­der age of 18 years-old.
Surgeons oper­ate dai­ly, some are younger than Dwayne Vaz, were one of them reck­less and end­ed up jeop­ar­diz­ing patien­t’s lives would he receive the same char­i­ta­ble pass?
I believe we all know the answer to these ques­tions, which brings us then to why should a sit­ting mem­ber of par­lia­ment be held to a less­er stan­dard of responsibility?

The let­ter writer is free to write what­ev­er he wants. As an opin­ion writer myself I write what I feel like . The prob­lem how­ev­er is when a news­pa­per which ought to know bet­ter ele­vates a let­ter with that kind of con­tent being ful­ly con­ver­sant of Jamaica’s bloody past as it relates to polit­i­cal vio­lence, it shows a cer­tain lev­el of reck­less­ness unwor­thy of the pub­lic’s trust.
Vaz made the sopho­moric com­ments on a stage in Montego Bay . Days lat­er six peo­ple were shot one killed in a dri­ve by shoot­ing in the very same city.
I am not sug­gest­ing there was a con­nec­tion between Vaz’s state­ments and the shoot­ings but it brings to the fore the volatile nature of the sit­u­a­tion with the pro­lif­er­a­tion and abun­dance of guns in the hands of peo­ple who are not smart enough to not use them in polit­i­cal killings.

Jamaica did “low di yute dem” , by the end of this year well over 1200 Jamaicans will have been killed by criminals.
Let that sink in for a bit.
The coun­try is a ver­i­ta­ble killing field , imag­ine 1200 bod­ies laid out side by side and imag­ine that car­nage in a nation 4411 square miles and a pop­u­la­tion of 2.7 million.
Then imag­ine just how ten­u­ous the sit­u­a­tion is.
No the youths can­not be allowed to do as they please the nation tried it and look where it got us.
Dwayne Vaz is no youth he is a grown man and he must be held account­able for his actions like every­one else.
I’m still await­ing a response from Jamaica house maybe ‚just maybe the Prime Minister will final­ly real­ize she is the Prime Minister of all Jamaicans and not just for the PNP.