A DAY WHICH WILL LIVE IN INFAMY.

I can­not relate to what Tracey Martin and Sabrina Fulton feel for the loss of their child. As the father of four boys I can­not even begin to under­stand their pain. However even as I strug­gle to appre­ci­ate even some sem­blance of their agony.

WHAT DID THE JURY DO?

The jury humil­i­at­ed the Martin fam­i­ly, by rub­bing salt in their wounds. That’s jus­tice the American way, remem­ber OJ Simpson? he got off a mur­der rap yet he was sen­tenced for steal­ing his own prop­er­ty and sen­tenced for the mur­ders he was pre­vi­ous­ly acquit­ted of. Black peo­ple sim­ply can­not get any jus­tice in America, remem­ber the laws which says that a black man has no right a white man have to respect? What has changed? Remember Rosewood in the very state of Florida?

On January 1, 1923 a mas­sacre was car­ried out in the small, pre­dom­i­nate­ly black town of Rosewood in Central Florida. The mas­sacre was insti­gat­ed by the rumor that a white woman, Fanny Taylor, had been sex­u­al­ly assault­ed by a black man in her home in a near­by com­mu­ni­ty. A group of white men, believ­ing this rapist to be a recent­ly escaped con­vict named Jesse Hunter who was hid­ing in Rosewood, assem­bled to cap­ture this man.

Prior this event a series of inci­dents had stirred racial ten­sions with­in Rosewood. During the pre­vi­ous win­ter of 1922 a white school teacher from Perry had been mur­dered and on New Years Eve of 1922 there was a Ku Klux Klan ral­ly held in Gainesville, locat­ed not far away from Rosewood.

In response to the alle­ga­tion by Taylor, white men began to search for Jesse Hunter, Aaron Carrier and Sam Carter who were believed to be accom­plices. Carrier was cap­tured and incar­cer­at­ed while Carter was lynched. The white mob sus­pect­ed Aaron’s cousin, Sylvester Carrier, a Rosewood res­i­dent of har­bor­ing the fugi­tive, Jesse Hunter.

On January 4, 1923 a group of 20 to 30 white men approached the Carrier home and shot the fam­i­ly dog. When Sylvester’s moth­er Sarah came to the porch to con­front the mob they shot and killed her. Sylvester defend­ed his home, killing two men and wound­ing four in the ensu­ing bat­tle before he too was killed. The remain­ing sur­vivors fled to the swamps for refuge where many of the African American res­i­dents of Rosewood had already retreat­ed, hop­ing to avoid the ris­ing con­flict and increas­ing racial tension.

The next day the white mob burned the Carrier home before join­ing with a group of 200 men from sur­round­ing towns who had heard erro­neous­ly that a black man had killed two white men. As night descend­ed the mob attacked the town, slaugh­ter­ing ani­mals and burn­ing build­ings. An offi­cial report claims six blacks killed along with two whites. Other accounts sug­gest a larg­er total. At the end of the car­nage only two build­ings remained stand­ing, a house and the town gen­er­al store.

Many of the black res­i­dents of Rosewood who fled to the swamps were evac­u­at­ed on January 6 by two local train con­duc­tors, John and William Bryce. Many oth­ers were hid­den by John Wright, the own­er of the gen­er­al store. Other black res­i­dents of Rosewood fled to Gainesville and to north­ern cities. As a con­se­quence of the mas­sacre, Rosewood became deserted.

The ini­tial report of the Rosewood inci­dent pre­sent­ed less than a month after the mas­sacre claimed there was insuf­fi­cient evi­dence for pros­e­cu­tion. Thus no one was charged with any of the Rosewood mur­ders. In 1994, how­ev­er, as the result of new evi­dence and renewed inter­est in the event, the Florida Legislature passed the Rosewood Bill which enti­tled the nine sur­vivors to $150,000 dol­lars each in compensation.

As America awaits the ver­dict from an almost all white female jury in Sanford Florida, I took a minute to pon­der some of the infor­ma­tion in the pub­lic domain. I do not have all the evi­dence in front of me, yet I believe there are some ques­tions which I believe are still not answered.

Does a Jury of 5 white women out of 6 women rep­re­sent the inter­est of Trayvon Martin?

How come we did not hear about injuries to George Zimmerman even when his team was alleg­ing “stand your ground”, before they real­ized that defense would not work.

Who took these pic­tures, and why?

Was Zimmerman in a police car?

Was he handcuffed?

Whether he was cuffed or not, what was the rea­son for tak­ing these photographs?

Why was the pub­lic fed the nar­ra­tive that George Zimmerman was in a life and death strug­gle with Trayvon Martin, when the phone call Trayvon Martin had with Rachel Jantel did not sup­port that narrative?

Mark Omara claimed there was a 4 minute lapse in the time­line in which Trayvon Martin could have gone home , why did his client the men­ac­ing stalk­er with a gun, not go home.

If I was hid­ing from a creepy crack­er, why would I lead that creepy crack­er to my home?

If Trayvon Martin was on top, of the more than 50 pounds heav­ier George Zimmerman, in a strad­dle-hold in wet grass, how come there is no known green col­or­ing of the knees of Trayvon Martin’s pants. It would require con­sid­er­able pres­sure of the knee-area which invari­ably would lead to con­sid­er­able grass stain­ing of that area of Martin’s pants, irre­spec­tive of the type or col­or of his pants.

From a prac­ti­cal per­spec­tive, it is very dif­fi­cult to stay on top of any­one in a strug­gle, and cer­tain­ly much more dif­fi­cult, if the per­son on the bot­tom is heav­ier that the per­son on top. That would neces­si­tate the per­son on top hav­ing to adopt a much low­er cen­ter of grav­i­ty, essen­tial­ly firm­ly pressed against the per­son on the bot­tom , with the per­son on top face hav­ing to be almost pressed against the face or neck of the per­son on the bottom.

If my hypoth­e­sis is correct,it would make it lit­er­al­ly impos­si­ble for the per­son on top,in this case (Trayvon Martin) as alleged to, 1) main­tain that top posi­tion as a result of his less­er weight, and 2) lit­er­al­ly impos­si­ble for him to see the weapon which from Zimmerman’s own admis­sion was in a hol­ster in the back of his pants. It would also make it impos­si­ble for him to pull the weapon if the sce­nario he and his lawyers laid out as facts are correct.

It would be lit­er­al­ly impos­si­ble for a strug­gle of that nature and mag­ni­tude, to occur with­out DNA evi­dence under the fin­ger-nails of the vic­tim Trayvon Martin. Even if this high­ly improb­a­ble was to occur, there would have been evi­dence of con­tact, evi­dent of of a strug­gle, scratch­es, as would occur in most cas­es of a sex­u­al assault.

Mark Omara took a chunk of con­crete into court alleg­ing that that was a weapon , giv­ing the impres­sion that Trayvon Martin had a weapon which jus­ti­fied his death, anoth­er false-hood.

If Zimmerman act­ed in good faith and was inno­cent of mal­ice who post­ed these pic­tures, and why?

I’ll tell you why, it is for the same rea­son that Zimmerman and his lawyer Mark Omara found them­selves on the tele­vi­sion show of one of the most despi­ca­ble racial cretins in America, Sean Hannity, where he declared arro­gant­ly he would have done noth­ing dif­fer­ent­ly, because the killing of 17 year old Trayvon Martin was quote “God’s will”.

It is for the very rea­son why he is able to mount this very expen­sive defense. A defense which seem­ing­ly has unlim­it­ed resources to pay expert wit­ness­es to tes­ti­fy to the verac­i­ty of their lies. There are peo­ple putting large sums of mon­ey into defend­ing him and fund­ing his fam­i­ly. It is for the very rea­son, there are so-called expert wit­ness­es ‚(white women ) lawyers who are adamant­ly mak­ing the case that Zimmerman legit­i­mate­ly killed 17 year old Trayvon Martin.

So, how did we get to this? Zimmerman is not exact­ly a blond, blue-eyed Caucasian male, is he? He does­n’t have to be, there is enough inher­ent hatred in America for black peo­ple, par­tic­u­lar­ly on the right. It does not mat­ter how right Trayvon Martin was, or how mur­der­ous George Zimmerman is, lit­er­al­ly half of this coun­try does not care, it’s all about race.

This fraud­u­lent char­ac­ter­i­za­tion was designed to depict 17 year-old Trayvon Martin as a fear­some black mon­ster , a fear­some thug, while vis­cer­al­ly depict­ing The mur­der­er George Zimmerman as an all American suit-and-tie good guy. Many peo­ple believe these are sub­lim­i­nal mes­sag­ing. There is noth­ing sub­lim­i­nal here, these are overt racial stereotypes.

Why was the lead inves­ti­ga­tor Detective Chris Serino,the ini­tial inves­ti­ga­tor over-ruled when he thought Zimmerman should be charged with manslaugh­ter? Why is he back on reg­u­lar patrol duties?

Whether we want to face the truth or not it does not change facts, America is still an incred­i­bly racist coun­try. There are peo­ple with a lot of hatred in their hearts, at the heart of what killed Trayvon Martin, is that deep-seat­ed ani­mus many whites have for black people.

What mes­sage is being sent to the pub­lic, when a police force of just under 10.000 is con­stant­ly forced to issue warn­ings to it’s mem­bers, that crim­i­nals are out to kill them?
law abid­ing cit­i­zens can­not feel safe, if the peo­ple entrust­ed with their safe­ty is pre­oc­cu­pied with pro­tect­ing their own damn lives.
Last night I had a con­ver­sa­tion with a dear friend who is a serv­ing Superintendent of police in the Jamaica Constabulary Force, he tells me that the police force of yester-year is no more, he boast­ed that the force’s upper-ech­e­lon are all hold­ers of either one or two degrees. Great I though, the next morn­ing the Jamaica observ­er bore out my friend’s asser­tion,http://​www​.jamaicaob​serv​er​.com/​n​e​w​s​/​J​a​m​a​i​c​a​n​-​p​o​l​i​c​e​-​n​o​w​-​s​e​e​n​-​a​s​-​l​e​s​s​-​c​o​r​r​u​p​t​_​1​4​6​6​3​975

I have argued for years as a mat­ter of his­tor­i­cal record that the police force is the only enti­ty in Jamaica that seeks to fix itself. As per Transparency International the polit­i­cal direc­torate is get­ting even more cor­rupt. No agency is spared , that includes the judi­cia­ry. I gen­er­al­ly do not attach to any cred­i­bil­i­ty to opin­ions or analy­sis for­eign groups have to about my coun­try. Particularly when they come in as sav­iors with the pow­er of good over evil. Generally their research is flawed accounts of peo­ple who are part of the prob­lem rather than agents of a solu­tion. Even so how­ev­er there are Jamaicans who have fig­ured out to make mon­ey, and fame from these very White Knights who come in as friends.

None more so ‚than the group Jamaicans for Justice (JFJ)and their leader a pedi­a­tri­cian Carolyn Gomes. She fig­ured out how to ride that gravy-train, beat up the police under the guise of Human Rights, get nation­al hon­or at home and mon­ey from abroad. On this how­ev­er I agree with Transparency International. I com­mend the police and in par­tic­u­lar Commissioner Ellington on some of the moves he has made to engen­der trust in the police force. I do not agree with every­thing he’s done, but on his pub­lic stance regard­ing cor­rup­tion he has my sup­port. Dirty cops are bad for the depart­ment and the coun­try. Bravo JCF !!!

CAROLYN GOMES NO FRIEND OF JAMAICA:

Carolyn Gomes the crim­i­nal Rights activist based at Fagan Avenue ‚con­tin­ues to thumb her nose at the death of inno­cent Jamaicans who are killed by crim­i­nal . She does so even as she aids and com­fort every crim­i­nal arrest­ed or shot by police. Let me say again I per­son­al­ly will not stand by and allow Carolyn Gomes, Susan Goffe and their cronies to put the lives of police offi­cers at fur­ther risk through their work of lies and dis­in­for­ma­tion. We will ral­ly the nec­es­sary sup­port to push back against this anti-Jamaican activ­i­ty . To the Police Federation , you are a union, the police force can­not push back against politi­cians and oth­er inter­est groups who malign the force with lies and smear. You can , that’s your job, stop engag­ing in actions to pro­tect cops who are doing things they have no busi­ness doing, stop lob­by­ing for cops who are doing wrong things and do your job , fight for what’s right. And one more thing Federation chair­man, I am talk­ing to you, I have sources, take my advice. The police Federation is sup­posed to speak force­ful­ly for rank and file mem­bers, not lob­by for offi­cers who run afoul of the laws.

A 41 year old radio per­son­al­i­ty who is the mar­ried father of two, has an illic­it affair with a co-work­er, she became preg­nant. He demands that she have an abor­tion, she refused, so he hires a 37 year-old trig­ger-man, pays him J$250.000 to exter­mi­nate her. He dri­ves the shoot­er to the gate of his for­mer para­mour where the trig­ger man shoots the 7 months preg­nant woman, Once in the face and once in the right hand.

The shoot­er runs back to the car and he and the would be mur­der mas­ter-mind dri­ves away, after he was able to con­vince the mas­ter-mind Wayne Whyte that the vic­tim Jody-Anne gray was indeed dead.. The police shows up and rush­es the seri­ous­ly wound­ed preg­nant woman to the Hospital.On the way to the hos­pi­tal the woman gath­ered the strength to point out the car with her assailants to the police. they were arrest­ed and, sub­se­quent­ly plead guilty to the attempt on her life.

Wayne Whyte (adapt­ed)

This is not a Hollywood script, it is just anoth­er day in the annals of the mur­der cap­i­tal called Jamaica.

It is the sto­ry of Jamaican radio per­son­al­i­ty 41 year-old Wayne Whyte and 37 year-old Rastafarian, Safari Farr the trig­ger-man who pumped two bul­lets into the woman 7 months preg­nant. It is report­ed that both would be mur­der­ers broke down and wept like lit­tle bitch­es when the ver­dict was hand­ed down yes­ter­day July 7^th 2013.

Wayne Whyte and Jody-Anne Gray at an event in hap­pi­er times

http://​jamaica​-glean​er​.com/​g​l​e​a​n​e​r​/​2​0​1​3​0​7​0​9​/​l​e​a​d​/​l​e​a​d​1​.​h​tml

So I’m sure you are all con­fi­dent these two dirt-bags will nev­er see the light of day again right? Well not so fast, this hap­pened in Jamaica , remem­ber? They were sen­tenced to 14 years in prison and could be out in as lit­tle as 9 years with good behavior.

The intend­ed vic­tim Jody-Anne gray is not a per­fect per­son, no one is with­out sin but she sure­ly did not deserve to be shot in the face and arm for her trans­gres­sions, and by the way she has been forced to live over­seas because of fear for her life.

As I argued in anoth­er forum the court should not have accept­ed the plea deal of wound­ing with intent. The Director of Public Prosecution was hap­py to get this ver­dict, that office is hap­py for any win. Yet the plea of wound­ing with intent leaves ques­tions unan­swered . What is intent?.….….…. Intent is to kill.

There is ample evi­dence in this case to prove intent, the mas­ter­mind Wayne Whyte paid J$250.000 to Safari Farr to kill the woman car­ry­ing the child he did not want. Farr shot the defense­less preg­nant woman twice then ran back to the car, Whyte refused to dri­ve away until he was con­vinced that Farr had killed Jody-Anne Gray, the woman car­ry­ing his child.

There is more than enough evi­dence of mal­ice, depraved indif­fer­ence, wan­ton dis­re­gard for human life and intent to mur­der, to send these two low-lives away for life, yet they may very well be out in 9 years.

Gangster Paradise, Jamaica nice.

I was engaged in a con­ver­sa­tion with a senior civ­il ser­vant in Jamaica recent­ly, we agreed to dis­agree on a raft of issues. We agreed on some , but we def­i­nite­ly agreed that Jamaicans always know how to do every­one else’s job, but have no clue how to do their own.

INDECOM Terrence Williams Commissioner:

Nowhere is this more clear than the head of the neo­phyte Agency called the inde­pen­dent com­mis­sion of investigations(indecom). Generally when some­one is appoint­ed to head a body or agency, that per­son under­stand that there ought to be col­le­gial­i­ty with oth­er agen­cies. In essence always main­tain a sense of pro­fes­sion­al cour­tesy in not inter­fer­ing in any­one’s domain.

The idea is to do one’s own job and to extend a sense of pro­fes­sion­al tact, about what you say in pub­lic ‚par­tic­u­lar­ly about oth­er agen­cies. Obviously that memo has not reached the pub­lic­i­ty-hound Terrence Williams. Ever since this self-aggran­diz­ing moron was appoint­ed to head what is actu­al­ly a drain on the pock­ets of the gullible pub­lic, he has not missed an oppor­tu­ni­ty to grand­stand at the expense of the Police depart­ment and the mil­i­tary. Don’t be fooled, this does not mean that this pub­lic­i­ty-hound is just a nor­mal moron, out look­ing for glo­ry. In fact the reverse is true, Williams is con­scious­ly aware of just how easy it is to achieve his goals at the expense of the Police and Military.

Batts:

Just last week we com­ment­ed on a case in Jamaica where one Justice Batts ruled that police can­not arbi­trar­i­ly stop and frisk peo­ple under the road traf­fic act, since then Batts has done a kind of walk-back say­ing the issue before him was not about stop­ping and search­ing peo­ple under the road traf­fic law. That of course did not stop Batts how­ev­er from shoot­ing off at the mouth about police mat­ters, even though by his own acknowl­edge­ment it was­n’t even the mat­ter before him.

Anyway back to Williams, even though Williams has many cas­es before him that has not been resolved, he nev­er miss­es an oppor­tu­ni­ty to find a cam­era, of course this is when he is not beg­ging for more pow­er to per­se­cute police, fight­ing with the DPP and to cap it all and prob­a­bly more class­less, telling every­one who will lis­ten that his office is equal to that of a high court judge.

Williams makes it his job to give instruc­tions to the police just last week regard­ing search­es done dur­ing traf­fic stops. Having looked at the com­ments made by Batts about police use of the road traf­fic act, I saw noth­ing there which would con­tra­dict any­thing the police has done for decades. As I wrote in an ear­li­er blog, Batts com­ments were quote “the police does not have a right to arbi­trar­i­ly pull peo­ple over and search their per­sons and/​or their cars”.There is no con­flict there , Police can­not arbi­trar­i­ly do any­thing, they have to car­ry out their duties with­in the frame­work of the law. As I said then, Batts did not break any ground, he mere­ly stat­ed the obvi­ous for the ben­e­fit of the cheer­ing-sec­tion over at his old school Kingston College.

Like oth­er grand­stand­ing Jamaicans, Batts has decid­ed to make a name for him­self at the expense of the police. I applaud the com­mis­sion­er of police for con­tin­u­ing the pro­gram. It is up to offi­cers to use all the laws, archa­ic and out­dat­ed though they are, to arrest law­break­ers and let the pon­tif­i­cat­ing frauds con­tin­ue cheer­ing the Emperor who has no clothes.

The police has used the road traf­fic act, pre­di­al lar­ce­ny act, firearms act, dan­ger­ous drugs act to legit­i­mate­ly remove dan­ger­ous crim­i­nals from the streets for decades. Within that time, tens of thou­sands of firearms , hun­dreds of tons of drugs, have been con­fis­cat­ed and offend­ers pros­e­cut­ed. This is just the actu­al enforce­ment, there is no way of mea­sur­ing the innu­mer­able deter­rent-effect those stops have had on crim­i­nal activ­i­ty in our coun­try, or the amount of lives which have been saved.

“I would think that the com­mis­sion­er, being the well-think­ing per­son that I know he is, will take the approach of sus­pend­ing any such activ­i­ty until he is cer­tain of its constitutionality”[Terrence Williams].

I won­der where Terrence Williams find time to inves­ti­gate, between the pho­to ops, cock­tail circuit,hanging out with crim­i­nal-sup­port­ing groups, and giv­ing inter­views. I call on Terrence Williams to pay atten­tion to what he is tasked with and leave the police to do actu­al policing.

There are too many self-serv­ing char­la­tans in Jamaica, the coun­try is going to hell, do your­self a favor, do your own damn jobs and leave oth­ers to do theirs. There is a sec­tor of the pub­lic which I like to refer to as ( neva si cum si ), they are the most pre­ten­tious sons ‑of ‑bitch­es. They have opin­ions on every­thing, they get involved in every­thing and no one knows more than they do. There is anoth­er name for them in Jamaican ver­nac­u­lar “friten fri­day”. They are the biggest imped­i­ment to progress.

The astound­ing luna­cy of the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem in Jamaica, and the crim­i­nal lov­ing judges who pop­u­late those courts were on full dis­play this week.

The Court of Appeal has set aside the death sen­tence of 31-year-old Lennox Swaby and 29-year-old garbage truck dri­ver Calvin Powell, who were con­vict­ed in 2009 of the mur­der of Manchester busi­ness­man Richard Lyn and his wife, Julia.The two have been sen­tenced to life impris­on­ment with an order that they must each serve 35 years before they can be eli­gi­ble for parole. The sen­tences are to run from January 20, 2010.Prosecutors Claudette Thompson and Greg Walcolm, in argu­ing the appeal, had asked the court not to dis­turb the con­vic­tions because Justice Marva McIntosh’s sum­ma­tion to the jury could not be faulted.The court upheld the legal argu­ments.DEATH SENTENCE NOT WARRANTED

Defence lawyers Dr Randolph Williams and Elham Bogle had argued on appeal that the case did not mer­it the death sen­tence and the court agreed. The Crown led evi­dence at the tri­al in the Home Circuit Court that the cou­ple were stran­gled between December 9 and 10, 2006, dur­ing a rob­bery at their home in Mandeville. Their bod­ies were lat­er found at a dump site​.In hand­ing down its deci­sion yes­ter­day, the court paid trib­ute to all the par­ties involved in the inves­ti­ga­tion and tri­al of the mat­ter. “The police obvi­ous­ly poured sig­nif­i­cant resources into this effort and worked dili­gent­ly at iden­ti­fy­ing the per­pe­tra­tors,” the court said.http://​jamaica​-glean​er​.com/​g​l​e​a​n​e​r​/​2​0​1​3​0​7​0​6​/​n​e​w​s​/​n​e​w​s​4​.​h​tml

The fact is these demon­ic mis­cre­ants would nev­er be exe­cut­ed as man­dat­ed by law.

Reason being , the Jamaican gov­ern­ment is the biggest law-break­er in the coun­try. With that said, I am absolute­ly flum­moxed. If enter­ing some­one’s home, rob­bing and killing them, then dis­card­ing their bod­ies at a dump site, does not qual­i­fy for the death penal­ty, what the f*** does? These crim­i­nal lov­ing judges sim­ply do not get it .

Let me just has­ten to say Justice Marva McIntosh is a fine and exem­plary jurist. One of the best and more expe­ri­enced in the coun­try bar none. One of the biggest imped­i­ment to jus­tice is high­er court“s con­tin­u­al­ly inter­fer­ing with low­er court’s deci­sion. It brings the sys­tem into dis­re­pute, cre­at­ing the impres­sion of cor­rup­tion, and does not engen­der con­fi­dence in the low­er courts or the system.

There is noth­ing here which says the deci­sion of jus­tice Macintosh was unlaw­ful or improp­er, yet it seem the jus­tices on the court of appeals have decid­ed to use their posi­tions to give favors to the defense team.

There was noth­ing in the deci­sion as far as the report goes that sug­gest that the tri­al judge had erred or act­ed improperly.

To sug­gest that the way the Lyns were slaugh­tered did not rise to the lev­el of what con­sti­tutes the death penal­ty is beyond luna­cy. It flies in the face of the fam­i­ly of these two hard work­ing peo­ple who were so bru­tal­ly killed not because of any­thing they did. Not only is the Appeals court inter­fer­ence an affront to the fam­i­ly , it is an affront to the learned jus­tice who presided over the tri­al. It is an affront to the inves­tiga­tive police team which worked assid­u­ous­ly to bring the mur­der­ing scums to jus­tice. It is an affront to jus­tice in gen­er­al , giv­ing the impres­sion that the low­er courts and judges are incompetent .

Above all, inter­fer­ing with the tri­al court’s sen­tence with­out hav­ing rea­son to change the ver­dict brings the ques­tion of cor­rup­tion into the dis­cus­sion. Nobody wants to ask the ques­tion so I will, ” how much mon­ey is chang­ing hands in these deci­sions with­ing the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem in Jamaica”? Judges are sworn to inter­pret the law, they are not the law, they are not a law onto them­selves, more and more we see Jamaican judges inject­ing them­selves into areas they have no place being, act­ing as leg­is­la­tors and in some cas­es as defense attor­neys. Justice can­not be open to change because of con­nec­tions between Judges and defense attor­neys or worse the con­nect­ed pay­ing off judges to rule a cer­tain way.

I have no evi­dence mon­ey is chang­ing hands in these deci­sions, but I am absolute­ly con­fi­dent con­nec­tions are play­ing a part. If con­nec­tions are hav­ing an influ­ence in the way these cas­es are decid­ed, what is to stop mon­ey from cor­rod­ing the sys­tem? Judges who drink and social­ize with their defense lawyer friends, can­not be allowed to use those friend­ships to influ­ence how they rule. Justice is big­ger than their lit­tle cliques and fra­ter­ni­ties. This action of the court of appeals is one more in a litany of oth­er deci­sions that we see which is caus­ing chaos in the small nation of 2.7 mil­lion people.

Just this week a Police Detective was mur­dered walk­ing toward his home Corporal Gassop was gunned down by crim­i­nals , The men who mur­dered Corporal Gassop were on mur­der charges, yet they were returned to the streets by the coun­try’s activist judges who are above the laws. The result of their actions, one more dead cop.

This has got to stop, we sim­ply can­not have judges return­ing accused mur­der­ers back onto the streets to kill cit­i­zens and police offi­cers. Worse yet, when they are prop­er­ly con­vict­ed these crim­i­nals lov­ing jack-ass­es who parade as judges have no right return­ing them to the streets.

Recently Retired Senior Superintendent of Police Renetto Adams came out scathing­ly against the Jamaican police force he served for 41 years.

“The JLP under (Sir Alexander) Bustamante dealt effec­tive­ly with the Coral Gardens riots of 1963; Mr (Edward) Seaga, when he was prime min­is­ter, gave up a list of 13 crim­i­nals to include the infa­mous ‘Dudus’ (Christopher Coke), but the com­mis­sion­er at the time Col (Trevor) MacMillan failed to act upon it. Those 13 men have all either been killed or are in prison,” Adams said.Read more: http://​www​.jamaicaob​serv​er​.com/​n​e​w​s​/​A​d​ams – Scrap-the-police-force#ixzz2Y1HlgyTJ

Senior Superintendent Adams is a for­mer cop who came to promi­nence some­where in the mid to late 1990’s, dur­ing my time in the depart­ment I nev­er saw him at any crime scenes, The CIB fra­ter­ni­ty was real­ly a tight-knit fraternity.Jamaican crime fight­ers, with the excep­tion of cer­tain units out of the Mobile Reserve and a few uni­form cops were main­ly plain clothes officers.

Adams rose to infamy for sev­er­al con­tro­ver­sial killings, includ­ing the Krawle killings in which sev­er­al young men lost their lives , as well as an ill-advised for­ay into Tivoli Gardens (or as he calls it Ti-va-li)which again end­ed with sev­er­al peo­ple killed. One thing I learned and tried to remem­ber while I served was not seek fame, do the job and go home. The Jamaican pub­lic endeared them­selves to cer­tain police offi­cers because those offi­cers were tough, kind, gen­tle, depend­able, hon­est, trust­wor­thy, nev­er because they are bru­tal. Many cops opt­ed for the lat­ter and found out real quick­ly that what emanates from that is hatred and resentment.

Former Superintendent Adams loves polic­ing, he wants to see a crime free Jamaica like many of us do. He has made eye­brow-rais­ing com­ments in the past, but his recent com­ments call­ing for the dis­band­ment of the police force has lit­er­al­ly shown that the deci­sion not to con­sid­er him for the top cop job was a sound one.

I find his com­ments to be self serv­ing and small-mind­ed. Adams argues that the force is cor­rupt, that is true, there are far too many offi­cers in the force who should not be, but by and large I believe this com­mis­sion­er has done a good job in weed­ing out bad cops from the depart­ment. A for­mer col­league of mine appro­pri­ate­ly asked why did Adams not call for the dis­band­ment of the force while he was serv­ing for a full 41 years?

Were the deci­sion to be tak­en to dis­band the police force what would be put in it’s place in the inter­im? Adams argues that after dis­band­ing the depart­ment the author­i­ties should embark on a process of select­ing qual­i­fied clean can­di­dates to fill the posi­tions. Might I inquire from mis­ter Adams where would these peo­ple come from? Would they come from the same pop­u­la­tion pool, or would Jamaican author­i­ties have to go to the plan­et kryp­ton to find these Superman type cops Adams references.

I sug­gest that mis­ter Adams find con­struc­tive ways to aid the rule of law as so many are doing after hav­ing left, we love Jamaica that’s the rea­son we decid­ed to serve, don’t make a spec­ta­cle of your­self, if you have noth­ing good to say shut up.

I haven’t giv­en evi­dence in a crim­i­nal tri­al in many years, but what I saw over the last sev­er­al days in that Florida court room does not bode well for the pros­e­cu­tion. I can­not say what it is but there seem to be some­thing real­ly off between the pros­e­cu­tion and it’s witnesses.

It almost seem that there is bad blood between the pros­e­cu­tor and the police wit­ness­es, In all my time around law enforce­ment and the years watch­ing law enforce­ment close­ly, I have nev­er seen police wit­ness­es for the pros­e­cu­tion actu­al­ly give char­ac­ter evi­dence for the accused.

I mean, turn out the lights, every­one go home, first we have a tri­al in the mur­der of a 17-year-old African-American boy, the jus­tice sys­tem could not find a sin­gle black man , or any man for this tri­al. In fact what we hear is that there are 5 white women, I am yet unsure what the eth­nic­i­ty of the 6^th juror is.

Then the most insult­ing thing that could poten­tial­ly hap­pen to Tracey Martin and Sabrina Fulton, the cops who ought to give the best evi­dence for the pros­e­cu­tion’s case turn up and give char­ac­ter evi­dence for the defendant.

Why did the lead inves­ti­ga­tor sud­den­ly get put back to reg­u­lar uni­form patrol , and why did he show up giv­ing char­ac­ter evi­dence for the accused ? This was the same lead Investigator Chris Serino who believed George Zimmerman should face manslaugh­ter charges, why has he changed his sto­ry , why has he been reas­signed to patrol?

There is some­thing seri­ous­ly wrong with the way this tri­al is being han­dled, I sus­pect all hell is going to break loose if peo­ple do not feel that jus­tice is being served , we will con­tin­ue to watch.

Justice David Batts Jamaican Supreme court judge has ruled that the police have no pow­er, under the Road Traffic Act, to arbi­trar­i­ly stop and search motor vehi­cles, open­ing the door for a flood of lawsuits.

David Batts:

This was report­ed on in one of the coun­try’s news paper, the Jamaica Daily Gleaner. The sto­ry prompt­ed wide inter­est from the online com­mu­ni­ty this blog­ger includ­ed. The case which prompt­ed the rul­ing involved com­plainant Gary Hemans, a taxi dri­ver who was rep­re­sent­ed by attor­ney-at-law Sean Kinghorn, had sued the attor­ney gen­er­al to recov­er dam­ages aris­ing from his ordeal. Hemans tes­ti­fied that he and oth­er fam­i­ly mem­bers were com­ing from the Hellshire Beach in St Catherine on May 16, 2007, when they were stopped at the Hellshire round­about by three police offi­cers. He said when he inquired why they were so aggres­sive, he was beat­en and tak­en to the Portmore Police Station, where he was locked up until the next day. Hemans said that at the sta­tion, he was forced to strip and squat in a cor­ner, and he felt humil­i­at­ed and embar­rassed. He said he was charged with assault­ing the police, using abu­sive lan­guage, and using inde­cent lan­guage. The taxi oper­a­tor attend­ed court sev­er­al times, but the case was dis­missed for want of pros­e­cu­tion because the police did not attend. Batts award­ed Hemans aggra­vat­ed dam­ages of $1.2 mil­lion for being forced to strip and stoop at the sta­tion, and due to the fact that the police offi­cers did not attend court. http://​jamaica​-glean​er​.com/​g​l​e​a​n​e​r​/​2​0​1​3​0​6​3​0​/​l​e​a​d​/​l​e​a​d​1​.​h​tml

The judge went into a pro­tract­ed expla­na­tion of what he thought the law meant dur­ing the rul­ing which may be seen at the link above, we will get back to the rul­ing. Sometime ago in a let­ter pub­lished in the same medi­um I called on the Commissioner of Police Owen Ellington to take a stronger stance against offi­cers who arrest peo­ple , lock them up and do noth­ing more, it ends there. This prob­lem is an age-old one where cops make an arrest, writes up a complaint(information) sub­mits it to the court and does noth­ing else.

In my appeal to the com­mis­sion­er I indi­cat­ed to him that it falls on the mid­dle man­agers to make sure that these sim­ple yet crit­i­cal issues are addressed.http://​jamaica​-glean​er​.com/​g​l​e​a​n​e​r​/​2​0​1​0​1​1​0​5​/​l​e​t​t​e​r​s​/​l​e​t​t​e​r​s​1​.​h​tml

Quote: I ask the com­mis­sion­er of police to seri­ous­ly look at police­men who arrest peo­ple and do not com­plete the process of case prepa­ra­tion that is nec­es­sary to gain a con­vic­tion. I am all too famil­iar with lazy cops who bring the JCF into ridicule and dis­re­pute. End quote: This appeal was made as far back as November of 2010, my sug­ges­tion was not act­ed upon.

The result is 1) a cash award against the impov­er­ished state, 2) the poten­tial flood-gate of sim­i­lar law-suits to come, and 3) prob­a­bly most sig­nif­i­cant­ly, a mud­dy­ing of the rules gov­ern­ing Police abil­i­ty to use traf­fic stops to cut seri­ous crimes.

On read­ing the Judge’s rul­ing I was incensed, Jamaican judges are some of the most lib­er­al activist judges anywhere,they have demon­strat­ed by words and deeds that their views about the impact of crime on the fab­ric of soci­ety and social order are some­where in the 1950’s.

We have con­sis­tent­ly sought to bring atten­tion to this issue, we believe that despite strong puni­tive reme­dies in the law for seri­ous offences, in many cas­es Jamaican judges cir­cum­vent or sup­plant their own emo­tions and polit­i­cal feel­ings into the dis­pen­sa­tion of jus­tice, result­ing in the jus­tice sys­tem becom­ing a laugh­ing stock. This has metas­ta­sized in a whole slew of oth­er prob­lems for the country .

It may be not­ed that despite the pro­lif­er­a­tion of social-media which makes access to infor­ma­tion much more read­i­ly avail­able, like a large cross sec­tion of the pop­u­la­tion , Judges of the Island nation seem obliv­i­ous to what is real­ly hap­pen­ing out­side Jamaica. The tone and text or even the ver­biage they use does not always reflect the real­i­ties of the 21 st century.

In far too many instances their words and actions does not reflect their posi­tions as inde­pen­dent tri­ers of facts,but more so, as lib­er­al activists of the University of the West Indies. Many of the Island judges haven’t rec­on­ciled that they work for the people.

Having said that, I went back and looked at the rul­ing the fol­low­ing day, a sin­gle word jumped out at me. I sought to put my anger under con­trol as I read the rul­ing, despite get­ting the feel­ing that the rul­ing was writ­ten by the defense team of the plain­tiff, I was able to rec­on­cile in my mind that the learned judge did not break any new ground regard­ing the way police offi­cers do their job.

All because of one word, (arbi­trar­i­ly) in the first para­graph of the report that word actu­al­ly calmed my anger. I have no fur­ther quar­rel with the judge, and I will not ele­vate his rul­ing any fur­ther, suf­fice to say, he is cor­rect. This rul­ing puts the ball square­ly back onto the court of the police department.

The police does not and should not have the right to arbi­trar­i­ly pull peo­ple and search their vehi­cles with­out prob­a­ble cause. Probable cause in law is, sim­ply hav­ing a good law­ful rea­son for their actions. Police depart­ment all over the civ­i­lized world uses the road traf­fic law to thwart crim­i­nals who would use major thor­ough­fares to fur­ther their crim­i­nal undertakings.

Cops in Jamaica are obvi­ous­ly too stu­pid, or too lazy to intel­li­gent­ly lay out a cred­i­ble case for sim­ple traf­fic stops. I am total­ly aware that Jamaican law favors crim­i­nals, it is more prof­itable to break some than to obey them, most peo­ple the world over, rec­og­nizes this by now. However how dumb and unimag­i­na­tive are the cops in this par­tic­u­lar case?

Literally every motor vehi­cle ply­ing Jamaica’s thor­ough­fares may rea­son­ably and law­ful­ly be pulled over from one breech or anoth­er. Smart cop needs only be patient, fol­low and observe. In oth­er cas­es the vehi­cles have imper­fec­tions which makes pulling them over total­ly justified.

Didn’t many peo­ple argue that they would get offi­cers with degrees to do the job? How is it then that the force has gone from 70% clear-up of seri­ous crimes just over two decades ago to 7% today? Not just that, even then, the cas­es which result in a con­vic­tion are some­times over­turned on appeals. Are we to accept that with all the peo­ple with degrees join­ing the depart­ment from what Wilmott (Mutty )Perkins termed “the intel­lec­tu­al ghet­to” the force is get­ting worse?

Commissioner Ellington I know you are con­strained by an intran­si­gent polit­i­cal estab­lish­ment. The estab­lish­ment com­pris­es peo­ple from both polit­i­cal par­ties, many of whom are crim­i­nals. I am empa­thet­ic toward you because of the many crim­i­nals which are scat­tered through­out your own depart­ment. Of the many chal­lenges you face includ­ing the many and var­ied indi­vid­u­als, groups and orga­ni­za­tions ded­i­cat­ed toward aid­ing and com­fort­ing crim­i­nals, we under­stand and sup­port you.

But on this issue you get no sup­port from me. That a case would turn out this way, that a judge could grand­stand at the expense of an entire law enforce­ment agency because of the actions of a few tardy cops is unfor­giv­able. In that open let­ter I wrote to you I spoke about mem­bers bring­ing the Agency into disrepute,this affects how stops are con­duct­ed . Commissioner Ellington this is disrepute.

There is a sig­nif­i­cant yet unsus­tain­able lev­el of incom­pe­tence and utter dis­re­gard to sim­ple pro­to­col in your depart­ment. That mis­ter Commissioner is on you, when a team does bad­ly they don’t fire the team mis­ter Commissioner,they fire the coach.

Peter Bunting National Security Minister tabled the long-await­ed Anti-Gang Legislation in Parliament on behalf of the Portia Simpson Miller régime. This piece of leg­is­la­tion came after the oppo­si­tion JLP blast­ed the Miller Administration for not tabling the leg­is­la­tion despite the anti-gang leg­is­la­tion was ready to be tabled at the time when the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) lost pow­er in December, 2011.http://​www​.jamaicaob​serv​er​.com/​n​e​w​s​/​A​n​t​i​-​g​a​n​g​-​l​e​g​i​s​l​a​t​i​o​n​-​t​a​b​l​e​d​#​i​x​z​z​2​X​K​d​P​D​U3j

We will with­hold judge­ment until we see whats in the leg­is­la­tion. At issue is whether the Jamaican Government final­ly table a piece of leg­is­la­tion which stands con­sti­tu­tion­al muster on the one hand, while deal­ing a death-blow to orga­nized crime in the small Island nation.

There are far-reach­ing impli­ca­tions for Jamaica, the issue of crime and vio­lence is an exis­ten­tial strug­gle for the small Independent nation. The details of this leg­is­la­tion will indi­cate to Jamaicans , at home abroad and indeed the rest of the world, whether the admin­is­tra­tion of Portia Simpson Miller, has final­ly got­ten the seri­ous­ness of the sit­u­a­tion the coun­try is in.

I have my own ideas on that,I’ll be restrained I will await the details. This leg­is­la­tion will sig­nal to the world, whether Simpson Miller can divorce her­self, her régime, and our Country, from the destruc­tive ten­ta­cles of gar­ri­son pol­i­tics and the cor­ro­sive impact it has had on the lives of all Jamaicans.

Saying you care, hug­ging babies, cry­ing with the poor is not enough, here is an oppor­tu­ni­ty for Miller through this leg­is­la­tion to say to inter­est­ed par­ties that she has matured, and is will­ing and indeed capa­ble, of mov­ing our coun­try into the 21^st cen­tu­ry, by tak­ing a seri­ous stance against gangs , crime, and crim­i­nals and those who would oper­ate out­side the law with impunity.

This blog­ger will not hold his breath, I do not believe she is capa­ble, I stand to be corrected.