The Following is a sto­ry pub­lished in the Jamaica Observer of Sunday, March 10, 2013 under the Authorship of Sybil E Hibbert a vet­er­an jour­nal­ist and retired court report­ing spe­cial­ist. She is also the wife of Retired ACP Isadore ‘Dick’ Hibbert, rat­ed among the top Jamaican detec­tives of his time.
See sto­ry here : Cheating’ wife freed of mur­der of musi­cian Carlton Barrett..

Any offi­cer sta­tioned at the Constant Spring (CIB) at the time knows full well that this ver­sion of events sur­round­ing this crime is sim­ply farcical.
The names of the accused , the judges and attor­neys are real and cor­rect , the way the case was dis­posed of is cor­rect but the offi­cers involved in this inves­ti­ga­tions were not named .
No one arrest­ed in this case was assault­ed in any way .
What this case rep­re­sent­ed is a much deep­er cor­rup­tion with­in the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem in Jamaica which sees a great piece of Police-work and impec­ca­ble detec­tive work reduced to noth­ing because of mon­ey, influ­ence ped­dling and pow­er­ful under­world crime figures.
Here again is a rea­son why our courts can­not be trust­ed to do the right thing in dis­pens­ing jus­tice in our country.

Officers engaged in this case recall how this case was inves­ti­gat­ed they also know that the police offi­cer named in this sto­ry had zero to do with solv­ing this crime.
At the appro­pri­ate time I will write in detail how this case was solved because a young con­sta­ble recent­ly attached to the Constant Spring CIB broke this case wide open using com­mon sense and per­sis­tent­ly refused to be ignored as this inves­ti­ga­tion was going nowhere.

ALBERTINE Barrett, wid­ow of Carlton Barrett, a for­mer drum­mer in Bob Marley’s Wailers Band, was on October 18, 1991, jailed for sev­en years along with the two men charged with her for con­spir­a­cy to mur­der her husband.

Carlton Barrett was a well-known musi­cian on the dance­hall cir­cuit at the time of his death. He was gunned down at his gate at 12 Bridgemount Park Avenue, Kingston 8 about 9:30 pm on April 17, 1987.

The late Justice Ellis (retired senior puisne judge) in pass­ing the sev­en-year prison term on Barrett and the oth­er two accused, remarked at the time that the case raised the fright­en­ing spec­tre of con­tract murder.

He said that a con­tract mur­der was very dif­fi­cult to solve because the con­trac­tor was a stranger to the vic­tim and police inves­ti­ga­tors there­fore had lit­tle to go on to find the killer.

“You were the author of the plot,” the judge told Barrett as she stood in the pris­on­er’s dock await­ing her fate. She had been recent­ly mar­ried, the court was told, and was sev­en months pregnant.

His Lordship added before impos­ing the sen­tence on her: “Your attor­ney, Tavares-Finson, in elo­quence and sin­cer­i­ty, men­tioned that you had lived a life of liv­ing hell with your hus­band, but it is my view that you could have (with)drawn from that with­out resort­ing to what you did.”

Sentenced with her were Glenroy Carter, 39, her reput­ed lover and taxi oper­a­tor of 15 Grayden Avenue, Kingston 10, and Junior Neil, 39, also called “Bang”, a mason, of 19 Seaward Drive, Kingston 11, whom the pros­e­cu­tion alleged was respon­si­ble for snuff­ing out the life of the deceased.

But by 1994, after hear­ing evi­dence and legal sub­mis­sions for 12 days — fol­low­ing two pre­vi­ous tri­als and a suc­cess­ful appeal to the Jamaican Court of Appeal — a jury retired for 25 min­utes and returned a not-guilty ver­dict in favour of all three accused. They were then acquitted.

Justice Bingham (lat­er judge of appeal now retired) presided at this tri­al in the Home Circuit Court.

The Crown had alleged that the three accused con­spired in 1987 to kill Carlton Barrett. Cautioned state­ments were alleged­ly giv­en by the three accused to the police in which they were alleged to have said that there was an agree­ment to kill him for a pay­ment of $20,000. These state­ments were ten­dered in evidence.

It was also part of the Crown’s case that pri­or to the mur­der, Carter, a Jamaican who resided in the USA, was on vaca­tion here when he met the accused Albertine Barrett and they became lovers. It was fur­ther alleged that the accused, Junior Neil, was con­tract­ed to car­ry out the killing.

In their defence, the three accused denied giv­ing the state­ments vol­un­tar­i­ly to the police. They claimed they were beat­en and forced to do so.

Barrett and Carter were tried twice for the murder.

In the first tri­al, the jury failed to arrive at a ver­dict. In the sec­ond, Justice Panton (lat­er pres­i­dent of the Court of Appeal) ruled that Barrett’s cau­tioned state­ment was inad­mis­si­ble, as the pros­e­cu­tion had not proven that coer­sion played no part in the tak­ing of her statement.

The judge said then that he laid no blame on Detective Superindent Donald Brown (lat­er ACP retired), who had tes­ti­fied. Carter’s state­ment was admit­ted into evi­dence and he was freed by the jury.

Barrett was defend­ed by attor­neys Tom Tavares-Finson and Dr Paul Ashley; and var­i­ous­ly by attor­neys K D Knight, QC (lat­er gov­ern­ment min­is­ter), Bert Samuels and Norman Harrison. Neil was rep­re­sent­ed by attor­neys C J Mitchell and Gayle Nelson.

The Crown’s case was pre­sent­ed at var­i­ous times by Lloyd Hibbert, deputy direc­tor of pub­lic pros­e­cu­tions (now judge of the Supreme Court); Yvette Sibble, assis­tant direc­tor of pub­lic pros­e­cu­tions; Lancelot Clarke, assis­tant direc­tor of pub­lic pros­e­cu­tions; and Crown Counsel Cheryl Richards.

A Home Circuit Court judge and jury lat­er heard from Detective Superintendent Brown that a team of detec­tives head­ed by him began car­ry­ing out inten­sive inves­ti­ga­tions imme­di­ate­ly after the murder.

Brown had giv­en evi­dence lat­er, at an ‘in cam­era’ tri­al, that the inves­ti­ga­tions led to the arrest of the three accused and they each gave cau­tioned state­ments admit­ting that they were involved in a plot to kill Barrett.

Giving evi­dence in the hear­ings was Oswald Brown, a jus­tice of the peace (JP), who tes­ti­fied for the Crown. He said he was present when Barrett and Carter gave cau­tioned state­ments to the police.

Harold Nembhard, also a JP, said he wit­nessed a cau­tioned state­ment giv­en by Neil.

In these state­ments, which were ten­dered in evi­dence and read to the jury, the three accused alleged­ly admit­ted con­spir­ing to mur­der Barrett.

Carter and Albertine Barrett were alleged to have said in their state­ments that they went to the cor­ner of Seaward Drive and Molynes Road where they saw Neil, o/​c “Bang”, and asked him if he knew of any­one who could ‘bump off’ a man.

Albertine Barrett is alleged in the state­ment to have giv­en “Bang” a pho­to­graph of her hus­band, as well as the licence num­ber and make of the car he drove.

All this evi­dence was revealed at a sub­se­quent tri­al, the result of Justice Patterson order­ing a retrial.

All three accused were this time con­vict­ed for con­spir­a­cy to mur­der Barrett, a jury hav­ing failed to arrive at a unan­i­mous ver­dict in respect of mur­der against Barrett and Carter.

At that first tri­al in 1988, when the case was called, Deputy DPP Hibbert had informed the court that there was a new indict­ment — con­spir­a­cy to mur­der Carlton Barrett — in respect of Neil, who would be tried at a lat­er date.

Neil was remand­ed in cus­tody pend­ing the out­come of the mur­der charge filed against the oth­er two accused.

The retri­al took place in 1990 when Carter and Barrett were freed by a jury of the mur­der charge.

But by 1991, after the con­vic­tion of all three for con­spir­a­cy to mur­der result­ed, an appeal to the Court of Appeal suc­ceed­ed. Again, a new tri­al was ordered.

Finally, in November 1994, a Home Circuit Court jury, after hours of delib­er­a­tion, returned not-guilty ver­dicts in favour of all three accused per­sons and they walked free.

Testifying in his defence, dur­ing the peri­od, Neil told the judge and jury that he was beat­en by the police and then giv­en a state­ment to sign. He said that a piece of con­crete with wires was tied to his tes­ti­cles and he was told to walk.

“It feel like it was draw­ing down my bel­ly, draw­ing down inside of me. I could not take it any­more and so I signed,” Neil told the court.

He added that Superintendent Brown showed him where to sign.

Barrett wept as she told the court, in sworn tes­ti­mo­ny, that her hus­band, who had been a drug addict, used to beat her.

She relat­ed sev­er­al acts of cru­el­ty done to her by him over an extend­ed peri­od, but she denied plot­ting with any­one to kill him. She admit­ted that she had been engaged in an affair with Carter while liv­ing with her hus­band but claimed she knew noth­ing at all about how he met his death.

Carter, who also gave sworn tes­ti­mo­ny in his defence said that he had heard that the police were look­ing for him, and on April 22, 1987, he went to the Constant Spring Police Station. There, he gave a state­ment to the police, deny­ing that he knew any­thing about the mur­der of Carlton Barrett. He was also ques­tioned about his fam­i­ly, he stated.

He said that after he was ques­tioned, he was tak­en to Red Hills police sta­tion and on April 24, he was giv­en a state­ment to sign. He said he signed it because he thought it was the state­ment which he had giv­en to the police on April 22.

Carter fur­ther told the court that he could not read and denied that he had giv­en any cau­tioned state­ment to the police.

He said he met Albertine Barrett in January 1987 and they had a rela­tion­ship. But he insist­ed that he did not know any­thing about the mur­der of her husband.

The two accused said the police forced them to sign the cau­tioned state­ments and both said they were beat­en by the police.

They were cross-exam­ined by Deputy DPP Hibbert, and Assistant DPP Sibble.

Carter also called a wit­ness to sup­port his claim that he was at home at the time when Carlton Barrett was killed.

However, there was an inter­est­ing turn of events in this tor­tur­ous tri­al when, in June 1990, Bert Samuels, appear­ing for Carter, sought and was grant­ed per­mis­sion to with­draw from the case on the grounds that he was not prop­er­ly instruct­ed by his client and so could no longer appear for him.

Samuels also point­ed out at the time to Senior Puisne Judge Chester Orr (now retired) that Carter was lan­guish­ing in cus­tody because he could not take up his $100,000 bail and that, too, affect­ed the pos­si­bil­i­ty of coun­sel get­ting prop­er instructions.

Tavares-Finson, coun­sel for Albertine Barrett, told the court then that he was ready to pro­ceed with the retri­al, where­upon the case was set for men­tion in the Home Circuit Court on June 25, 1990 so that a lawyer could be assigned to rep­re­sent Carter.

But by December 1990, when the mat­ter next came before the court for tri­al, Samuels was vig­or­ous­ly mak­ing a no-case sub­mis­sion on behalf of Carter, after such a sub­mis­sion by Tavares-Finson and Dr Ashley had been ear­li­er upheld by the tri­al judge on Albertine Barrett’s behalf.

Justice Panton had ear­li­er ruled that there was a case for Carter to answer. But after giv­ing evi­dence on his own behalf, sup­port­ed by a wit­ness, Carter as found not guilty of Carlton Barrett’s death.

Four years lat­er, all three accused suc­cess­ful­ly appealed their con­spir­a­cy to mur­der charge, and were final­ly set free.

Sybil E Hibbert is a vet­er­an jour­nal­ist and retired court report­ing spe­cial­ist. She is also the wife of Retired ACP Isadore ‘Dick’ Hibbert, rat­ed among the top Jamaican detec­tives of his time.

In due course I will write the true events as they occurred.….

The People’s National Party (PNP)Administration in Kingston is doing all in it’s pow­er to influ­ence Jamaicans to ditch the British based Privy Council as Jamaica’s final Court of Appeals and replace it with the Caribbean Court of Justice based in Trinidad.
The Opposition Jamaica Labor Party(JLP) which has a stronger record on the rule of law is opposed to the measure .
This pub­li­ca­tion sees many prob­lems with Jamaica mov­ing to the CCJ based on sev­er­al factors.
The argu­ments in sup­port of the CCJ are weak and friv­o­lous and is not sup­port­ed by facts , nei­ther is there a foun­da­tion in place to deal effec­tive­ly with the points raised by those opposed to the move.

See : JAMAICA SHOULD VOTE “NO” ON CCJ

Pride in coun­try and the region is impor­tant but it is hard­ly a rea­son to remove some­thing which has worked and replace it with some­thing which is unproven and for all intents and pur­pos­es seem head­ing for fail­ure at least as far as caribbean Islands sign­ing up is concerned.
Thus far only Barbados, Belize and Guyana retain the CCJ as their final court of appeals, it is impor­tant to note that despite the fact that the Court is based in Trinidad that nation has not moved to adopt the court as it’s final court of appeals.
It is cer­tain­ly not in the inter­est of Jamaicans for our coun­try to pur­sue this course even when we still have the Queen of England as the Constitutional head of state.
Doing so would effec­tive­ly be plac­ing the cart before the horse and for no good rea­son but to feel good.

This medi­um and this writer (not a lawyer) has sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly point­ed to the hor­ri­ble state of the Jamaican crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem. I con­sis­tent­ly point­ed to the vast defi­cien­cies with­in the sys­tem which I wit­nessed as a law enforce­ment offi­cer in our coun­try between 1982 and 1992, which has some­thing to do with my deci­sion to exit the stage after only a decade despite my love for the job.
All objec­tive observers will con­clude that the sys­tem has got­ten expo­nen­tial­ly worse over the years, a fact which arguably has some­thing to do with the lev­els of crime in the coun­try today.

This writer have sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly point­ed to the fact that at the heart of this is the fact that the Country’s Judges are far too lib­er­al. I have con­sis­tent­ly writ­ten in this medi­um about that fact, detail­ing com­pre­hen­sive cas­es where sit­ting Judges have sup­plant­ed the laws with their own bias­es and decide uni­lat­er­al­ly that they will turn crim­i­nals loose and in oth­er cas­es cir­cum­vent the process to ensure that cer­tain well-con­nect­ed peo­ple are nev­er found guilty of the crimes for which they have been charged.
I have argued that this has cre­at­ed a sce­nario which has the man on the street sub­se­quent­ly decid­ing not to obey laws because of their belief that the laws only apply to them and that the well-con­nect­ed are free to com­mit crimes with­out consequence.

RM PUSEY SHOULD BE REMOVED FROM THIS CASE NOW:

There is a sys­tem­at­ic attempt to con­fuse peo­ple in Jamaica into believ­ing that the Judiciary is total­ly untouched and untar­nished which is not based in facts.
However, more impor­tant­ly every­one has seen the way cas­es have been han­dled over the years, fair and con­sci­en­tious observers know just how easy it is for a defense lawyer to pick up the phone and call his friend the judge to influ­ence a deci­sion one way or the other.
Or worse, for politi­cians and their affil­i­ates to use var­i­ous means, from coher­sion to cor­rup­tion from pres­sure to threats and intim­i­da­tion to change the tra­jec­to­ry of a case in which they have a vest­ed interest.
What know Jamaican Drug-Lord or Community Don has ever been con­vict­ed of a traf­fic tick­et much less the mul­ti­plic­i­ty of mur­ders they order and com­mit in the country?

Even in Jury tri­als it is impor­tant to note just how easy it is for a sit­ting judge to use his/​her perch as ref­er­ee to cre­ate enough doubt which effec­tive­ly caus­es a jury to vote not guilty.
It is incred­i­bly dif­fi­cult for pros­e­cu­tors to gain con­vic­tions in Jamaica, tri­al judges are open­ly hos­tile to the pros­e­cu­tion while being shame­ful­ly cozy with defense attorneys.
As a for­mer cop I saw this first hand and was amazed by it and shame­ful of the practise.
It was and still is a prac­tice which sees crim­i­nals thumb­ing their noses at the process but most of all at hard work­ing law enforce­ment offi­cers who risk life and limb to bring crim­i­nals to justice…
And oh by the way the crim­i­nals know it and are not afraid to remind police offi­cers of it..
The peo­ple pay the Police the Prosecutors and the Judges but it is impos­si­ble to tell if one sit in a court­room and lis­ten to many of the Island’s judges, they would come away think­ing that the defen­dant pays the tri­al judges.

IT’S SO MUCH EASIER TO CRITICIZE WHEN YOU DON’T HAVE TO FACE THE BULLETS….

If Judges are inca­pable of under­stand­ing their roles in the dis­pen­sa­tion of Justice in Jamaica how can we sup­port their region­al col­leagues to be fair and impartial?
As I have said repeat­ed­ly, Jamaican Lawyers would have you believe that their pro­fes­sion is one of fideli­ty and strict ded­i­ca­tion to the cause but the facts say otherwise.
Lawyers become Judges.
Most of the Island’s Lawyers attend­ed one of the three law schools in our Region, the Norman Manley Law School in Jamaica, the Hugh Wooding Law School in Trinidad and the Eugene Dupuch Law School in the Bahamas . Many across the region know each oth­er, the risk is sim­ply too great for more corruption.

MANY JAMAICAN LAWYERS ARE NOT ABOVE BOARD, THEY SHOULD NOT EXPECT TO GET SPECIAL TREATMENT WHEN THEY BREAK THE LAWS…

Many peo­ple in the Caribbean have con­fi­dence in the Privy Council as their final court of appeals not because they are une­d­u­cat­ed old colo­nial­ists who want to hold onto the final ves­tiges of slavery.
They do so arguably because they under­stand well that the sys­tem in the region is not near­ly infal­li­ble nei­ther is it free from the can­cer­ous ten­ta­cles of corruption.
They under­stand that it is lit­er­al­ly impos­si­ble for those ten­ta­cles to reach the bench­es of the Privy Council or expo­nen­tial­ly less like­ly so to do.
It is against that back­ground that the region has resist­ed jump­ing onto the band­wag­on to which the People’s National Party is try­ing to chain the country.

MAGISTRATE: NOT GUILTY, BUT IS KERN INNOCENT ?

Jamaicans who are intel­lec­tu­al­ly able to place coun­try over pol­i­tics will read­i­ly relate to the way sev­er­al high pro­file cas­es have gone in Jamaica, not the least of which is the Kern Spencer cor­rup­tion tri­al which start­ed with a bang and end­ed with a whim­per, thanks to the efforts of a sin­gle Resident Magistrate.
There is a par­tic­u­lar strain of anti-police bias which is not only high­ly evi­dent in Jamaican court­rooms but may be observed in the rhetoric of the wider Caribbean’s old polit­i­cal guard many of whom were edu­cat­ed at the var­i­ous cam­pus­es of the left­ist col­leges across the Caribbean region.
Many are life­long admir­ers of the likes of Cheddi Jaggan, Walter Rodney Michael Manley and oth­er left­ists who ruled and high­ly influ­enced the region dur­ing the six­ties and seventies.
Neither of those peo­ple were exact­ly known for their sup­port for the rule of law or police offi­cers who uphold the laws.

For those of you who doubt any of this take a look at this video of Bajan National David Simmons import­ed to Jamaica to chair a com­mis­sion look­ing at events which occurred in 2010 when a Jamaican crime lord Christopher (Duddus) Coke was being sought for extra­di­tion to the United States to face crim­i­nal charges.
During the peri­od in which the Island’s Security Forces sought this crim­i­nal Police offi­cers were killed, Police sta­tions were burned to the ground and scores of peo­ple were murdered.

It required the might of the Island’s Military with the help of the police just to breach the Community of Tivoli Gardens Cokes red­out where author­i­ties believed he was holed up with hun­dreds of heav­i­ly armed mer­ce­nar­ies. Coke’s Gunmen were deter­mined and ded­i­cat­ed to killing agents of the state in order to pre­vent the crime lord’s extra­di­tion to The United States.

These events played out in real time as the world watched in hor­ror, won­der­ing when did this lev­el of insur­gency take over the once pris­tine Island every­one around the world came to love.
Despite all of that, here is the behav­ior of David Simmons who heads the com­mis­sion look­ing into the events which occurred at that time.

This is the rea­son Jamaicans who want to improve our coun­try and it’s crim­i­nal jus­tice fail­ures should send the PNP and those push­ing this atroc­i­ty packing.
It is impor­tant that to do so Jamaicans not con­fuse this issue with any oth­er issue.
The mere fact that the Portia Simpson Miller Administration is push­ing this fias­co on the peo­ple in light of what you just saw in this rep­re­sen­ta­tive sam­pling is evi­dence enough we should shun this.
On that basis Jamaicans must send a strong mes­sage to Miller and her anti-Jamaican cam­paign to fur­ther erode our insti­tu­tions that at least for now we are not going to dis­pense with the Privy Council.
On that basis the PNP must go.….….….….

In yet anoth­er vin­tage dis­play David Simmons who heads the Commission inves­ti­gat­ing events in Tivoli Gardens in 2010 showed that his arro­gance is mak­ing a mock­ery of the enquiry.

Giving evi­dence yes­ter­day Superintendent Everton Tabannah tes­ti­fied that a female infor­mant who lived in Tivoli Gardens told him that men from Grant’s Pen Kingston 8 who had gone to Tivoli Gardens to join Christopher (Dudus)Coke’s Militia were killed after they demand­ed par­tial pay­ment of $50,000 of the $100,000 total pay­ment they were promised by Coke.
Tabannah tes­ti­fied that the infor­mant told him she was hap­py the Security Forces took over the com­mu­ni­ty as she was quote“tired of the fool­ish­ness” which was hap­pen­ing in her community.
Tabannah tes­ti­fied that from infor­ma­tion gleaned from infor­mants over 300 heav­i­ly armed mili­ti­a­men were in Tivoli Gardens before the Security forces annexed the com­mu­ni­ty to the rest of the Island.

It was then that Simmons jumped in inter­rupt­ing Tabannah .… “I’m sus­pi­cious of this evi­dence. I’m sus­pi­cious, this evi­dence does not sit well with me”address­ing attor­ney for the JCF Deborah Martin.
As one of the hear­er of facts Simmons was with­in his bounds when he inter­rupt­ed Tabannah insist­ing that that part of his tes­ti­mo­ny was not in his ini­tial statements.

The Superintendent explained that the par­tic­u­lar point had slipped his mind but that he had relayed that infor­ma­tion to oth­er offi­cers includ­ing his supe­ri­ors and named those to whom he relayed the information.
Simmons is praised as an astute Lawyer/​Judge, in the inter­est of clar­i­ty and for the record I am nei­ther just a can­tan­ker­ous blogger.
However it real­ly is remark­able that David Simmons does not under­stand that intel­li­gence or what is referred to as infor­ma­tion gath­er­ing is not evidence.
As such the Police offi­cer has absolute­ly no oblig­a­tion to include what he heard(hearsay) into an affi­davit (state­ment) which is a fac­tu­al prov­able nar­ra­tive of the offi­cer’s rec­ol­lec­tion of events.

Since the infor­ma­tion giv­en him was not proven, it is (hearsay) and not admis­si­ble in a court of law (as per Jamaican law). This does not mean that though the offi­cer can­not prove it that it did not hap­pen , infor­ma­tion is for the use of police to do fur­ther inves­ti­ga­tions with a view to solv­ing crime it is not evidence.
Essentially that infor­ma­tion is like a road rather than a destination.

Most shock­ing how­ev­er is that David Simmons asked Superintendent Tabannah to give her name and address in the open forum of the hear­ing room. Tabannah in his police wis­dom said he didn’t take her name and doesn’t know her address.
He essen­tial­ly shook Simmons off using his knowl­edge of the laws, Simmons could learn a thing or two if he would get out of his own way.
For peo­ple who are not famil­iar with the process Superintendent Tabannah skill­ful­ly side­stepped the igno­rant and stu­pid demand by claim­ing he does not know her name nor address.

SEE ALSO DAVID SIMMONS WON’T APOLOGIZE TO VAV…

Those famil­iar with how wit­ness­es and infor­mants are treat­ed in Jamaica are patent­ly aware that reveal­ing his source’s name and address in that open forum would have been tan­ta­mount to a death sen­tence on that poor woman.
The Tivoli Enquiry is a huge waste of scarce tax­pay­ers resources. It is being used to shame and indict the Jamaica Labor Party .
It is time that peo­ple of con­science demand that this nev­er end­ing fish­ing expe­di­tion end and David Simmons pack up and head back to Barbados.
Clearly Simmons is more con­cerned with grand­stand­ing and show­boat­ing than lis­ten­ing to the tes­ti­mo­ny of the wit­ness­es with a view to mak­ing rea­soned recommendations.
There are hard­ly any Jamaicans who do not know what Tivoli Gardens was about. There are hard­ly any real Jamaicans who do not know how gar­risons are oper­at­ed . They cer­tain­ly do not need any­one from Barbados to shed light on ghet­to life in Jamaica.

There are more than enough instances of gross cor­rup­tion with­in the sit­ting admin­is­tra­tion which are wor­thy of enquiries To date there are none as far as I know.
It’s time for this horse and pony show to end send this pompous jack-ass back home.…..

Republicans are fum­ing mad or just plain whin­ing because they did not get soft­ball ques­tions from CNBC’s ques­tion­ers at their last debates.
Both the Republican National Committee’s Chairman Reince Priebus and most of the can­di­dates have com­plained about the ques­tions the bunch of GOP losers were asked.
Heading the enti­tled list of whin­ers were Donald Trump. Ben Carson, Jeb Bush, Ted Cruz and a few others .
Shockingly can­di­dates and the Republican National Committee are demand­ing that only Right wing nutjobs mod­er­ate the debates, their choice of debate mod­er­a­tors include Rush Limbaugh Sean Hannity and others.
Seriously if this was­n’t so absurd it would be worth a chuckle.

Here’s the kick­er though Donald trump who is run­ning as a “win­ner” did say he was­n’t opposed to “whin­ing” if he did­n’t get his way.
So there you have it Republicans who talk through the sides of their mouth about lib­er­ty and democ­ra­cy are actually

opposed to answer­ing prob­ing ques­tions from the press . You sim­ply can­not make this up .
In the mean­time Democratic can­di­dates are out doing what they do , lis­ten­ing to vot­ers needs so they can for­mu­late poli­cies to solve problems.

The white male par­ty real­ly has noth­ing to offer the coun­try out­side the con­stant drum­beat for war , usu­al­ly with dredged up ene­mies and of course trick­le down eco­nom­ics which gives an inor­di­nate amount of resources to the rich who will in turn offer crumbs from their table to every­one else.

This is the most ridicu­lous exper­i­ment which failed under Reagan and Herbert Walker Bush , brought the Country to near eco­nom­ic col­lapse under George W Bush and is being advo­cat­ed by all the can­di­dates after the Democrat Barack Obama brought the econ­o­my back from the brink of col­lapse, as Bill Clinton did after the débâ­cle of the first Bush presidency.

So you won­der how is it that they are able to win elec­tions when clear­ly peo­ple must be able to see through the bull?
Well not so fast the Republican Party was hijacked by the rabid Racist Dixiecrats after Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act into law. Democrats have not won the South since.
White men have not gone back to the Democratic par­ty since. Ever since they have launched a cam­paign of fear­mon­ger­ing at aver­age whites, telling them that “those peo­ple” are try­ing to take their coun­try , their jobs , their way of life and every­thing else.
Those peo­ple who are pret­ty much every­one else oth­er than white males.

Funny thing is many don’t have any of those things to lose but hatred caus­es them to vote and mil­i­tate against their own self interest.
So there you have it.…..

The recent events in a South Carolina School in which a cop attacked and abused a black stu­dent once again shocked the world. The vio­lence lev­eled against Americans of all col­ors but more-so African-Americans of all ages and gen­ders seem to be on the rise but hard­ly any­one could believe a police offi­cer would do what we saw hap­pen to a student.
I was com­pelled to speak out against the Officer’s actions as I thought despite my 10 years in law enforce­ment in Jamaica one of the tough­est most vio­lent places to do police work, I nev­er thought that lev­el of vio­lence could be lev­eled at any stu­dent much less a female student.
Since the inci­dent the Sheriff’s office has demon­strat­ed good sense by fir­ing that Deputy.
Unfortunately for the peo­ple of South Carolina or some oth­er state this offi­cer may very well end up hired by anoth­er police depart­ment as a kind of “screw you” to the forces of what’s right.
SCHOOL RESOURCE OFFICERS, A MISNOMER..

In com­ment­ing on the inci­dent I argued that what­ev­er the stu­dent did could not be appro­pri­ate­ly dis­cussed in the same con­text of the offi­cer’s response which was expo­nen­tial­ly out of the range of what was appro­pri­ate, as such I did not dis­cuss her actions. I thought then that to dis­cuss both togeth­er dimin­ish­es the enor­mi­ty of the act com­mit­ted against that stu­dent and I still believe so today.
Even as a trained for­mer Police offi­cer I did not think that I need­ed to see any­thing else as CNN’s res­i­dent house police apol­o­gist Don Lemon seemed to believe may have shed more light, which would jus­ti­fy what the offi­cer did.
Interestingly Lemon for­got that the oth­er guest he was foist­ing his illog­i­cal attempt at cop appease­ment to was Sunny Hostin a Lawyer and for­mer Federal pros­e­cu­tor who ought to know when a stan­dard of proof has been met.
As I have said before there is a com­mon mis­con­cep­tion that if some­one slaps a cop that cop has a right to pull out a gun and shoot that person.
Let me be clear as far as the law is con­cerned a police offi­cer may only use force pro­por­tion­ate to the force used against him/​her.

QUESTION: WHEN IS SHOOTING A 12-YEAR-OLD CHILD REASONABLE?
A Police offi­cer does not get to employ bru­tal unhinged vio­lence against a per­son because the per­son is bel­liger­ent or uncooperative.
Yet there are no short­age of experts on the police band­wag­on mak­ing those argu­ments. Of course that’s not the law.
One of the rea­son for the unmit­i­gat­ed assault we are wit­ness­ing is that from County Courts all the way to the Supreme Court , Judges have stretched the mean­ing of the laws to their lim­its to jus­ti­fy police aggres­sion against the public.

THE BEHAVIOR OF PEOPLE MATTER ALSO HOWEVER
It would be disin­gen­u­ous to dis­cuss the offi­cer’s behav­ior with­out tak­ing time to speak to the prob­lem of teenage violence .
And more specif­i­cal­ly the prob­lem of teenage behav­ior in the black community.
As per reports The South Carolina stu­dent flipped and tack­led by sheriff’s deputy Ben Fields is in fos­ter care, her attor­ney told the New York Daily News. it is unclear whether the unnamed teen was in fos­ter care before the inci­dent or was placed there after­wards the report stat­ed that her bio­log­i­cal moth­er and grand­moth­er are how­ev­er alive.
In light of this rev­e­la­tion it makes it dif­fi­cult to speak to her behav­ior or lack there­of with­out under­stand­ing the dynam­ics of what in total­ly may be affect­ing this teen.
Which is all the more rea­son that the school should nev­er have includ­ed the police in a mat­ter of dis­ci­pline where clear­ly no crime was committed.
One of the Arguments we have heard is that it is a mis­de­meanor to dis­rupt school and that is what the young lady was engag­ing in by sit­ting at her desk and refus­ing to leave the classroom.
Those in favor of the Police state argues that it was pre­cise­ly why the Cop was called.
Anyone who feel com­fort­able with cops drag­ging chil­dren from their desks and flip­ping them across the room clear­ly does not deserve to share the same space or breathe the same air as ratio­nal people.
It is a seri­ous indict­ment on the Police state that we would even be argu­ing about crim­i­nal­iz­ing our chil­dren for things many of us did in school which teach­ers and admin­is­tra­tors han­dled it quite capably.

REPORT: SOUTH CAROLINA STUDENT FLIPPED BY POLICE OFFICER IS IN FOSTER CARE

I would be remiss how­ev­er if I ignored or seek to ratio­nal­ize teenage tru­an­cy. It is shock­ing and despi­ca­ble the behav­ior we see being dis­played by Black teens across the country.
Of course you are going to have prob­lems with author­i­ty fig­ures if you curse out grownups and threat­en them . Have you ever rid­den the New York City sub­way and seen the behav­ior of Black teenage stu­dents? Have you even rid­den the New York City Buses , have you rid­den the trains or bus­es in any of America’s urban cen­ters and seen the behav­ior of young African-Americans”
This hap­pened recently…

When is ever okay to attack your teacher are you kid­ding me? Many of these stu­dents are not real­ly stu­dents they are preda­tors. They oper­ate in packs, they curse, steal, and they mete out vio­lence to whomev­er they see fit and they do not care.
So some­times when we see them receive cer­tain treat­ment know that many of them are not saints.

Most adults who live or do busi­ness in America’s urban cen­ters have seen them rob­bing stores in packs like wild preda­tors , sim­ply tak­ing what they want under the cov­er of numbers.
As mem­bers of the Black com­mu­ni­ty we are not help­ing them under­stand dis­ci­pline and con­se­quences if we cov­er for them and ratio­nal­ize away the bar­barism of some of these youngsters.

So lets not kid our­selves about these black kids and their behav­ior, every child must be taught respect for author­i­ty be it in church school or wher­ev­er . They sim­ply can­not run roughshod over every­one and every­thing with­out consequence.
And yes with­out point­ing fin­gers when we do not obey the rules the police will come and they are going to take you one way or the other.
Period.….

No amount of con­dem­na­tion and dis­gust would be enough in respond­ing to what we wit­nessed on an ama­teur video shot by a stu­dent in a Columbia South Carolina Schoolroom as school offi­cials and stu­dents stood and sat in numb silence as a state trained , paid and sanc­tioned Thug assault­ed a 16 year old girl in the most vicious way pos­si­ble under the guise and author­i­ty of law enforcement.
As nau­se­at­ed and dis­gust­ed as the world is at this vicious dis­play of bar­barism is, if stu­dents had not tak­en out their cell phones and record­ed this inci­dent no one would have been any wis­er, this stu­dent and her class­mates would have been assault­ed, trau­ma­tized and vic­tim­ized with­out con­se­quence to the offend­er. Life would have gone on as usu­al as it always has.

Life would have gone on as usu­al because for almost four hun­dred years this is exact­ly how black peo­ple have been treat­ed in this coun­try. As I said in pre­vi­ous articles,whatever hap­pened in that class­room which pre­cip­i­tat­ed the call­ing of the police, can­not be dis­cussed in the same con­text in which we dis­cuss what hap­pened after the police entered the room.
If we do so we unwit­ting­ly give tac­it sup­port to the bru­tal crim­i­nal bar­bar­i­ty and dis­gust­ing dis­play of dis­re­spect we all witnessed .

So when the head of the FBI James Comey comes out and blames cit­i­zens for video­tap­ing atroc­i­ties com­mit­ted against them by these bru­tal thugs in uni­form as the rea­son for the rise in crime this is what he wants to keep from you.
Clearly this was a crime and it should be pros­e­cut­ed if and when it is pros­e­cut­ed it will in fact add to the crime statistics.
The only thing James Comey did not say to the Police Chiefs and the Nation is that much of the crime is being com­mit­ted by those who are sworn to pro­tect and serve.

It was a telling moment at least for the 47 mil­lion Black cit­i­zens of this coun­try when the head of the Federal Bureau of Investigations came out and blamed them for non-vio­lent­ly record­ing police abuse against their per­sons , rather than speak to the atro­cious behav­ior we are wit­ness­ing in front our eyes.
For those in our com­mu­ni­ty who have his­tor­i­cal­ly seen the FBI as Savior against the forces of tyran­ny Comey’s speech must give you pause.

SCHOOL RESOURCE OFFICERS

As we sort through this shock­ing event which hap­pened to the abused teenage girl and every oth­er stu­dent par­tic­u­lar­ly stu­dents of col­or we do a tremen­dous dis­ser­vice to them if we do not view what hap­pened to her in the greater con­text of the school to prison pipeline which the states have been run­ning in this coun­try essen­tial­ly turn­ing reg­u­lar dis­ci­pli­nary mat­ters into crimes and our school age chil­dren into criminals .

They start­ed with the sleigh of hand by not accept­ing that what they have done is mil­i­ta­rize schools with police. Somehow they fig­ured smart peo­ple would not be par­tic­u­lar­ly pleased with hav­ing gun-tot­ing cops hav­ing any­thing to do with their chil­dren inside their classrooms.
So what they did was to place gun-tot­ing cops into the class­rooms among your kids, only they cre­at­ed a more palat­able name for them. All of a sud­den the juiced up sher­if­f’s deputy is no longer a cop he is a school resource offi­cer.

What resource does he/​she bring to the school you decide ?
Students around the globe attend class­es at dif­fer­ent lev­els with­out hav­ing armed cops in their schools and they do just fine that’s the way it’s always been.
America cre­at­ed it’s own night­mare with it’s insane insa­tiable appetite and affin­i­ty for guns.
But as insane as that is that is not the big­ger issue. The real issue is the Country’s con­tin­ued obses­sion with crim­i­nal­iz­ing and incar­cer­at­ing its minori­ties by attack­ing stu­dents of col­or in the places where they should feel safest.

Make no mis­take about it there is a tac­tic yet explic­it accep­tance of this class­room to prison approach by the states and by a large sub­set of the white population.
Did I say a large sub­set of whites?
Yes a large per­cent­age of the white pop­u­la­tion is so hate­ful of Blacks that they will sup­port every harm which is brought about on the per­son of black people.
It is nev­er about their sup­port for police , in fact they are abused just as bad­ly by police . The fact is that they have devel­oped a pol­i­cy of “the ene­my of my ene­my is my friend”.
They are not sup­port­ing police they are sup­port­ing assault on Black peo­ple, it does not mat­ter whether it’s the police, the Russians or ISIL any­one who hates and is will­ing to assault Blacks are friends of theirs.

We see it in the data as it relates to how black stu­dents are dis­ci­plined with­in the school systems.
It is evi­dent in sus­pen­sion and expul­sion rates even though there is absolute­ly no data which sug­gests that black stu­dents are more dis­rup­tive in school.

We waste our time talk­ing about the action of the cop if the con­ver­sa­tion is not cen­tered on why state gov­ern­ments are turn­ing schools into police posts. Cops ought not be in class­rooms unless some­one pulls a gun or oth­er weapon on some­one else and they are called.
This act of Government which places cops in schools is designed to intim­i­date young peo­ple into acqui­esc­ing to Government’s demands or else. It has noth­ing to do with safety.

Most of us attend­ed schools in which there were no cops or any­where on the prop­er­ty , how many oth­er nations engages in this prac­tice oth­er than the United States?
I can tell you not many if at all…
Black America wise up the fir­ing of this cop alone will change nothing.

It is gen­er­al­ly not my habit of com­ment­ing too much on low down politi­cians because writ­ing about them gen­er­al­ly have the oppo­site effect of sham­ing them, it usu­al­ly brings them more atten­tion. For most politi­cians there is gen­er­al­ly no bad pub­lic­i­ty they are gen­er­al­ly extreme nar­cis­sists who take what­ev­er atten­tion they can get good or bad.

On this occa­sion I will break with that rule sim­ply to talk about the low down loud-mouth bul­ly who serves as Governor of New Jersey.
Chris Christie defies log­ic , It nev­er quite dawned on me what log­ic Jersey Democrats used in vot­ing for this retard­ed loud-mouth school­yard bul­ly in a total­ly blue state?
The guy is noth­ing but a Rudolph Giuliani 2.0 on steroids. He is uncouth, abra­sive, arro­gant and a down­right liar.
Maybe it can be chalked up to the sup­posed rough and tum­ble notion of the New York/​New Jersey per­sona “feg­gud about it”.
But even so the vot­ers them­selves are get­ting tired of this punk and many are ask­ing him to resign . I mean he is nev­er there he’s always out chas­ing the elu­sive dream of becom­ing President of the United States.
No one begrudges the fat man the right to chase his dream but when a police offi­cer gets shot and he goes on National Television to blame the President of the United States for the shoot­ing it is beyond disgraceful.

I total­ly get that Christie needs trac­tion in a 16 per­son field in which he hard­ly gets to answer a ques­tion. What bet­ter way to try to gar­ner some atten­tion than attack­ing the President of the United States?
But to bla­tant­ly lie to gain shock val­ue shows the depths the over the riv­er over­weight thug is will­ing to go to to boost his wan­ing pres­i­den­tial ambitions.
As I said he is exact­ly like Giuliani, both were Federal Prosecutors who lack the intel­lect to be objective.
Neither of these bul­lies are capa­ble of mak­ing ratio­nal dis­tinc­tions between wrong and right as far as cops are concerned.
For these two Cops can do no wrong .
It was part of the rea­sons no one is talk­ing about President Giuliani. The so-called “America’s Mayor” is now a mere footnote.
Like Giuliani Christie will crash and burn. There is no way either of these two school­yard thugs could be allowed anywhere

near the nuclear codes. It is that same arro­gance which got him boot­ed from a Amtrak qui­et car .

Chris Christie was report­ed­ly kicked out of an Amtrak train car Sunday for yelling on his cell phone in one of the train service’s “qui­et cars.”The Garden State gov­er­nor, known for his blunt and at times loud style, was spot­ted by fel­low pas­sen­gers in the qui­et car on a 9:55 a.m. Amtrak train trav­el­ing from Washington, D.C. to New York, accord­ing to Gawker. The strug­gling 2016 can­di­date “got on last minute yelling at his two Secret Service agents I think because of a seat mix-up, sat down and imme­di­ate­ly start­ed mak­ing phone calls on the qui­et car,” pas­sen­ger Alexander Mann told Gawker. Christie appeared to be in the midst of an intense con­ver­sa­tion and was heard repeat­ing phras­es includ­ing “this is frickin’ ridicu­lous” and “seri­ous­ly?” accord­ing to Mann.
‘This is frickin’ ridicu­lous’: Chris Christie gets boot­ed from Amtrak qui­et car for being too loud while on cellphone 

We salute Amtrak for putting this bul­ly in his place imag­ine this guy hav­ing pow­er to use the world’s ‚most pow­er­ful military?
If he is yelling at Agents now as a fad­ing can­di­date imag­ine if he was to ever become President.…