On Monday gun­fire erupt­ed down­town Kingston. Though a nor­mal occur­rence this shoot­ing once again drove home the point that Jamaica is slow­ly creep­ing toward a point of no return.
Initial report­ing indi­cat­ed that shoot­ing broke out near an Armored Police Vehicle, of course the very same report stat­ed that offi­cers who were strate­gi­cal­ly placed in the area were on patrol when gun­men crept upon them and opened fire.
Later the very same Publication report­ed that none of the offi­cers were hurt but then updat­ed the report­ing that indeed one offi­cer was injured. We are left to won­der what kind of injury the Officer sustained.
In the mean­time new Information from the West Kingston Police sug­gest that the offi­cers were caught between two rival gangs from Tivoli Gardens and Denham Town respectively.

One of the mea­sures I have per­son­al­ly advo­cat­ed for is the removal of offi­cers from police sta­tion hous­es and plac­ing them instead in vehi­cles strate­gi­cal­ly around volatile com­mu­ni­ties. I am par­tic­u­lar­ly com­fort­able with the poten­tial con­ver­gence effect where Officers around a par­tic­u­lar zone would sim­ply col­lapse the zone when shoot­ings occur. Technically this would not elim­i­nate the prospect of shoot­ings occur­ring. It would how­ev­er cut off escape routes in the event there are shoot­ings, which would have the long-term cumu­la­tive effect of reduc­ing Gun offences.
This strat­e­gy can­not be effec­tive with­out the resources to do the job. Neither can it be effec­tive if the offi­cers are not well trained and crit­i­cal­ly aware of what they need to do.

In order to effec­tive­ly deal with Criminals par­tic­u­lar­ly in the Kingston Metropolitan area the topog­ra­phy must be con­sid­ered. All of the Young crim­i­nals know the escape routes which includes gul­lies , drains, cul­verts and oth­er arter­ies. This places law-enforce­ment at a strate­gic disadvantage.
So when we ask the legit­i­mate ques­tion why are the Police unable to catch the peo­ple who are com­mit­ting crimes even when they are in the imme­di­ate area dur­ing the com­mis­sion of some of these crimes we must bear those facts in mind.

Most of the Nations infra­struc­ture was not cre­at­ed with the future in mind, they sim­ply built for the moment. To date the same failed strate­gies are being employed despite input from inter­est­ed par­ties and oth­er Analysts. Additionally ‚unplanned shanties and ille­gal dwellings add to the list of wor­ries Law enforce­ment faces in Cities and Towns across the Island.
Evidence of the plan­ning myopia may be found in the Portmore com­mu­ni­ties. These com­mu­ni­ties are cre­at­ed with res­i­dents hav­ing to park their cars in pre­scribed areas then walk along alley­ways to get to their homes. Those Alley-ways gen­er­al­ly have walls on either sides cre­at­ing a vir­tu­al death trap for res­i­dents in the event crim­i­nals decide to tar­get them.
Guess what not only have crim­i­nals tar­get­ed res­i­dents of these com­mu­ni­ties, they have actu­al­ly tak­en up res­i­dence in many Portmore com­mu­ni­ties cre­at­ing a polic­ing night­mare for Authorities.
Opportunities for com­mit­ting crimes are nev­er lost on Jamaican crim­i­nals. They con­tin­ue to exploit every oppor­tu­ni­ty they are giv­en to expand their net­work of crim­i­nal activities.
Most crimes are crimes of oppor­tu­ni­ty. Criminals are basi­cal­ly low life preda­tors who pounce on avail­able oppor­tu­ni­ties. Countries and Individuals can­not be in the busi­ness of cre­at­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties for crim­i­nals. Yet the same failed strate­gies are being employed across the board with­out thought for effec­tive law enforcement.

Notwithstanding all of the fore­gone, if the ele­ments I allud­ed to were imme­di­ate­ly reversed the Police would still do a shit­ty job with their hands tied behind their backs and (inde­com) breath­ing down their necks.
The Nation made a tac­ti­cal deci­sion to cre­ate anoth­er police agency sole­ly to police the police. This agency have no respon­si­bil­i­ty to reduce crime, none at all. This agency faces none of the risks the police face. Yet the Agency received wide rang­ing pow­ers and sup­port to go after those who have to face the bullets .

I am not par­tic­u­lar­ly inter­est­ed in the noisy chat­ter that there must be account­abil­i­ty for police actions. There is no doubt about that. No one is more incensed than I when Police betray their sacred oath by break­ing the trust placed in them.
What I am not pre­pared to do is to have a con­ver­sa­tion with any­one who dim-wit­ted­ly argue that the way to have police account­abil­i­ty is cre­ate the envi­ron­ment where police offi­cers have their brains blown out of their heads or their leg sev­ered, lying in bushy-fields by some mag­gots on a Bus or a piece of garbage on a motor­cy­cle. The lives of Police Officers must mat­ter in Jamaica.

For years Administrations of both polit­i­cal par­ties stood by and watched as crime metas­ta­sized yet they did noth­ing to stop it. What they did was to make it more and more dif­fi­cult for police to do their jobs. The result is police apa­thy and dis­in­ter­est. This con­tin­ued as good police offi­cers exit­ed the stage and cor­rup­tion took over the force. The politi­cians were incred­i­bly hap­py for that out­come , it was the out­come they desired and (inde­com) was born. This is not to say there are not great police offi­cers in the depart­ment. On the con­trary these heroes con­tin­ue to fight the good fight dai­ly with­out sup­port from their supe­ri­ors or the Government.
Those on the out­side are free to spew garbage out of hatred and igno­rance. Those of us who served saw the strate­gic dis­man­tling of the depart­ment, leav­ing in it’s place an inef­fec­tive paper tiger.
Between pub­lic cries of mur­der aid­ed by politi­cians. Criminal Dons who pay pro­fes­sion­al mourn­ers to tes­ti­fy that they saw shoot-out which occured at 3:am. A Media which glee­ful­ly pro­vid­ed the plat­form and those who active­ly par­tic­i­pat­ed in remov­ing guns from shoot­ing scenes as police defend their lives under sus­tained gun­fire. The stage was set for what we see today.

For years there was strate­gic plan to paint the police as mur­der­ers this was effec­tive­ly done by remov­ing weapons from shoot­ing scenes . After the shoot­ing end­ed police were left with dead bod­ies and no guns. This in and of itself forced offi­cers to take mea­sures to pro­tect them­selves from going to prison. What police offi­cers do not need are croc­o­dile tears from Politicians or (inde­com) when offi­cers are killed. What they need are laws to pro­tect them, a removal of the cuffs from their wrists and a peo­ple deserv­ing of their sacrifice.

One of the ques­tions we hear these days is “how does Jamaica fix it’s crime problem ?
Of course many Jamaicans have vary­ing ideas on how to arrive at a place where crime is at a tol­er­a­ble lev­el. At the same time oth­ers will argue that any lev­el of crime is intol­er­a­ble. Pragmatically speak­ing I am of the opin­ion that as a mod­ern soci­ety we will have to grap­ple with a cer­tain degree of crim­i­nal behav­ior be it blue or white col­lar , or both.

What is obvi­ous from many Jamaicans par­tic­u­lar­ly those liv­ing abroad who are no longer sub­ject­ed to the dai­ly killings around the cor­ner or next door, is their lev­el of frus­tra­tion at what appears to be the Government’s inabil­i­ty to do some­thing about the prob­lem. Many demand an end to the killings and oth­er acts of crim­i­nal­i­ty though they have no idea how that goal is to be achieved.
Many are call­ing for a return to the days of the death penal­ty. Of course those emo­tion­al calls does not take into con­sid­er­a­tion the social and legal hur­dles which pre­vents Jamaica a small depen­dent state from using the death penal­ty as a puni­tive tool.

One thing is cer­tain how­ev­er, is that Jamaica’s over five decades of sup­port and roman­ti­ciz­ing of crime and crim­i­nals and the sub­se­quent result the coun­try is expe­ri­enc­ing now will not change overnight.
We absolute­ly need relief from the blood-let­ting. But we need to be clear-eyed that .
(1) Wishing away the prob­lem is not a solution.
(2) Asking for Divine Intervention (though laud­able) will not fix the prob­lem> God help those who help themselves.
(3) Applying quick-fix­es and dra­con­ian mea­sures does not fix the prob­lem , it rather exac­er­bates them.
So what are some of the solu­tions I would offer in order to start the process of rolling back this out of con­trol crime you ask ?
Here is where I believe the Nation must start.

(1) A Government that is itself not a crim­i­nal orga­ni­za­tion.
(2) A Government that drafts and pass­es seri­ous anti-crime laws.
(3) A revamp­ing of the failed crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem.
(4) Judges who respect the laws.
(5) Truth in sen­tenc­ing.
(6) Create eco­nom­ic oppor­tu­ni­ties.
(7) Training and equip­ping the CIB branch of the police depart­ment.
(8) Repealing, re-word­ing, and reau­tho­riz­ing the INDECOM Act.
(9) Creation of a mind­set con­ducive to respect for the rule of law.
(10) Strong sup­port for Police Officers.
(11) Most impor­tant­ly chang­ing our coun­try to one where all are equal under the laws. Politicians and the well con­nect­ed can­not be above the Nation’s Laws.

This is a road map which will see a grad­ual south­ward trend in crime. Failing which crime will con­tin­ue to trend upward and blood will con­tin­ue to run unabated.

• This will require (1) a dif­fer­ent mind­set from that which exists in the Political Directorate. Or (2) Using the bal­lot box sim­ply send the present Government/​Party to Political Oblivion and keep it there.
  ♦ Whomever forms the next Administration must then embark on a sys­tem­at­ic and strate­gic path aimed at root­ing out crime.
  ♦That must begin with a total and unequiv­o­cal denounce­ment of crim­i­nals and crim­i­nal-gangs by the new admin­is­tra­tion, mak­ing it abun­dant­ly clear that no act of crim­i­nal­i­ty will be tol­er­at­ed or shield­ed by the Government.
  ♦That means remov­ing the sanc­tu­ary of pro­tec­tion Jamaica’s crim­i­nals are accus­tomed to from Politicians.
  ♦Then begin the process of effect­ing change.
  This process will be extreme­ly dif­fi­cult due to the decades of law­less­ness which has char­ac­ter­ized Jamaica’s last four decades .…
  Some observers have argued that the process of return­ing Jamaica to peace and sta­bil­i­ty would require that pow­er be tak­en from the peo­ple and placed into the hands of a Dictator who would begin the process of elim­i­nat­ing crime from the coun­try then return the pow­er to the peo­ple after a decade
  I can­not sup­port any such plan even though I under­stand the path I out­lined would be dif­fi­cult due to the law­less­ness and indis­ci­pline of the Jamaican masses.
  The alter­na­tive would be to move swift­ly to remove polit­i­cal hacks from posi­tions of pow­er through­out the pub­lic sec­tor and tak­ing con­trol of the mes­sage from day one, explain­ing to the broad cross sec­tion of the peo­ple in the rur­al areas just how the plans being put in place will improve their lives in the long run.
  Even then the posi­tion of the new Administration would be ten­u­ous, Jamaicans are addict­ed to the sweet noth­ing­ness of the cot­ton-can­dy pol­i­tics of the present Administration from Independence.
  Weaning them off the dis­as­trous effects of those poli­cies onto the long term pos­i­tive effects of veg­gies and juice will be a chal­lenge Jamaicans are inca­pable of assimilating.
  But it’s worth a try. 

After more than five decades of frozen rela­tion­ship between the United States and the People’s Republic of Cuba the Cuban Flag went up at the State Department in Washington DC Monday.
This is a major step for­ward and a endur­ing lega­cy accom­plish­ment for Barack Obama who at this moment seem intent on run­ning up the score on his accomplishments.
Obama promised to be a trans­for­ma­tion­al President and he is being just that whether one agrees with his poli­cies or not.
Passing Universal Health Care. Having Marriage Equality become the Law of the land. Beginning the nor­mal­iz­ing rela­tions with Cuba. Completing the recent deal with Iran. Being the first President ever to vis­it a Prison, the list of out­side the box accom­plish­ments is long.
Obama’s lists of firsts con­tin­ue to pile up despite endur­ing the most obstruc­tion­ist Congress any pre­vi­ous American President had to deal with.
Agree or not Obama who seemed timid , ten­ta­tive and uncer­tain of his pow­ers at times is now dis­play­ing a new sense of assertive­ness in this the fourth quar­ter of his Presidency.

Obama argued that the 54-year-old American Policy is regres­sive and that a change is war­rant­ed. The change in pol­i­cy will mean that both Nations will have Embassies in each oth­er’s Capital . However the Embargo can only be lift­ed by Congress.
By Law there are stip­u­la­tions which makes removal of the Embargo con­tin­gent on Cuba com­pen­sat­ing American indi­vid­u­als and com­pa­nies to the tune of bil­lions of dol­lars for prop­er­ty the Cuban Government con­fis­cat­ed after the Revolution.

If the intran­si­gent Republican Congress’ pre­vi­ous behav­ior is any­thing to go by the Embargo will be in place long after President Obama has left office. Many Cuban Americans par­tic­u­lar­ly in Miami Florida who large­ly vote Republican sees this is a bad deci­sion by the President.

The Cuban-American Community mono­lith­ic posi­tion may be encap­su­lat­ed in the views of Congresswoman Ilena Ros Lehtinen, Senators Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, and a host of oth­er Cuban-American elect­ed offi­cials who believe if the strat­e­gy does not work you sim­ply admin­is­ter more of the same and expect some­thing different.
That is the def­i­n­i­tion of stu­pid . The President thank­ful­ly rec­og­nizes that stu­pid­i­ty is not a strat­e­gy which will bring peo­ple around to his way of think­ing . The strat­e­gy of Republicans to show force to all around the Globe with whom they dis­agree has yield­ed America a bunch of headaches and much ene­mies. Unfortunately they are blind­ed by American’s Military strength believ­ing that that is a panacea to all of America’s problems.
President Obama may not be able to see a full nor­mal­iz­ing of rela­tions with Cuba dur­ing his Presidency but he must be com­mend­ed for hav­ing the wis­dom and com­mon sense to under­stand that if some­thing does not work for fifty four years , it prob­a­bly will not work ever.

♦Sen. Ted Cruz (R‑Texas), a prospec­tive 2016 GOP pres­i­den­tial can­di­date, argued that Cuba will retain long stand­ing ties with “hos­tile nations, notably Russia, Iran, North Korea and Venezuela.“They will con­tin­ue their sup­port for ter­ror­ist orga­ni­za­tions from FARC to Hezbollah and Hamas,”.
♦Former Florida gov­er­nor and prospec­tive pres­i­den­tial can­di­date Jeb Bush: react­ed to news of President Obama’s plans to soft­en the U.S. stance on Cuba on Wednesday after­noon, call­ing it a “dra­mat­ic over­reach” of pres­i­den­tial authority.

♦Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham (R‑S.C.) Blast­ed the Obama admin­is­tra­tion over the announce­ment, call­ing it a “bad idea at a bad time.” He also promised to do “all in my pow­er” to block fund­ing for the reopen­ing of a U.S. embassy in Cuba.
♦Rep. Matt Salmon (R‑Ariz.) said the pol­i­cy announced by the Obama admin­is­tra­tion Wednesday “sends a mes­sage to every rogue gov­ern­ment and ter­ror­ist orga­ni­za­tion that this admin­is­tra­tion is will­ing to nego­ti­ate with them, even if it under­cuts U.S. inter­ests and values.”

Just a few of the com­ments com­ing from Republican offi­cials on the Administration’s pol­i­cy shift toward Cuba. The sin­gle thread which binds the com­ments may be char­ac­ter­ized as the stu­pid thread. Confrontational, machis­mo poli­cies which have not worked are what Republicans are advo­cat­ing even as more threats emerge in the world and at a time when America should be seek­ing allies not cre­at­ing enemies.
For years Cubans defect­ing to America has had spe­cial priv­i­leges in a pol­i­cy dubbed wet-foot/dry-foot which allows Cuban defec­tors to stay in the United States and nor­mal­ize their sta­tus to full cit­i­zen­ship while Haitians and oth­ers are uncer­e­mo­ni­ous­ly sent back home nev­er elicit­ed any objec­tions from the sin­gle-mind­ed Cuban com­mu­ni­ty in the Country.
Now that the pol­i­cy has shift­ed which is a decid­ed step in the right direc­tion every­one is up in arms.
The rhetoric of Cubans like Cruz, Rubio and oth­ers have had an amaz­ing­ly self­ish slant. They sim­ply kicked the lad­der away as soon as they climbed to the top.

Neither Cruz, Rubio,Lehtinen or any of the oth­ers care about Cubans liv­ing in Cuba. In fact they do not care about the like of  American con­trac­tor Alan Gross, who was returned to his fam­i­ly after been incar­cer­at­ed in Cuba for five years, as a pre­cur­sor to the pol­i­cy shift.
What they care about are their own grand ambi­tions after them­selves hav­ing ben­e­fit­ed from the American experiment.
This is a good day for both Countries, President Obama should be com­mend­ed for his vision. Cuban-Americans can either embrace change or head back home if they do not like the new pol­i­cy. They are in America and that’s all that mat­ters to them.
A myopic,selfish, and vision-less bunch if you ask me.

Killings con­tin­ue unabat­ed in Jamaica with the Parish of Saint James tak­ing over as the Murder Parish from St Catherine, St. Andrew and Clarendon which usu­al­ly jock­ey for that dubi­ous distinction.
Within a 24 hour-peri­od 6 peo­ple met their demise in the parish . The Mayor of Montego Bay Glendon Harris opined that even if a police offi­cer was placed in every yard it would prob­a­bly not make a difference..
That’s sur­ren­der­ing to Criminals.
Yet that state­ment is reveal­ing as well, for years this writer have said there are actu­al­ly no strate­gies in place geared at effec­tive­ly cur­tail­ing the flood of killings and oth­er seri­ous crimes.

The Minister of National Security Peter Bunting toured the Parish after the seri­ous blood-let­ting final­ly woke him from his slum­ber. Bunting promised res­i­dents of affect­ed com­mu­ni­ties that more Police Officers would be forth­com­ing to plug the Dyke.
Now I know you did not miss the dis­con­nect between the two offi­cials on the issue.
The Mayor said even if a police offi­cer was placed in every yard it prob­a­bly would not stop the bleed­ing. I agree with him. I agree because the very premise of a strat­e­gy which places an offi­cer in every yard would indeed be a strat­e­gy of sur­ren­der and weak­ness. I will how­ev­er come back to this point in the inter­est of clar​i​ty​.At the same time the Minister was promis­ing more offi­cers as one of the solu­tions to the prob­lem. Now some­where in all of this con­fu­sion is a deficit of com­mu­ni­ca­tion and under­stand­ing . Will more police help or wont it?

Additionally the Minister is sched­uled to head to Washington DC to meet with State Department Officials on the issue of the Lotto scam­ming his Ministry points to as a rea­son for the violence.
Can any­one say out of ideas?

I want­ed to come back to the non-strat­e­gy which the Mayor stat­ed prob­a­bly would not make a dif­fer­ence. That would be the strat­e­gy of plac­ing an offi­cer in every yard.
Yes I know he was speak­ing hypo­thet­i­cal­ly, but his com­ments reveals a deep­er sense of hope­less­ness which is cer­tain­ly not lost on the crim­i­nal underworld.
Additionally, the Minister’s Statements that he would be seek­ing US State Department help goes to the heart of my con­tin­ued argu­ments that the Administration has no strat­e­gy of it’s own to com­bat crime.
Subsequently Crime has gal­loped out of con­trol. The noise you hear from the Minister and the Mayor is one of exas­per­a­tion and fright.
The fecal mat­ter is begin­ning to hit the fan.

Many years ago as a young Constable sta­tioned at the Mobile Reserve they would send us to pro­vide pro­tec­tion to a woman and her fam­i­ly. The woman lived some­where in Eastern Kingston and was a PNP func­tionary. The woman was an ordi­nary per­son against whom death threats were alleged­ly made by polit­i­cal rivals. Apart from the fact that I absolute­ly resent­ed being her per­son­al body­guard on the occa­sions I was sent to guard her per­son and home. I resent­ed even more the regres­sive strat­e­gy of stand­ing or sit­ting at some­one’s home to pro­tect their life and prop­er­ty as against what ought to rea­son­ably be done ..
I felt like a sit­ting duck when I was there. I nev­er knew the nature of the threat the oth­er offi­cer and I faced while we were there . And I cer­tain­ly did not believe sit­ting around wait­ing to be attacked was a work­able strategy.
So what is a young Constable to do?
I told them if you have me down to go back there I will not go and you can do what you want to do.
My stance had noth­ing to do with the lady’s pol­i­tics. She was a very ami­able woman.
It had noth­ing to do with whether I believe she was enti­tled to police pro­tec­tion. As a tax­pay­ing cit­i­zen of Jamaica she absolute­ly was enti­tled to protection.
She was­n’t enti­tled to have me as a per­son­al body­guard, and on that basis I refused to be a sit­ting duck wait­ing to be attacked. It was­n’t the wom­an’s fault that the police hier­ar­chy saw that approach as a work­able strat­e­gy, young cops lives be damned. The issue was that the police hier­ar­chy saw that as a work­able strat­e­gy at the expense of police offi­cer’s lives.
I was not about to be a casu­al­ty in a war I did not start, want­ed no part of and cer­tain­ly did not understand.

Fighting crime has many sim­i­lar­i­ties with fight­ing a war. What is hap­pen­ing in Jamaica is a war. In 2010 the World saw up close what

Jamaica’s mer­ce­nar­ies looked like when it took the Nation’s Defense Force to top­ple a sin­gle drug kingpin.
This is no jok­ing matter.
Throughout History many Nations built walls and great for­ti­fi­ca­tions to pro­tect them­selves. Ironically ‚regard­less of the strength of those for­ti­fi­ca­tions smarter more deter­mined ene­mies need­ed only be patient to starve out res­i­dents of those for­ti­fied cities.
Historically speak­ing, the Armies which craft­ed great Empires were the Armies which pushed the bound­aries of Conventionalism.
Those his­tor­i­cal­ly great Armies were not con­tent to sit behind high walls wait­ing to be attacked, they sought out their ene­mies and destroyed them on their turf.
A sim­i­lar break with con­ven­tion­al wis­dom is ful­ly applic­a­ble to Jamaica’s crime prob­lem. Under the lead­er­ship of the Rt. Honorable Hugh Lawson Shearer crim­i­nals knew where they stood.
They stood on slip­pery slopes pre­cip­i­tous­ly doing their bal­anc­ing acts. Other Jamaicans like Dudley Thompson came and went they talked tough on crime but at the same time they were per­fect­ing the craft of polit­i­cal thug­gery. None had the cred­i­bil­i­ty of Shearer.
No, not Edward Seaga.
Tivoli Gardens. Seaga’s attempt at social engi­neer­ing became a love-child which blind­ed his eyes and took down a Prime Minister.

The con­tin­ued killings in Jamaica is not just a police issue it is a polit­i­cal issue. For decades Jamaicans have been allowed to treat the Nation’s laws with impuni­ty. So too have law enforce­ment offi­cers been treat­ed with­out prop­er regard. The Legislative process failed to pro­tect the pop­u­la­tion with appro­pri­ate laws. The Liberal Court System took advan­tage of the lax­i­ty, using it’s perch as a plat­form for it’s own agenda.
The Police fol­lowed suit, when the hier­ar­chy could muster the strength to pull it’s head from the rear-end of the Political class the remain­der of it’s time was spent per­se­cut­ing it’s subordinates.
Apathy and dis­re­spect drove good cops away in droves. The rest con­tin­ued on becom­ing a force mul­ti­pli­er, cre­at­ing more of it’s use­less self.
That mul­ti­pli­ca­tion of use­less­ness cre­at­ed mas­sive cor­rup­tion among all ranks. Which cre­at­ed INDECOM.
The new INDECOM fresh-faced and bushy-tail is hav­ing to face none of the dan­gers yet it receives all of the praise . For those famil­iar with Jamaicans. the ene­my of the police is auto­mat­i­cal­ly my friend.
INDECOM is exu­ber­ant and relent­less with it’s new found pow­er, as it posi­tions itself as defend­er of the defense­less it demands more and more pow­er to go after those killer cops[sic].

The Nation is delight­ed , what’s not to like?
Finally the likkle police bway dem anda mannaz.
Of course none of this miss­es the crim­i­nal under­world. Yet the know it all pompous lit­tle jack­ass­es from the Intellectual ghet­to prances around offer­ing opin­ions on stuff they know noth­ing about as they cow­er in fear behind lay­ers and lay­ers of grill fortifications.
How long before the for­ti­fi­ca­tions become a death trap ?
Time will tell.

On behalf of the United States Mission to Jamaica, I wish to extend our deep and sin­cere con­do­lences to the fam­i­ly and col­leagues of Constable Crystal Thomas, who lost her life in the line of duty on July 14^th. Constable Thomas’ brav­ery and quick action saved many lives and demon­strat­ed her ded­i­ca­tion to her coun­try and to pro­tect­ing her fel­low cit­i­zens. At twen­ty-four years old, she exem­pli­fied the code of the Jamaica Constabulary Force: Serve, Protect and Reassure. Everyday law enforce­ment offi­cers across Jamaica step into the line of duty. I com­mend these offi­cers and know they will con­tin­ue to car­ry their duties pro­fes­sion­al­ly and just­ly. Tragically, all too many offi­cers as well as every­day Jamaicans have lost their lives to this sense­less vio­lence. The United States Embassy stands with the peo­ple and Government of Jamaica against these law­less criminals.

That state­ment was released from the American Embassy in Kingston Jamaica to the fam­i­ly of con­sta­ble Crystal Thomas who was assas­si­nat­ed on July 14 for the sole rea­son that she was a police officer.
To the best of my Knowledge Jamaica’s mild­ly lit­er­ate Prime Minister has not issued a for­mal con­dem­na­tion of the assas­si­na­tion of con­sta­ble Thomas. Neither has her office made any state­ment con­demn­ing the crim­i­nal under­world and vow­ing sup­port for the forces of the rule of law.
Police Officers go out every day know­ing the dan­gers they face. They also go out under­stand­ing the risks they take in plac­ing their lives on the line for an ungrate­ful Nation full of crim­i­nals ‚crim­i­nal-sup­port­ers, crim­i­nal col­lab­o­ra­tors, and vil­lage lawyers.
The smart ones also under­stand that the Government and indeed the Opposition Party have deep roots in crime and sup­port for the Criminal under­world. They under­stand also that their Union is a tooth­less dog and their exec­u­tive lead­er­ship like neutered Mongrels in a colony of bitch­es ready to mate.

The vast major­i­ty of offi­cers are from the work­ing-class blue col­lar rur­al parts of Jamaica. The sac­ri­fice many who don the uni­form make is one of eco­nom­ics. Yet most make the fate­ful deci­sion to serve because of the good old fash­ioned chris­t­ian val­ues of good over evil taught them by their chris­t­ian folks. These val­ues are not nec­es­sar­i­ly to be found in the upper ech­e­lons of upper Saint Andrew where mas­sive man­sions dec­o­rate the moun­tain-side. Neither are those val­ues evi­dent in the Godless halls of Academia at the University of the West Indies.

It is impor­tant that those who look on from the out­side under­stand this dichoto­my, in order to under­stand the apa­thy of the Government at the killing of Police Officers.
Yes there were canned response from the clue­less Minister of National Security, the Leader of the Opposition and the Criminal enhance­ment agency INDECOM.
Boo hoo, cry me a riv­er for their absolute Bulls**t.
Where is the National anger and resolve to hunt down these gut­less pieces of excre­ment and deal jus­tice to them,?
Where is the clue­less leader of our country?
The fact is that our coun­try has been with­out a leader since the elec­tion of the PNP Administration which placed Portia Simpson Miller a total­ly unpre­pared , ill-equipped polit­i­cal hus­tler to hold the high­est elect­ed office in our country.

Jamaican Police face a sys­tem incon­gru­ent to the norm. At the head of the polit­i­cal food chain there is sys­temic sup­port and involve­ment in seri­ous crimes . Not just embez­zle­ment of pub­lic funds through the award­ing of pub­lic con­tracts as some seem to think but in actu­al­i­ty much more hands on hard core crimes includ­ing col­lab­o­ra­tion with Criminal Gangs whose mem­bers mur­der rape and com­mit extor­tion daily.
That cre­ates an envi­ron­ment which is anti­thet­i­cal to low­er crimes and secu­ri­ty for ordi­nary Jamaicans. There can­not be low­er crime when the peo­ple who make the laws are the peo­ple who are affil­i­at­ed with and ben­e­fit­ing from crime.
The International com­mu­ni­ty must be aware also that mur­der is a busi­ness in Jamaica. Funeral Homes are rumored to have paid killers on their pay­rolls as a busi­ness model.
There are a host of oth­er busi­ness­es which are owned and oper­at­ed by peo­ple with immense pow­er in our coun­try which ben­e­fit direct­ly from the mur­der may­hem which is occurring.
While we grieve the slaugh­ter of Constable Crystal Thomas it is impor­tant that we do not lose sight of the fact that 21-year-old Constable Curtis Lewis died from injuries he sus­tained when he was mowed down by a motor­cy­clist who decid­ed not to stop when sig­naled to do so.
This was no acci­dent the dri­ver of the motor­cy­cle made a con­scious deci­sion not to heed the law­ful order of con­sta­ble Lewis and his col­league, the end result is that Constable Lewis’ leg was sev­ered from his body and he lat­er died in hospital.

This is a murder .…
The motor­cy­cle was the weapon.
The offi­cer is dead..
Intent inferred when the dri­ver decid­ed to ride through the author­i­ty of the law killing this young police Officer.
This is a time for the Director of Public Prosecution to quit the hye­na grin­ning and charge this killer with cap­i­tal mur­der of this police officer.
That mur­der­er who drove through that law­ful order to stop did so because he under­stood there are no real laws with teeth to pun­ish him for doing so.
He under­stands that no one stand with Jamaica’s police officers.
The Police heirach reac­tionary as is it’s (Modus operan­di) , react­ed by now seiz­ing ille­gal­ly oper­at­ed motorcycles.
Why was­n’t this being done before?
The death of con­sta­bles Lewis and Thomas was aid­ed and enabled by the cor­rupt sys­tem which feeds on the illit­er­a­cy and trib­al nature of the people.
As the American Ambassador shares his Embassy and Nations sor­row at the death of our offi­cers he must be painful­ly aware that the state­ment, The United States Embassy stands with the peo­ple and Government of Jamaica against these law­less crim­i­nals is only par­tial­ly true.
The Jamaican Government and peo­ple do not stand against criminals.
The Jamaican Government is the criminal.

Don’t Judge me !!!
How many times have you heard that state­ment com­ing from some­one in a rather defen­sive yet deter­mined tone?
How many times have you said the very same thing to some­one else ?
What exact­ly are oth­ers say­ing to you when they say those words to you?
More impor­tant­ly what are you say­ing to oth­ers when you tell them “Do not judge me” !
Are you refer­ring to Biblical charge ?
Matthew 7:1 ‑2 :“Do not judge so that you will not be judged.2“For in the way you judge, you will be judged; and by your stan­dard of mea­sure, it will be mea­sured to you.…
Luke 6:41
“Why do you look at the speck of saw­dust in your broth­er’s eye and pay no atten­tion to the plank in your own eye?
John 8:7
When they kept on ques­tion­ing him, he straight­ened up and said to them, “Let any one of you who is with­out sin be the first to throw a stone at her.”
Romans 2:1
You, there­fore, have no excuse, you who pass judg­ment on some­one else, for at what­ev­er point you judge anoth­er, you are con­demn­ing your­self, because you who pass judg­ment do the same things.
What exact­ly does the Bible intend to con­vey when it speaks on the issue of Judging? Does it mean we should not be held to account for anything?
Does it mean any­thing goes , regard­less of what I’m doing it’s none of your busi­ness leave me alone?
Before we delve into the sub­ject let’s first exam­ine the def­i­n­i­tion of the term ” to judge”.
Merriam” : To form an opin­ion about (some­thing or some­one) after care­ful thought : to regard (some­one) as either good or bad.
When we break earth­ly laws States holds us account­able and yes we are judged. We com­ment on Prison breaks when they occur. We won­der how in the name of all that’s right two mur­der­ers could be allowed to escape from a max­i­mum secu­ri­ty prison? We see a woman who is alleged to have assist­ed in their escape and right away we form opin­ions about her inno­cence /​guilt. But are we wrong in doing so? After all every­one around the area had secu­ri­ty con­cerns while the two con­vict­ed mur­der­ers were run­ning around. Was it not their right to expect and demand account­abil­i­ty from those whose jobs it is to keep them in Jail?

When some­one speak on the issue of unwed moth­er­hood and the con­se­quences it has on the Black com­mu­ni­ty is that Judging, or is it grab­bing hold of an issue that needs arresting?
When some­one advances the argu­ment that those who speak on this issue are guilty of “judg­ing”, on what basis is judg­ing wrong? When we ignore data which shows these glar­ing truths, are oth­ers judg­ing or are we being Ostriches with our heads in the sand because it’s con­ve­nient to do so?
♦ Seventy one 71% of all kids born in the Black com­mu­ni­ty are born out of wedlock.
♦ Children raised in sin­gle par­ent house­holds are more like­ly to have prob­lems learning.
♦ Children raised in sin­gle par­ent house­holds are more like­ly to drop out of School.
♦ Children raised in sin­gle par­ent house­holds are more like­ly to have dis­ci­pline prob­lems in School.
♦ Children raised in sin­gle par­ent house­holds are more like­ly to end up in prison.
♦ Children raised in sin­gle par­ent house­holds are more like­ly to con­tin­ue the cycle of poverty.

My ques­tion to you then is this. When you say “don’t judge me”, are you speak­ing from Biblical perspective ?
Merriam says to judge is to form an opin­ion about some­thing or some­one after care­ful thought, hmm.
If you some­how man­age to allow delu­sion to rob you of objec­tiv­i­ty and com­mon sense to the degree you ignore researched Data. If you are able to sus­pend real­i­ty and buy into the con­vo­lut­ed the­o­ry that Data can­not be the guid­ing tem­plate which deter­mines how we mea­sure events. And if you some­how divorce your­self total­ly from cause and effect , you still do not get to tell me it’s not my busi­ness when I get to foot the Bill for the tru­an­cy cen­ters, the police offi­cers and more impor­tant­ly keep­ing your son incar­cer­at­ed for years.
Yes it’s my busi­ness and yes, I do get the right to hold you accountable.

Taking per­son­al respon­si­bil­i­ty has noth­ing to do with what the Bible ref­er­ences when it speaks on the issue of not judg­ing. Judging in the Biblical sense speaks to the sen­tence met­ed out not lov­ing­ly point­ing some­one to the right path
God is the ulti­mate Judge he wants us to leave all judge­ment, all vengeance to him. The Bible seeks to teach us for­give­ness . In our finite wis­dom we are extreme­ly prone to mak­ing bad judge­ment, mak­ing bad judge­ment is not as bad as our vengeance. Many inno­cent peo­ple have been killed and impris­oned on false accu­sa­tions and.
John 8 Vs 1.
So to pass judge­ment in this con­text would be to not only accuse but con­demn to be punished.
Which is com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent than hold­ing our­selves and each oth­er accountable.

The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adul­tery, and plac­ing her in the midst they said to him, “Teacher, this woman has been caught in the act of adul­tery. Now in the Law Moses com­mand­ed us to stone such women. So what do you say?”

Although the scribes and Pharisees were not wrong­ly accus­ing this adul­ter­ous woman, their pur­pose was not to jus­ti­fy the law, if so they would have also brought the man. He had bro­ken the law just as much she had. The law required that both be stoned to death, (Lev. 20:10). They were sim­ply using the woman as a trap, hop­ing to trick Jesus. The Romans did­n’t per­mit the Jews to car­ry out their own exe­cu­tions, so:
If He had ordered her stoned they would have report­ed Him to the Romans. If He had said she should not be stoned they would accuse Him of break­ing Moses’ law.
VERSE 7: “And as they con­tin­ued to ask him, he stood up and said to them, “Let him who is with­out sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.”
Jesus in every­thing want­ed to teach com­pas­sion to us at the same time he nev­er shunned away from the ques­tion of per­son­al responsibility.

VERSES 10 – 11: Jesus stood up and said to her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one con­demned you?” She said, “No one, Lord.” Jesus told her “nei­ther do I con­demn you; go, and from now on sin no more.”

This is an exam­ple of how Jesus for­gives all sin. He did not con­demned the adul­ter­ous woman to death; nor did he say that since He had come her adul­ter­ous deed was no longer a sin. Jesus held her account­able for what she did even though he did not con­demn her to damna­tion for her mistakes.

Time after time Jesus sent peo­ple on their way with the words “go thy way and sin no more lest a worse thing befall you” . Whether he had just healed some­one or as was the case of the adul­ter­ous woman the charge was the same.
“Go thy way and sin no more lest a worse thing come upon you”
Actions have Consequences.
How then do we behave reck­less­ly yet take offence when oth­ers point out those offences to us? Did the woman Jesus spared take offense when Jesus gave her that charge? There are no scrip­tur­al ref­er­ence of her doing so. I would haz­ard a guess that she went on her way thank­ful she was alive.

Data pro­vides us a guide, it gives us direc­tion. If we can­not mea­sure “it” we can­not fix “it”. If we can­not fix “it” we are doomed to the con­se­quences of “it”.
Yes you may be the best woman/​mother in the world but a child is expo­nen­tial­ly bet­ter off with a moth­er and father in the home. The same is true for men, you may be a ter­rif­ic father but you can­not be a moth­er to a child.

No fem­i­nist Hog-wash that you can come up with will negate those facts. No new age teach­ing can sup­plant the legit­i­ma­cy of what God cre­at­ed and made per­fect. I don’t care how darn smart you are, God cre­at­ed you, which makes him smarter than you, his ideas are Sovereign, so sit down and shut up.
Before you open your mouth let me remind you of this one fact.
I am talk­ing ide­al­ly about a good Father and a good Mother.
I don’t want to hear about how you had to res­cue your kid from his drug deal­ing dad­dy, so you are bet­ter for him. Truth be told you should have know he was drug deal­er before you laid down , should­n’t you?
Don’t tell me about your baby father who does not take care of his kids so you are bet­ter off with­out him. The same prin­ci­ple apply.
For the sur­vival of each specie most female ani­mals only mate with the dom­i­nant male, instinc­tive­ly she under­stands that she needs strong genes for her babies . The pride needs pro­tec­tion the dom­i­nant male alone guar­an­tees it.

If Lionesses mat­ed with the weak­est Lion giv­en enough time Foxes and Cayotes would be hunt­ing Lions as prey. Lions remain dom­i­nant because Lionesses do what they are sup­posed to, in order to con­tin­ue the strength and dom­i­nance of Lions she mates with the Alfa-male.
Are you women mat­ing with the best men?
Are the birds smarter than you?
Are you mat­ing with the first guy which comes along know­ing full well he will be absen­tee father?
When you make deci­sions that birds would not make please do not talk about peo­ple judg­ing you.
We pejo­ra­tive­ly refer to oth­ers as bird-brained, yet the birds insists on the best mate as an insur­ance to the con­tin­u­ance of their specie.
Can many of you women say the same ?
“Don’t judge me”

It’s a cliché which means you made bad choic­es but want none of the con­se­quences which comes with those choic­es. We all make mis­takes in life. None of us is per­fect , we all sin and come short of the Glory of God. Taking an atti­tude that your mis­take was a choice you are proud of con­demns you to repeat­ing them.
When you con­tin­ue on that path it becomes my busi­ness, because we all pay for your bad deci­sions , one way or anoth­er. That gives me the right to com­ment, it gives me the right to point out the error of your ways, it goes both ways.
No the next time some­one points out your mis­take do not say “don’t judge me” take respon­si­bil­i­ty and thank the person.
Stop pretending.

Why Police can’t trav­el pan pub­lic trans­port like ebery bady else? If she neva hav nu gun dem wouldn kill har.
There are no short­age of sopho­moric com­ments com­ing out of the killing of 24 year-old Police Constable Crystal Thomas who became the lat­est police offi­cer to die at the hands of Jamaican criminals.
Constable Thomas’ death comes just a day after anoth­er Police Officer 22-year-old Constable Curtis Lewis lost his life trag­i­cal­ly in the line of duty. From all accounts Constable Lewis was engaged in spot checks when a motor­cy­clists he sig­naled to stop dis­obeyed his order and end­ed up killing him, after rip­ping his leg off.
This motor­cy­clists did what he did because they are encour­aged not to obey the Police.
The Question is real­ly this , “will the Director of Public Prosecution have the guts and the balls to pros­e­cute this piece of human waste for murder?
The vil­lage Lawyers, trained and untrained can argue about intent all they want. When you dis­obey a law­ful order and the con­se­quence is the death of this offi­cer your intent must rea­son­ably be con­strued to be malicious.
Intent inferred.
This prob­a­bly won’t hap­pen, this is Jamaica a coun­try which has become a crim­i­nal par­adise. Touch a Criminal and you have a prob­lem. Kill a Cop no problem.

Constable Crystal Thomas had just left work at the Denham Town Police Station and board­ed a pub­lic pas­sen­ger bus that was pass­ing by the sta­tion when she stum­bled upon a rob­bery in progress and chal­lenged the men she would sac­ri­fice her life for her decision.
This Officer did not won­der whether she would be harassed by INDECOM. She did not won­der whether she would be killed in defense of others.
She did what she did because that’s what Police Officers do.
They do not have the ben­e­fit of hind­sight. They do not have the lux­u­ry of Monday-morn­ing quar­ter­back­ing. They take action and if they fail to get it right their sen­tence is death.

In Jamaica if they do get it right, the sen­tence is a lengthy witch-hunt which leaves them pen­ni­less. In the end the result is Prison for doing their jobs or in the event there is no wrong­do­ing proven their careers are over, tough luck you are on your own.
In the Jamaican Police Department the peo­ple who progress are those who do noth­ing , see noth­ing , hear nothing.
Today many of them are walk­ing around, dumb as a door-nail as a friend of mine char­ac­ter­ized them (baosy slaves), in their kha­ki out­fits with absolute­ly no knowl­edge of police work.
What they know is how to kiss-ass , cur­ry favor and be yard-boys to the coun­try’s filthy cor­rupt politicians.

As I pre­pare this Article there is new Information that two of Officer Thomas’ mur­der­ers are in cus­tody. I salute the quick work of those offi­cers who tracked them down. In a real Democracy these two would nev­er see the light of day again. In Jamaica if they ever see a court room the case will drag on and on until one of the lib­er­al crim­i­nal lov­ing tools on the court set them free.
This is what Jamaica has become .
A par­adise for Criminals. Under a Government of Criminals and morons.

“There is no real rise in crime just murders”. 
Those were the words of the half baked idiot who holds the National Security port­fo­lio. Peter Bunting sought to assure and assuage pub­lic dis­qui­et that there was real­ly no need for alarm regard­ing the 22% increase in mur­ders over the cor­re­spond­ing peri­od last year. In his brain-dead attempt to deflect atten­tion from the seri­ous, unre­strained loss of life ‚the Minister cites sta­tis­tics show­ing that Robberies and oth­er crimes are down.
In oth­er words ‚“see crime is not a prob­lem, less rapes, less rob­beries, less break-ins, so don’t wor­ry about the spike in murders”.
You can’t make that stuff up. I guess if you are dead noth­ing else mat­ters. What lunacy …

The prob­lem with our Country is that there are no short­age of wise-ass-know-it-all. Everyone has an opin­ion on every­thing, Social media is now abuzz with vary­ing com­ments about crime and what ought to be done.
They talk about what Police can and can­not do in a democ­ra­cy. Maybe they ought to wake up to the fact that Jamaica is real­ly no Democracy. The Country is a Kleptocracy , run by a bunch of thieves and crooks. They are account­able to no one. Even with abun­dant evi­dence the Courts which are stacked with their lack­eys sub­vert the process and allow them to walk free. Whether it’s mil­lions in the theft of light-bulbs or the Trafigura scan­dal, scan­dal after scan­dal they are above the laws, no one gets pros­e­cut­ed or held accountable
Is there any won­der crim­i­nals are run­ning the streets?
The answer is no , crim­i­nals are run­ning Gordon House, why not the streets

The Police are not total­ly blame­less, hav­ing served I have seen some of them in action, licky-licky, lit­tle yard boys run­ning behind their mas­ters like lit­tle Chihuahua dogs. Is there any won­der that the police was nev­er respect­ed or appreciated?
From the Chief Constable to the District Constable they have a his­to­ry of def­er­ence to politi­cians no mat­ter how cor­rupt they are.
Today the Agency mourn two of it’s own, the silence from Jamaica House is deafening.
The rea­son it’s deaf­en­ing is sim­ple, the occu­pant of Jamaica House has no clue that this is a big deal. The occu­pant of Jamaica House is total­ly clue­less about any­thing but the next oppor­tu­ni­ty to board a flight to the next for­eign event.
This is a clas­sic horse and pony show.

As of yes­ter­day July 13^th 629 mur­ders were report­ed to Police in Jamaica.

This num­ber rep­re­sents a 22% increase over the 515 mur­ders report­ed over the cor­re­spond­ing peri­od last year.
In real terms the aver­age Jamaican has a one in forty two thou­sand chance of being killed, not just on the streets but in their own homes.
Several fac­tors are adverse­ly impact­ing crime not the least of which are pover­ty and high unemployment.
Jamaica is heav­i­ly indebt­ed to for­eign lenders this places the Nation in a pre­car­i­ous posi­tion, ser­vic­ing those loans eats up a huge chunk of the Nation’s gross domes­tic product(GDP)

The Country is present­ly on a path stip­u­lat­ed by the International Monetary Fund , much the way Greece is. The Nation of 2.8 mil­lion peo­ple – has one of the worst debt bur­dens in the world, with a gross pub­lic debt of 123% of GDP. At first glance this looks bet­ter than Greece (166% of GDP) but the more impor­tant num­ber is the inter­est bur­den of the debt: for Jamaica it has aver­aged 13% of GDP over the last five years. This is twice the bur­den of Greece (6.7% of GDP), which is in turn the high­est in the euro zone. (It is worth keep­ing in mind that the bur­den of the debt can vary wide­ly depend­ing on inter­est rates, and on how much is bor­rowed from the coun­try’s cen­tral bank.Reports the Guardian​.com.

The Administration in Kingston is grap­pling with meet­ing IMF tar­gets while fend­ing off pub­lic sec­tor demands for high­er wages after hav­ing endured frozen wages for years to sat­is­fy IMF demands. Juxtapose frozen wages with bal­loon­ing infla­tion and con­di­tions are rife for mass civ­il unrest.
Hold that though however.….

There are oth­er fac­tors affect­ing the mur­der rate in Jamaica, not all of which are the fault of Government. For exam­ple the thou­sands of Jamaicans deport­ed back to the Island each year from the United States, Canada, England and oth­er coun­tries pos­es a seri­ous prob­lem for the Country’s poor­ly trained, poor­ly equipped , poor­ly paid, unmo­ti­vat­ed law enforce­ment offi­cials. This pos­es an exis­ten­tial threat to the Nation . One which should sound alarm bells to the Government that if solu­tions are not forth­com­ing it faces expul­sion with dev­as­tat­ing con­se­quences for the Nation. Well I did ask you to hold your thoughts on the pos­si­bil­i­ty of civ­il unrest as a result of the aus­tere mea­sures dic­tat­ed by the IMF , so I will address those pos­si­bil­i­ties here and now.
Jamaica is like no oth­er place on earth, as such the foun­da­tion of our pol­i­tics dic­tates win­ners and losers.

The Nation’s pol­i­tics is incred­i­bly trib­al . This means that gen­er­al­ly peo­ple aligned to the two major polit­i­cal par­ties sees noth­ing wrong with the poli­cies of their party.
Garrisonization has made it incred­i­bly dif­fi­cult to force the Government from pow­er through the bal­lot box of late. This process which is called (Gerrymandering) In the United States is a can­cer eat­ing away at the Democratic process. It lit­er­al­ly destroys the con­cept of one man one vote and cre­ates apa­thy in less polar­ized vot­ers.. Because the rul­ing PNP has con­trolled state pow­er for over 28 of the last 40 years it has con­sol­i­dat­ed pow­er using tax-pay­ers resources to cre­ate polit­i­cal­ly homo­ge­neous com­mu­ni­ties loy­al to the party.
Incredibly before Elections are held the rul­ing par­ty is already guar­an­teed a cer­tain amount of seats out the nation’s 63 seat Parliament. Many Jamaicans have reigned them­selves to their fate and con­cen­trates on mere­ly surviving.

Loop-holes in the Constitution allows the rul­ing Prime Minister the lat­i­tude to deter­mine when he/​she deter­mines elec­tions are held. Even though tech­ni­cal­ly they have to be held with­in a five year span. Both polit­i­cal par­ties have used this to their advan­tage . The most recent exam­ple being Local Government Elections which were due last month. The Government inex­plic­a­bly delayed the elec­tions for over a year using spu­ri­ous and insult­ing rea­sons for doing so because some polls report­ed­ly have them down significantly.

The Country once a thriv­ing exam­ple of sports , edu­ca­tion , and cul­ture in the Caribbean is now strug­gling des­per­ate­ly to main­tain an out­ward façade of well­ness , while under­neath the putrid smell of decay is becom­ing overwhelming.
Jamaica now rates at the bot­tom of the devel­op­ment lad­der , rival­ing Haiti a peren­ni­al low­er-rung performer.
All of this is impor­tant con­tex­tu­al­ly in under­stand­ing why there are no civ­il unrest in Towns and Cities across the Island. It is impor­tant to under­stand that allow­ing crime to go unchecked is part and par­cel of the Governing struc­ture of the PNP Administration in Kingston.
It is com­mon knowl­edge that when the PNP forms the Government there is a feel­ing on the streets that crim­i­nals have a free hand , any­thing goes. And most impor­tant­ly the Police is de-fanged
That pre­vail­ing mind­set cre­ates the per­fect brew which cul­mi­nates into the present sit­u­a­tion in the Country. There is sta­tis­ti­cal Data which proves that under PNP Administrations crime increas­es exponentially.
Wink, wink, nod, nod.…..
However that is not all the Government does , many of it’s mem­bers are active­ly engaged in seri­ous crim­i­nal con­duct. Just recent­ly one of it’s mem­bers inti­mat­ed he would be leav­ing the Party because his par­ty is corrupt.

This strat­e­gy of allow­ing crime to flour­ish emanat­ed under the Michael Manley Administration after he swept to pow­er in 1972, a mis­take the Island nev­er recov­ered from.
Today there are fun­da­men­tal efforts afoot at re-writ­ing Jamaica’s polit­i­cal History , re-align­ing our con­scious­ness with a san­i­tized ver­sion of what Michael Manley’s mis­guid­ed poli­cies meant and wrought on the beau­ti­ful Island every­one once want­ed a piece of. The idea though not writ­ten as far as this writer knows, was to do the bare min­i­mum as far as enforc­ing the Nation’s laws are con­cerned. This includ­ed starv­ing police of resources. Demoralizing the Police while empow­er­ing crim­i­nal ele­ments through the cre­ation, imple­men­ta­tion, and fos­ter­ing of what is now under­stood as the con­tem­po­rary Don Culture,.
During Manley’s failed attempt at social engi­neer­ing crim­i­nals walked into police sta­tions and freed mur­der­ers aligned to the PNP.

In oth­er cas­es cop-killers like Anthony Brown and George Flash were ush­ered out of the Country by the PNP Government after they mur­dered Police offi­cers. These two

promi­nent Cop-Killers though well know, were not the only two Cop-killers whom the PNP Administration shield­ed and pro­tect­ed from the local Police.
The strate­gies used by the Manley Régime of the Seventies were right out of the play­book of oth­er left-wing Goon-squads which parad­ed as legit­i­mate Governments in places like Nicaragua and oth­er parts of Latin and South America at the time.
This is not to sug­gest that the Labor Party, (JLP) is guilt­less in all this. Most peo­ple famil­iar with Jamaica’s tur­bu­lent pol­i­tics know quite well what hap­pened in 2010 under the lead­er­ship of Bruce Golding with the Christopher Coke saga.

So there will be no mass demon­stra­tions in the streets of Kingston, Montego Bay or oth­er met­ro­pol­i­tan cen­ters around the Island. Most of the peo­ple opposed to the cor­rup­tion and incom­pe­tence have long sought refuge in oth­er Countries. Others who could not afford to leave are not large enough in num­bers to force change through the bal­lot box. This means that for change to come to Jamaica there will have to be mon­u­men­tal change in the think­ing of PNP sup­port­ers. Enough to cre­ate a par­a­digm shift in expec­ta­tions of what Government’s respon­si­bil­i­ties are.
Unfortunately as life becomes more and more unbear­able under the yoke of aus­ter­i­ty and polit­i­cal cor­rup­tion, the peo­ple tight­en their belts to the point of suffocation.
They bow to the pres­sure, uncon­cerned that they have the pow­er to remove the thieves who lord over them instead of serv­ing them.
In the mean­time crime con­tin­ue to rise and the Police are the ones left hold­ing the bag.

As Jamaicans con­tin­ue to be slaugh­tered in unprece­dent­ed num­bers the Country’s National Security Minister fresh from over­seas took imme­di­ate action.
Unfortunately the actions Peter Bunting took was not hud­dling with heads of the Island’s Security Agencies to fig­ure out a way forward.
Bunting instead unleashed a ven­omous attack against the Opposition Party for dar­ing to crit­i­cize the Government on what is clear­ly it’s fail­ure in all areas includ­ing keep­ing the Jamaican peo­ple safe.
Bunting claimed that he has tried to keep National Security out of the polit­i­cal fray but he lament­ed that approach can only work when you have an enlight­ened Opposition,”
Ironically, even as Bunting made those spu­ri­ous claim he was engaged in address­ing Party Loyalists of the Eastern St Andrew con­fer­ence at the University of the West Indies in St Andrew, the “Intellectual ghet­to” (accord­ing to the late Wilmott Perkins) and a hot-bed of failed left wing ide­o­log­i­cal-pol­i­cy-thought long dis­card­ed by the rest of the world.

Score one for Peter Bunting and his abil­i­ty to keep his min­istry apolitical.

In a scathing attack one expects to see on the eve of elec­tions on a plat­form some­where in the three miles area, Bunting blast­ed the polit­i­cal oppo­si­tion’s con­cern, for the demise of over three Jamaicans per day at the hands of crim­i­nal. Bunting charged: “Some in the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) lead­er­ship have been behav­ing like a set of John Crows, like vul­tures, glee­ful­ly react­ing to every loss of life as an oppor­tu­ni­ty to gain polit­i­cal mileage.”

One would have thought that after that parochial out­burst the Minister would have sobered up and real­ized that even though he is act­ing as a piece of car­cass for the polit­i­cal Vultures , he ought to rep­re­sent the Ministry and the men and women who are answer­able to him in a more dig­ni­fied man­ner. This was not to be, not want­i­ng to be out­done by AJ Nicholson’s ine­bri­at­ed out­burst last week , Bunting dived even deeper.

“Like the cow­ards that they are, they wait until my back is turned, until I’m out of the coun­try, to launch their most recent attacks,” he said. “That man is Derrick Smith, the peren­ni­al oppo­si­tion spokesman on nation­al secu­ri­ty, I believe the longest-serv­ing oppo­si­tion spokesman on nation­al secu­ri­ty in the his­to­ry of Jamaica,” declared Bunting. “The way he speaks, you would think that if only he became min­is­ter of nation­al secu­ri­ty Jamaica’s crime prob­lem would be solved.” 

Buntings com­ments should have been enough to cause offense to rea­son­able Jamaicans regard­less of their polit­i­cal stripe.
If not for the Political snip­ing, but at the fact that the Minister hav­ing no answer to the crime sit­u­a­tion chose to attack his polit­i­cal rival with­out lay­ing out a sin­gle pol­i­cy solu­tion for the spi­ral­ing crime wave.
Instead the brain-dead igno­ra­mus­es in atten­dance broke into rau­cous applause.

At a time when the mild­ly aware Prime Minister and oth­ers with­ing the delu­sion­al People’s National Party Administration in Kingston are trum­pet­ing pass­ing IMF tests, Jamaicans are being slaugh­tered in groups of threes and fours while sur­vivors can­not afford to pur­chase basic food necessities.
Reasonable observers already knew Bunting was over his head as far as solu­tions are con­cerned on stop­ping the bleed­ing. However, Bunting’s infan­tile response to crit­i­cisms are a tell-tale sign this cor­rupt Administration is run­ning on fumes.

From the retard­ed insis­tence of the clue­less Prime Minister in not speak­ing to the Media , to AJ Nicholson’s ine­bri­at­ed response about a Jamaican National incar­cer­at­ed abroad , to Bunting’s mouth-full of cow-feces tirade, it is abun­dant­ly clear this Government needs to be retired to obscurity.
These respons­es are symp­to­matic of a tired, clue­less, bunch of low-lev­el trib­al­ists who have had respon­si­bil­i­ty thrust upon them they can­not handle.
When will the peo­ple real­ize this bunch of self-serv­ing mis­cre­ants are only there to fat­ten their own pockets?

Whether one is par­tic­u­lar­ly fond of Holness or Smith has no bear­ing on the seri­ous crime prob­lem fac­ing the nation.
Blowing smoke up peo­ple’s behinds is a not a solu­tion. Bunting can­not be that stu­pid he must know this horse and pony show will come to an end soon.
It is indeed a sad tes­ta­ment of the depths to which our Country has sunken, when these are the peo­ple tasked with it’s care.