As the tri­al of Dance-Hall per­former Adijia Palmer o/​c Vybez Kartel winds down, pret­ty much all the Nations 2.7 Million peo­ple liv­ing on the Island are anx­ious­ly await­ing the ver­dict. Jamaicans in the dias­po­ra are also tuned in to what appears to be the tri­al of the decade in Jamaica. I’m not quite sure why there’s so much atten­tion being paid to a bleached-skinned dance hall Dj , when the Kern Spencer tri­al is still yet to be concluded.

JUSTICE SYSTEM ON TRIAL !!!

Kartel has already beat­en one mur­der rap, main­ly because wit­ness­es refused to show to tes­ti­fy against him. Which brings us to the ques­tion of whether the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem is itself on tri­al. It is a self per­pet­u­at­ing phe­nom­e­non when wit­ness­es are afraid to tes­ti­fy against accused crim­i­nals. Criminals are embold­ened and nat­u­ral­ly becomes more brutish. Police and Prosecutors around the world rec­og­nize that depend­ing on eye-wit­ness­es accounts to pros­e­cute mur­der­ers, is a fool’s errand. The sole remain­ing count of mur­der against Kartel from all accounts should be a pret­ty easy case to pros­e­cute and prove. But things are not always clear-cut ‚or easy in Jamaica. Even though there has been no real chal­lenge to the text evi­dence by the defense, the despi­ca­ble unpro­fes­sion­al actions of mem­bers of the police depart­ment has seri­ous­ly jeop­ar­dized the case. A crit­i­cal police wit­ness had to agree to defense grilling that the cell-phone used by the defendant,which was a cru­cial exhib­it in the case was used while it ought to have been locked away.

With mur­ders at all time highs and climb­ing, the JCF has not shown that it has a clue how to bring the killers of almost 1,600 Jamaicans a year to jus­tice. Courts dock­ets are clogged and over­flow­ing with cas­es which will nev­er be pros­e­cut­ed. This means dan­ger­ous crim­i­nals will face no con­se­quence for their crimes. The Judges are lib­er­al beyond belief. On the rare occa­sion in which an accused is found guilty the pun­ish­ment met­ed out is usu­al­ly an affront and insult to the vic­tims involved in the crime.

There has been calls from cer­tain quar­ters, sug­gest­ing that to fix the sys­tem court dock­ets should be purged. Meaning that in cas­es where wit­ness­es are reluc­tant to tes­ti­fy , those cas­es should be purged , there­by reliev­ing the log-jam with­in the sys­tem. On the one hand, it does seem like a good idea. After all keep­ing them there serves no use­ful pur­pose if wit­ness­es will nev­er tes­ti­fy. However on the oth­er, it seem like giv­ing Amnesty and carte-blanch to mur­der­ers Rapists and oth­er Felons.The idea of start­ing afresh is only use­ful if all the Agencies respon­si­ble for the dis­pen­sa­tion of Justice are brought up to first world stan­dards. Otherwise throw­ing out old cas­es would be embark­ing on a very slip­pery slope.(MB)

Conspiracy the­o­ries abound. Unsubstantiated alle­ga­tions of being tar­get­ed. Allegations of impro­pri­ety. Bringing a for­mer Senior Superintendent of Police, Carl Major, a peren­ni­al Prosecution wit­ness, to tes­ti­fy on their behalf. A mur­der case that has dragged on and on with seem­ing­ly no end in sight. If you ask me, the Defense in the Vybz Kartel case seems to hold all the cards. Yet the salient points of the case, i.e., the unequiv­o­cal voic­es on tape dis­cussing killing Lizard Williams, have not been seri­ous­ly chal­lenged in my esti­ma­tion. This leads me to con­clude that these are all dis­trac­tions by the defense. Let’s throw some s*** against the wall and see what sticks. This may very well work. In fact, the defense has cre­at­ed so many side-shows that it may be seen as rea­son­able doubt to a sym­pa­thet­ic, fear­ful, or cor­rupt­ed jury.

Add a lib­er­al defense-friend­ly judge (Lennox Campbell) to the mix; con­di­tions are ripe for this defen­dant to walk. So, how can I make such claims in a jury tri­al? You may even sug­gest that it’s not up to the Judge to decide inno­cence or guilt in a jury tri­al. You would be wrong. An accused is pre­sumed inno­cent or guilty based upon a pre­pon­der­ance of the evi­dence pre­sent­ed to a tri­er of facts. (Judge or Jury) . The defense has a duty to prove guilt beyond a rea­son­able doubt. The defen­dant has no such bur­den. In fact, the defen­dant may remain silent and say nary a word; the Prosecution must prove its case. However, the pre­sid­ing judge must main­tain tight con­trol of pro­ceed­ings, par­tic­u­lar­ly with the types of evidence/​exhibits he/​she allows in the tri­al. This must fol­low strict adher­ence to exist­ing laws and prece­dents. Allowing all kinds of dis­trac­tions into a case may cre­ate a sideshow. A sideshow usu­al­ly gives the appear­ance of rea­son­able doubt, result­ing in an acquit­tal for a guilty defen­dant. On that score, the pop­py-show Jamaican Criminal Justice System is liv­ing up to its own precedent.

MB

Old Jamaican Proverb (Tek time search an yu wi find ants gut). (Translation)Allow peo­ple to talk and they will basi­cal­ly give you a win­dow into their soul, they will tell who they are. I was taught that lit­tle nugget by my great Aunt who raised me. May God rest her soul in peace. I took that proverb to heart and used it as a guid­ing prin­ci­ple in inves­ti­ga­tions. I found it a valu­able tool in inter­views. Simply allow­ing some­one to relate a sto­ry to you un-inter­rupt­ed . Once, he/​she is fin­ished, ask them to relate the same sto­ry again. You will be sur­prised to see the dif­fer­ence between the two ver­sions of the sto­ry which was just relat­ed to you. This was a valu­able tool for me as a young Detective, it helped me sig­nif­i­cant­ly in deter­min­ing whether a sus­pect was involved in a par­tic­u­lar crime, and if so to what extent.

Today I am no longer in law-enforce­ment ‚hav­ing walked away at the ripe old age of 31. Yet I find that being able to assim­i­late what peo­ple put on social media tells a great deal about who they are. I can’t say I am sur­prised at the fact that Jamaican peo­ple are so sup­port­ive of oth­ers who are accused or even con­vict­ed of the most heinous and depraved crimes, because I’m not. I have had the oppor­tu­ni­ty to see the worst of the Jamaican peo­ple, yes I have also been blessed to see the very best of them as well. I have been to count­less mur­der scenes, I’ve seen the bul­let wounds, I’ve seen the machete wounds , I’ve seen the stab wounds. And when your job dic­tates that you watch corpses being cut open, the bar­barism of these end­less mur­ders changes you forever.

Yet despite the Thousands of our fel­low-men and women who are slaugh­tered for no appar­ent good rea­son, Jamaicans still have not devel­oped an aver­sion to the car­nage. What will it take to sen­si­tize them to the sanc­ti­ty of life ? How dare any­one take the only life of anoth­er? Who is not angered by that, and why? Are we an emo­tion­less soul­less sub-human peo­ple devoid of feel­ing , devoid of emo­tions, that we treat the killing of our neigh­bors, our broth­ers and sis­ters as par for the course? How can a peo­ple be so unmoved by such car­nage yet con­verse­ly find it with­in them to ratio­nal­ize and make sup­pli­ca­tion for the aggres­sors? It is sick­en­ing, it makes me sick to my stom­ach to read their com­ments, hear them speak about the accused mur­der­ers as vic­tims being set upon by an evil sys­tem, with nev­er a word for the inno­cent vic­tims, most of whom nev­er stood a chance.

Then I stop think­ing and it dawns on me, there are killers and those who sup­port them. Then there are the rest of us. “It’s a dog eat dog world now ” my friend told me today.….…. it’s true, It’s a Serengeti. The Lionesses and the Tigers and oth­er beast of prey feast at will on the hap­less Wilder-beast, the Zebras and the Gazelles. Maybe it’s divine­ly ordained that the inno­cent and the help­less become prey for the strong and pow­er­ful . Maybe law-abid­ing Jamaicans have resigned them­selves to being slaugh­tered and devoured like prey on the Serengeti. There is only one dis­tinc­tion how­ev­er, Predators on the Serengeti kill in order that they may eat. Killers in Jamaica kill for sport. At this rate it won’t be long before the inno­cent becomes extinct.

Having done real time in Law-enforce­ment and hav­ing done research in crim­i­nol­o­gy over the years, I have con­clud­ed long ago crim­i­nals are com­mon cow­ards. They are preda­tors who prey on those they believe weak­er than them­selves. Research data shows most crimes are crimes of oppor­tu­ni­ty. People do things because oppor­tu­ni­ty presents itself. (1 A woman who leaves her pock­et-book on the seat of her car in plain sight, presents an oppor­tu­ni­ty to some­one. Not just to steal her pock­et-book , but to cause sig­nif­i­cant dam­age to her car.( 2 Premeditated crimes. Crimes which are planned . Crimes orches­trat­ed by preda­tors who plot ways to destroy their prey . (3 Crimes of pas­sion , gen­er­al­ly cow­ard­ly acts per­pet­u­at­ed by so-called loved ones. In all these cat­e­gories there is a uni­ver­sal thread of cowardice.

• One Jamaican News Paper cov­er­ing the mur­der tri­al of Vybez Kartel naïve­ly post­ed the head­line .Kartel close to tears. Tears and entreaties , ha , as a for­mer Detective I have seen much of this. After leav­ing law enforce­ment I have seen this kind of behav­ior play out in court-room after court-room across America. When it comes time to pay the piper accused break down in tears. As I have stat­ed time and again, the great­est deter­rent to crime is the assur­ance that crim­i­nals will be brought to jus­tice. In Jamaica that sen­ti­ment is par­tic­u­lar­ly impor­tant, because of the high mur­der rate. Experts, prog­nos­ti­ca­tors and pun­dits all opine about what needs to be done to arrest the bur­geon­ing mur­der rate. I have stat­ed repeat­ed­ly, make sure they are brought to jus­tice. Justice means a time­ly and fair tri­al, if found guilty the penal­ty must be severe. This dis­play by this accused Kartel, is proof pos­i­tive what most front line cops knew, they are not brave, they are not bad, the real bad-man is the rule of law.

In a plea for his free­dom, Vybz Kartel told the 11-mem­ber jury in the High Court yes­ter­day that his skin bleach­ing and tat­toos were tools of his trade and asked not to be judged by his appear­ance. In one of five unsworn state­ments from the dock by the accused men, Vybz Kartel asked Justice Lennox Campbell and the jurors to sep­a­rate Vybz Kartel from Adidja Palmer.“My Lord, I bleach my skin and I am heav­i­ly tat­tooed also . My Lord, that is mere­ly super­fi­cial, that is the per­sona of Vybz Kartel, not Adidja Palmer. My Lord, I think you will agree…,” he said. “Who me?” asked Justice Campbell. “Yes, My Lord, some­times a per­son can be judged by appear­ance. My Lord, I am not an alien who came from space and land­ed on Earth.

Drum Roll, please .….….…And the Oscar goes to Vybz Kartel. What a load of crock. Many have argued that Adidja Palmer is a smart, tal­ent­ed man. I will with­hold per­son­al judg­ment on either. This is Kartel at his vin­tage best. The lib­er­al Judge Lennox Campbell is being mes­mer­ized by a true Artiste. This Courtroom is Kartel’s stage. The tri­al Judge, Jury, and oth­ers in that room were a mere audi­ence to his mas­tery. He was await­ing this moment. The moment to woo his audi­ence and mes­mer­ize his sub­jects is what Kartel does on stage — the allu­sion to his tat­toos, his skin bleach­ing, and his becom­ing a vic­tim. The whole talk about being placed on the floor by the police is clear­ly a bril­liant attempt to evoke any neg­a­tive emo­tions jury mem­bers may have of the Police. Mentioning the actions of a less-than-pop­u­lar Minister of National Security Minister. All aimed at evok­ing an emo­tion­al response from the Jury.

A bril­liant strat­e­gy, he and his Attorneys may think. Yet, it is a strat­e­gy that shows he has no defense against the charges. This is smoke and mir­rors, the­atrics, innu­en­dos, and unsub­stan­ti­at­ed alle­ga­tions of impro­pri­ety. In a Courtroom where jus­tice is sacro­sanct, this dis­play of the­atrics can be seen for what it is. Yes, Adidja Palmer and Vybz Kartel would be allowed to say his piece, but at the end of his the­atrics, there would be one ver­dict: “Guilty.“Unfortunately, the few Jamaicans who want jus­tice done must still be ner­vous and appre­hen­sive. Despite the over­whelm­ing evi­dence against the accused, the sys­tem is so bro­ken that one should not be sur­prised if they walked. At best, even if con­vict­ed, they will prob­a­bly end up with a slap on the wrist from this par­tic­u­lar Liberal Activist act­ing as pre­sid­ing Judge.
Worse yet, I believe his deci­sion not to throw out the jury once told that there has been tam­per­ing will come back to bite both Lennox Campbell and the Prosecution.

People crit­i­cize the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF) dai­ly. Well-inten­tioned Jamaicans, as well as yours tru­ly crit­i­cize those who crit­i­cize the agency when we feel their remarks are unfound­ed, unin­formed, or mali­cious. Yet I would be hyp­o­crit­i­cal if I did not acknowl­edge the glar­ing prob­lems which con­tin­ue to define the JCF. This, even as the Agency claims it is re-invent­ing itself. It appears even the sim­plest task, is a task too great for the Agency. Let alone the expec­ta­tion that it oper­ate as a pro­fes­sion­al and pro­duc­tive entity.
The com­mon mis­con­cep­tion being pro­mul­gat­ed is that if we can fix the JCF crime will be a thing of the past. Those of us who fought in the trench­es know bet­ter. Yet the JCF con­tin­ue to add fuel to that fire of mis-infor­ma­tion and naïveté, because of its absolute incom­pe­tence. The Murder tri­al of Adijia Palmer o/​c Vybes Kartel is front and cen­ter in the news, yet it seem the Police are hell-bent on destroy­ing what ought to be an open and shut case against the accused.

Kartel

Deputy Superintendent of Police Vernal Thompson shocked the court dur­ing the Vybz Kartel mur­der tri­al yes­ter­day when he declared that he was not sur­prised at cer­tain things that took place in the inves­ti­ga­tion of the mat­ter because crim­i­nals were with­in the police force.Thompson made the admis­sion, which solicit­ed audi­ble reac­tion from the jurors and oth­ers in the court, while he was being cross-exam­ined by defence attor­ney Pierre Rogers in the close­ly watched tri­al in the Home Circuit Court.http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/news/Senior-cop-shocks-court-with-admission-about-JCF-at-Vybz-Kartel-trial.

This accused has already beat­en one mur­der rap. God knows how many peo­ple he may have ordered killed, or may have killed him­self. This is prob­a­bly the best chance the State has of putting this guy away . Despite that the Police depart­ment appears to be doing it’s lev­el best, to live up to its rep­u­ta­tion as a cor­rupt irre­deemable agency which time is past. One of the first thing a detec­tive learns is nev­er to vol­un­teer infor­ma­tion. Neither under exam­i­na­tion nor cross-exam­i­na­tion. It is imper­a­tive not to seek to clar­i­fy any­thing, it is the job of the Prosecutor to do so. If pos­si­ble answer in (mono-syl­la­bles) “Yes, No”. As a detec­tive I saw this many times. Police wit­ness­es depart from these sim­ple rules, jeop­ar­diz­ing crim­i­nal cas­es in the process. Generally these are cops who play sec­ondary or periph­er­al roles who want to talk the most. As an inves­ti­gat­ing offi­cer it requires steely resolve to some­time resus­ci­tate your case. The JCF is sup­posed to be staffed with more edu­cat­ed , intel­li­gent offi­cers. My ques­tion to them is what exact­ly are you edu­cat­ed in? It seem despite the crit­i­cisms and howls of con­dem­na­tions, the JCF is deter­mined to self destruct.

Cop walks up to Cab-dri­ver informs him that there is a sum­mons at the sta­tion for him, the offi­cer then walks to the Station retrieved the Summons, returned to the Taxi-stand and served the Summons on the Cab-dri­ver in the pres­ence of his col­league and of course an ever vis­i­ble pha­lanx of so-called wit­ness­es . Driver takes the Summons and then threw it from the car. Officers told him he was under arrest upon which he attempt­ed to dri­ve away . The Police made sure he did not dri­ve away ‚he ran from the car, offi­cers chased and caught him.They used pep­per-spray and baton to sub­due and arrest him. Seem text-book arrest to me.….…

Cabbie alleged­ly beat­en, pep­per-sprayed by police.

Not so fast ‚this hap­pened in the town of Mandeville in what is fast becom­ing a hell-hole ungovern­able place called Jamaica ? There were protests from the col­leagues of the cab-dri­ver . Of course every­one had a dif­fer­ent account of the inci­dent. They claim an arrest was not nec­es­sary as their col­league did noth­ing wrong. I will leave that for you to decide.

So lets look at the facts as they were report­ed .1) Officer told dri­ver there was a sum­mons at the Station for him , did not attempt to arrest him. 2) The Officer went to the sta­tion leav­ing his col­lege on the scene, retrieved the sum­mons, returned and served it on the accused. Accused prompt­ly threw the Summons from his car. 3) The offi­cer then cor­rect­ly tells him he is under arrest. He refused to sub­mit to being arrest­ed and attempts to dri­ve away. 4) Officers blocked the path of the car upon which he fled on foot. 5) Officers gave chase and appre­hend­ed him, using pep­per-spray and baton to com­plete the arrest. 

I will now leave it to you the experts who com­plain about Jamaican Police to tell me what the Police did wrong. Clearly Jamaica is a coun­try des­tined to becom­ing a failed state. I would implore any­one vis­it­ing my coun­try to review their options. This coun­try has made the deci­sion to be an ungoverned , ungovern­able Serengeti of mur­der, rape and mayhem.

“There is gonna be, I sup­pose, a grey area in some instances that a per­son is act­ing pure­ly as a civil­ian who hap­pens to be a mem­ber of the force or is act­ing as a mem­ber of the force who is not on duty. I don’t think we could eas­i­ly attempt to address that through a def­i­n­i­tion,” Golding said. Said Bunting, “We may need to leave it to the dis­cre­tion of INDECOM. If it is clear that a man is on vaca­tion and gets into a fight with some­body else…I would not expect that INDECOM would get into that sit­u­a­tion but if the man is not ros­tered for work and while on the streets sees a sus­pi­cious act and then inter­venes and may have to use his ser­vice pis­tol in that case he is clear­ly act­ing as a constable”.“Yes, I would be hap­py to leave it to INDECOM’s dis­cre­tion. We have agreed on that,” Golding replied.http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/news/INDECOM-to-also-investigate-incidents-involving-off-duty-police_15917346 Mark Golding and Peter Bunting Of course those are not my words! Those are the words of these two Jack-ass­es, no dis­re­spect to Jack-ass. Jamaica is over-run with crime, one of the ways police have been able to appre­hend crim­i­nals is by being incon­spic­u­ous. Not nec­es­sar­i­ly under cov­er , just not in that bright red and black mon­key-suit they are forced to wear. Many offi­cers have nabbed crim­i­nals trav­el­ling in bus­es or just being in the right place at the right time. Numerous amounts of guns have been removed from the streets. Just last week the Jamaica Observer high­light­ed one such instance where an offi­cer dis­armed a man tot­ing a gun at a wake in St. Thomas http://​www​.jamaicaob​serv​er​.com/​n​e​w​s​/​A​l​e​r​t​-​p​o​l​i​c​e​m​a​n​-​d​i​s​a​r​m​s​-​g​u​n​m​a​n​-​w​i​t​h​-​b​a​r​e​-​h​a​nds. Every sin­gle law enforce­ment offi­cer who ever served in the JCF have a sto­ry to tell of actions they took while off duty. So lets see what is at issue here. Before we do that how­ev­er lets estab­lish what the Jamaica Constabulary Force Act says as it relates to cops being off duty. A con­sta­ble is nev­er off duty. In fact the Act is clear, if a crime is com­mit­ted in the pres­ence of a cop whether on or off duty and he/​she does not act he or she will be dis­ci­plined. Now INDECOM wants the INDECOM Act clar­i­fied, so they may go after cops who act in good faith while sup­pos­ed­ly off duty. If you take into account the fact that under PJ Patterson not a sin­gle Detective was trained for 10 years and jux­ta­pose that with the crime rate in Jamaica present day, it is clear that this Government of Portia Simpson Miller and her acolytes have deter­mined they want to com­plete­ly erad­i­cate law enforce­ment in Jamaica. The hairy-faced pri­mate Mark Golding, who occu­pies the Justice Ministry, is a known Anti ‑Police antag­o­nist, but Peter Bunting must know bet­ter.  Terrence Williams (indecom)commissioner. It is incom­pre­hen­si­ble that two men who are sup­posed to act with wis­dom could say what they are on record say­ing.»> Instead of hash­ing out the minu­tia of the law ‚with an under­stand­ing of the risks offi­cers face , the lev­els of brav­ery which goes into the actions offi­cer take, they chose to sim­ply leave the grey area up to the whims and wish­es of Terrence Williams. Where is the Police Federation on this ? Where is the Gazetted Rank ? Are they going to sit idly by as total lap-dogs while the men and women under their com­mand take the risks and gets sent to prison for act­ing in good faith?

It was just last year that Jamaica’s inept National Security Minister said quote :” That Agency has too much pow­er”. Bunting was relat­ing to the broad pow­ers giv­en the neo­phyte Agency (INDECOM) and it’s Napoleonic Commissioner Terrence Williams. Days lat­er Bunting walked back his com­ments and signed onto every­thing (INDECOM) want­ed. I asked then, who was behind the cam­paign to destroy the police force ? I asked why was Bunting forced to toe the line and by whom? Why is Bunting now walk­ing hand in hand with Mark Golding the anti ‑police Justice Minister in this cor­rupt Simpson Miller Administration? The Jamaican peo­ple know that Bunting is out of his league as a min­is­ter of nation­al secu­ri­ty. Yet I do not believe Bunting is seen as cor­rupt. On that basis we have to ask Minister Bunting to look at his role in this fias­co, this dis­man­tling of our coun­try can­not go unpun­ished. This lat­est action by the gov­ern­ment through its agents, sends a clear unequiv­o­cal mes­sage to crim­i­nals, cops will not come after you, if they do, we have peo­ple in place to make sure they go to prison. Surely there is an agen­da by the PNP to turn Jamaica into a one par­ty social­ist state. In fact they have opined that jamaica a pnp coun­try for years. Latest reports indi­cate they have brought recruit­ing into the schools. Democratic social­ism was sound­ly reject­ed as a prac­ti­cal pol­i­cy direc­tion for Jamaica in 1980. That did not change the ambi­tions of the Governing PNP they are using back-door means to turn Jamaica into a one par­ty state.They hope to do so while main­tain­ing appear­ances of a demo­c­ra­t­ic coun­try. Jamaicans need to open their eyes to the goings-on . 1)Calls for a rein­tro­duc­tion of Home ‑Guards.Under Michael Manley home guards were trained and put in place, the police force forced to den­i­grate into inef­fec­tive­ness. 2) Jamaica’s present cozy rela­tion­ship with Cuba. Under Manley Jamaican men were sent to Cuba to train. These une­d­u­cat­ed Jamaicans were trained as killers called (brigidis­tas)on their return to Jamaica they mor­phed into a ter­ror­ist group which changed the way Jamaicans looked at crime on the Island. 3) The build­ing of zones of polit­i­cal exclusion(garrisons) . This is the per­fect way to steal elec­tions. The PNP has used tax­pay­ers funds to build homes to house PNP vot­ers at the expense of the mid­dle-class. Jamaica’s mid­dle-class is now only 18% of the coun­try, with 78% clas­si­fied as poor . The Prime Minister’s and her par­ty the (PNP) records 105% of the votes in her con­stituen­cy out of a max­i­mum 100%[sic]. 4)The return to wide-spread un-checked crim­i­nal­i­ty and the demo­niz­ing of the secu­ri­ty forces, eeri­ly rem­i­nis­cent of the Manley years. The return of (JEEP) as a pork-bar­rel tax-pay­ers fund­ed give away to par­ty hacks, it’s the sec­ond com­ing of crash program,https://mikebeckles.com/mywpblog/?p=1860. What made the peo­ple think that the poli­cies of the 70’s which dec­i­mat­ed the coun­try , set­ting it back decades, would be bet­ter this time around? Manley and his acolytes did the very same thing this dunce is accused of doing, dec­i­mate the police, allow crime to rise, give peo­ple carte-blanche to do what they want. That strat­e­gy has wide appeal to Jamaicans who are large­ly an ungovern­able peo­ple. Even after Manley’s destruc­tive attempt at social engi­neer­ing the sta­bi­liz­ing hand of Edward Seaga ensured the Jamaican dol­lar was just 4 Jamaican dol­lars to 1 American dol­lars by the time he left office. Today the Jamaican dol­lar trades upward of J$107 to US$1. Where there is no vision the peo­ple perish.

The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights is active­ly engaged in mon­i­tor­ing instances of alleged abuse by Jamaica’s secu­ri­ty forces. In fact, their local affil­i­ate (JFJ) Jamaicans for Justice, reports direct­ly to the Commission in Washington DC. The Inter America Commission on Human Rights is not the only Agency with an active inter­est in alle­ga­tions of Human Rights in Jamaica.
The London-based Amnesty International has large foot­prints on the Island, as they do in oth­er impov­er­ished coun­tries. The coun­tries which attract the atten­tion of these two major watch-dog groups, are gen­er­al­ly poor­er nations which have high crime-rates and scarce resources.

American Democracy is a work in progress even though that coun­try has basi­cal­ly exist­ed for over four hun­dred years. Jamaica, on the oth­er hand, has only exist­ed as an inde­pen­dent nation for 50 years. Smaller coun­tries are far more vul­ner­a­ble to crime and ter­ror­ism, as such they will more like­ly have instances of offi­cial mis­con­duct and mis­takes. The rea­son for these pos­si­bil­i­ties is gen­er­al­ly asso­ci­at­ed with a lack of fund­ing over­sight and struc­tur­al support.

Large devel­oped nations like Canada, the US, and Britain have the resources and abil­i­ty to decrease if not end instances of abuse by their law-enforce­ment oper­a­tives. Yet they have not been able to do so. The state of California is the world’s 6^th largest econ­o­my.The state is home to over 4.000 law enforce­ment Agencies.http://www.post.ca.gov/le-agencies.aspx, pop­u­la­tion 39.5 mil­lion, that’s about one agency to every 9875.000 Californian.
With all the resources avail­able to these agen­cies across America, there are mas­sive amounts, and ever-increas­ing evi­dence of police abuse of cit­i­zens includ­ing killings. These abus­es gen­er­al­ly mean young men of col­or being victimized.

Yet in these instances of abuse, I have nev­er heard a word of con­dem­na­tion from nei­ther the Inter American Commission on Human Rights nor Amnesty International. Over the years cops in state after state in America, have engaged in the most egre­gious abuse of cit­i­zens imag­in­able. Yet there is nev­er a sin­gle com­ment from these groups. In many cas­es, the abuse is so egre­gious that it is lit­er­al­ly impos­si­ble to process that cops could be involved in those acts.

♦Justin Volpe, NYPD cop, and his crim­i­nal cronies sodom­ized Abner Louima with a plunger in a police sta­tion rest-room.

♦ Amadou Diallo killed like a dog, NYPD rene­gade cops fired 41 bul­lets at him,(one man), killing him, he was unarmed.

Unarmed Groom Killed By NYPD Bullets — CBS News

♦Sean Bell killed in Queens after leav­ing a par­ty at a night-club, it was his bach­e­lor’s par­ty arranged for him by his friends. Bell was mur­dered and two of his friends received mul­ti­ple gun­shot wounds. Bell and his friends were all unarmed. He was to be mar­ried the same day. They fired 50 bul­lets at Bell.http://abcnews.go.com/topics/news/sean-bell-shooting.htm

♦Cop ‘Stops And Frisks’ African American Teen, Literally Destroying His Genitals..Http://earhustle411.com/­cop-stops-frisks-African-American-teen-literally-destroying-genitals/­ With all the law enforce­ment Agencies the best train­ing and laws to pro­tect them, American cops killed almost 600 cit­i­zens in 2012.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_killings_by_law_enforcement_officers_in_the_United_States_2012

I have nev­er heard any Human Rights Agency ques­tion even one of these killings. It does not mat­ter how grue­some, it mat­ters not the nation­al out­cry. Yet they find them­selves deeply engaged in law enforce­ment encoun­ters in devel­op­ing coun­tries like Jamaica. The notion that the sys­tem is capa­ble of sort­ing through the evi­dence to arrive at the cor­rect facts is bogus. Tell that to the thou­sands of black and Latino fam­i­lies who have seen police kill their loved ones and walk free. In most cas­es not even with a depart­men­tal charge, much less a conviction.

If we are to do jus­tice to human rights, it can­not be selec­tive. We must ask why are the Human Rights Agencies silent on First world killings of peo­ple of col­or, yet are falling over them­selves to inves­ti­gate alle­ga­tions of abuse in the devel­op­ing world? Unless we hear and see a change in these Agencies regard­ing Human Rights Abuse in America, Canada, Britain, and oth­er devel­oped coun­tries, we will be forced to dis­miss them. In fact, it is dif­fi­cult to take them seri­ous­ly as cred­i­ble agents of change in light of their record. We must ques­tion their agen­da.

UPDATE

After George Floyd’s mur­der by a Minneapolis cop, the entire world awoke to the con­tin­ued sum­ma­ry lynch­ing of black men by American police.
Despite the world­wide out­cry nei­ther the Inter American Commission on Human Rights nor Amnesty International was heard from, nei­ther were they seen in the streets with (BLM) Black Lives Matter and oth­er activists.
There are no instances in the devel­oped world, or any­where with any degree of democ­ra­cy where an agency is allowed to inves­ti­gate, arrest, and pros­e­cute its own cases.

Promises made to Terrence Williams by the clear­ly incom­pe­tent and out of touch Delroy Chuck should be giv­en zero con­sid­er­a­tions.
There is ample evi­dence of what INDECOM is capa­ble of, giv­en an out of con­trol dem­a­gog­ic leader with his own agen­da.
The INDECOM Act has already caused the police to lay off going after the Island’s hun­dreds of mur­der­ous gangs.
As a con­se­quence, Jamaica is a much more dan­ger­ous place since INDECOM came into exis­tence almost a decade ago.
As I have said before if the issue about police mis­con­duct is a lack of time­ly pros­e­cu­tion the gov­ern­ment has an oblig­a­tion to expand the office of the Director of Public Prosecution and allow prop­er­ly inves­ti­gat­ed cas­es by INDECOM or whomev­er, to be brought in a time­ly man­ner.
Jamaica does not need an Agency ded­i­cat­ed to per­se­cut­ing police offi­cers for doing their jobs.
A word of warn­ing is enough for Andrew Holness and Peter Phillips, if you thing crime is crazy now, tin­ker with that law and give INDECOM more pow­ers than you stu­pid­ly already gave them.

Mike Beckles is a for­mer police Detective cor­po­ral, busi­ness­man, free­lance writer,
he is a black achiev­er hon­oree, and pub­lish­er of the blog chatt​-​a​-box​.com. 
He’s also a con­trib­u­tor to sev­er­al web­sites.
You may sub­scribe to his blogs free of charge, or sub­scribe to his Youtube chan­nel @chatt-a-box, for the lat­est pod­cast all free to you of course.

Two years ago I wrote a series of short blogs, they were in rela­tion­ship to events on the ground in Jamaica. Gang war­fare was the issue then. At the time Police Commissioner Owen Ellington called on his divi­sion­al com­man­ders to come up with strate­gies to erad­i­cate gang activ­i­ty from their indi­vid­ual divi­sions. I thought that was odd, for sev­er­al rea­sons, not least of which was that the com­mis­sion­er want­ed divi­sion­al heads to come up with their own strate­gies. It seemed to me at the time that a com­pre­hen­sive strat­e­gy should be devel­oped by the police high com­mand, fine tuned by the depart­ments lawyers and val­i­dat­ed by strong leg­isla­tive support.

Commissioner Owen Ellington

I argued then that the com­mis­sion­er’s approach would be noth­ing more than a patch­work of sim­ple raids which will even­tu­al­ly tar­get reg­u­lar peo­ple, while real crim­i­nals con­tin­ue with their crimes. I also argued that this com­mis­sion­er had no prac­ti­cal knowl­edge of crime reduc­tion, nei­ther did most of the top com­man­ders with­in the present JCF. As such I opined that crime would get worse. Since then I don’t believe any­one can hon­est­ly say I was wrong in my assess­ment, or that the Commissioner’s rhetoric has borne any fruit. Just yes­ter­day the Observer chron­i­cled ghast­ly alle­ga­tions of mass graves and rou­tine killings by gangs in the east­ern part of the coun­try alleged­ly involv­ing Police offi­cers aligned to the gangs. It would be naïve to believe that there is no truth to these alle­ga­tions, or that these graves would be con­fined to any one geo­graph­ic area of the Island. Over the years Jamaica has become a killing field, no one is safe any­where in Jamaica anymore.

How did we get here? The pol­i­tics of both polit­i­cal par­ties got us here. Two Political par­ties which are glo­ri­fied crim­i­nal gangs. One bet­ter at win­ning elec­tions, so it con­trol the turf. He who con­trols the purse strings con­trols the vot­ers, he who con­trols the vot­ers con­trols the purse strings. Why would either par­ty want a pro­fes­sion­al police depart­ment? Over the years the JCF has been pop­u­lat­ed with boot-lick­ers. Good com­pe­tent ded­i­cat­ed offi­cers exit­ed the stage leav­ing vast open­ings for crim­i­nals and polit­i­cal patrons to fill, and fill it they did. The Constabulary under­went a rad­i­cal trans­for­ma­tion dur­ing the régime of Percival Patterson, for a full decade the depart­ment was not giv­en the funds to train a sin­gle detec­tive. Patterson sim­ply did not care about crime as long as he was able to feath­er his fini­cal nest, and that of his cronies. The coun­try and police depart­ment is still reel­ing from the effects of the dev­as­ta­tion of the Patterson régime.

The Minister of National Security seem to want an end to the crime on one hand . His approach is that the coun­try needs divine inter­ven­tion. I agree with him yet I under­stand God will not come down and beg crim­i­nals to put their guns down. Criminals must be made to put the guns down, or the state must take the guns from their life­less hands. On the oth­er hand Minister Bunting says there is no indi­ca­tion crime is spi­ral­ing out of con­trol. What? .. Every year close to 1.600 Jamaicans are report­ed killed , that num­ber does not take into account the many oth­ers mur­dered and their bod­ies dumped. What is hap­pen­ing in Jamaica is shame­ful, it is fright­en­ing, it is das­tard­ly it reminds us of oth­er places where mil­lions are mas­sa­cred and no one held respon­si­ble. This Government must take respon­si­bil­i­ty for the thou­sands of Jamaicans who are mur­dered every year and no one is held accountable.

It is a mon­u­men­tal fraud to pre­tend Jamaica is this hos­pitable place as they trum­pet the fact that 2 mil­lion peo­ple vis­it­ed in a year. At the same time peo­ple are being killed and their bod­ies dumped in mass graves. This can­not stand, this Prime Minister can­not con­tin­ue to fly around on the coun­try’s bor­rowed mon­ey, while this is hap­pen­ing on her watch. To say she is incom­pe­tent would be dis­re­spect­ful to the incom­pe­tent. This woman by virtue of her being Prime Minister is itself a mon­u­men­tal fraud and a trav­es­ty. Yet there is no short­age of apol­o­gists will­ing to see this once pearl of the Caribbean reduced to the stan­dards of sub Saharan Africa. Those of you who believe it can’t hap­pen need to have your heads exam­ined. All of the com­po­nents are already in place for it to hap­pen . In 2010 we saw for the first time what a defi­ant mili­tia can do. The entire coun­try is divvied up into turfs ‚each con­trolled by local low life punks who believe they are Dons. They have no short­age of guns and ammu­ni­tion, and damn sure no short­age of mer­ce­nar­ies. Sadly it appears some of those mer­ce­nar­ies are ‚mem­bers of the secu­ri­ty forces. When this issue is looked at in it’s total­i­ty it becomes clear that Jamaica is clos­er to sub Saharan Africa than many of you imag­ine. con­tin­ue to pre­tend , con­tin­ue to tell your­selves it’s not that bad. keep your heads buried in the sand.

According to the Jamaica Observer a young man who claimed to have been a mem­ber of an East Kingston Gang claimed to know where hun­dreds of peo­ple are buried near a river.http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/news/Mass-Burial-Site-Claim_15872832

A stun­ning claim has been made by a for­mer gang mem­ber in the east­ern belt of the Jamaica cap­i­tal, that men in the crim­i­nal under­world, often assist­ed by rogue police­men, have been killing peo­ple and bury­ing their bod­ies in the vicin­i­ty of a sand mine. The prac­tice, accord­ing to the man, has been going on for “whole heap a years”, and is car­ried out by indi­vid­u­als who are based between the East Kingston com­mu­ni­ty of Rockfort, and the adjoin­ing Harbour View in East Rural St Andrew. One sec­tion of the area in Harbour View called ‘Crusher’, which is said to be a bur­ial ground for some of those exe­cut­ed by gang­sters. (PHOTO: MICHAEL GORDON)

In light of these devel­op­ments the much maligned, police depart­ment must move quick­ly to secure the area . The police can­not afford to ignore this sto­ry , they must elic­it help from rel­e­vant agen­cies to make sure that in the event there is any truth to this sto­ry each body exhumed may be prop­er­ly identified.

It can­not be busi­ness as usu­al , whether this sto­ry is true or not , we don’t know, nei­ther does the police hier­ar­chy. As such the area should now be treat­ed as an active crime scene. The Police high com­mand did not act to expel dirty cops, they had time yet they did not. Now they have a inde­com breath­ing down their ass­es. inde­com does not inves­ti­gate crime it inves­ti­gates police, the police hier­ar­chy cre­at­ed inde­com by default. They can save some face by active­ly inves­ti­gat­ing this and putting it to rest .On this one they have no choice they must move now.