Jamaica is not in the busi­ness of man­u­fac­tur­ing guns unless you think the one-pop qual­i­fies as a gun; nev­er­the­less, the coun­try is awash in guns and ammunition.
There is a whole cot­tage indus­try around gun crimes, mor­tu­ar­ies, cof­fin-mak­ing, setup-bands(sic), etc.
The gun and sta­tus cul­ture that Jamaicans so read­i­ly idol­ize cre­at­ed the need for pri­vate secu­ri­ty com­pa­nies that have become major play­ers on the Island.
Institutionalized gov­ern­men­tal dis­in­ter­est caused those with mon­ey to invest in the macabre death indus­try rather than a vio­lence-free Jamaica where all can ful­fill their full poten­tial. In oth­er words, crime will always be with us so let’s ben­e­fit from it. We should not be fooled into think­ing that there may not be a direct need for dead bod­ies to feed the grow­ing mor­tu­ary indus­try that has sprung up around the country.
The police say some of the guns are com­ing into the coun­try from Haiti in what is known as the guns for drugs trade. This pos­es a sig­nif­i­cant chal­lenge for the secu­ri­ty forces, the Government, the peo­ple of Jamaica. Largely so because the coun­try’s bor­ders are extreme­ly porous and dif­fi­cult to police.

A sig­nif­i­cant amount of ille­gal guns and ammu­ni­tion enter the Island through manned ports; this is inex­cus­able. The gov­ern­ment must ensure that the per­va­sive cor­rup­tion that has char­ac­ter­ized the Customs Department for years becomes a thing of the past using technology.
Jamaica has one of the world’s low­est police-cit­i­zen ratios; in 2012, there were 316 police offi­cers to every one hun­dred thou­sand Jamaicans.
Barbados, by com­par­i­son, had 489 to every hun­dred thou­sand sur­veyed a year lat­er, and Trinidad &Tobago had 482 to each hun­dred thou­sand cit­i­zens in 2012.
We may not want to admit it, but there is a direct cor­re­la­tion between one of the world’s low­est police to cit­i­zen ratios on the one hand and, on the oth­er, the world’s high­est mur­der rate per one hun­dred thou­sand cit­i­zens. Jamaica ticks the box in both scenarios.
That is not to say that if Jamaica were to hire more police offi­cers, we would have less crime in the not too dis­tant future.…..However, if we sud­den­ly had more hon­est police offi­cers to man and patrol our ports and har­bors, it is quite like­ly we would con­fis­cate more guns and ammu­ni­tion. If that strat­e­gy is built out, over time, with less access to guns and ammu­ni­tion, we would inex­orably have few­er mur­ders and oth­er vio­lent gun-relat­ed crimes.

Some of the most press­ing issues com­pound­ing the nation’s crime-fight­ing efforts are inef­fec­tive laws, an incom­pe­tent judi­cia­ry, and cor­rup­tion in pub­lic bod­ies. I com­mend the present admin­is­tra­tion and the min­is­ter of National Security for tabling leg­is­la­tion that adds seri­ous teeth to the gun laws. The present draft, if passed, would give offend­ers 15-years impris­on­ment if they are con­vict­ed on an ille­gal weapons charge.
[per­son­al­ly , I would have pre­ferred if the pro­pos­al was for 25-years and a much larg­er penal­ty if one is con­vict­ed of hav­ing an ille­gal rifle capa­ble of tak­ing mul­ti­ple lives in a sec­ond. We must break the back of this gun-lov­ing mur­der culture.
If you do not want to go to prison for a long time, do [not] pick up an ille­gal weapon. As I have said repeat­ed­ly, the fight against the young killers must be enjoined by every arm of the gov­ern­ment, instead of what cur­rent­ly exists where the courts are going in one direc­tion and the pros­e­cu­tion and police anoth­er. In addi­tion to that, oth­er arms of the Government have agen­das that do not align with the inter­est of law-abid­ing Jamaicans.
The unavoid­able truth is that the nation’s laws and courts make it easy for crim­i­nals to com­mit crimes and encour­age would-be crim­i­nals to become lawbreakers.

Currently, the aver­age Jamaican is caught up between the gang­sters who kill for fun and a sys­tem that gives gun licens­es to wealthy and influ­en­tial Jamaicans and crim­i­nals who have mon­ey to pay. The poor are left to fend for themselves.
Those of us who worked in law enforce­ment have long heard whis­pers that you have to pay to get a license to car­ry a firearm legal­ly. Let us not kid our­selves. This has been going on since the police ran the thing. To add some con­text, the FLA’s rules make it so that some police offi­cers who risk their lives for oth­ers do not qual­i­fy to get a license. How non­sen­si­cal is that?
It is as ridicu­lous as the police depart­ment say­ing, ‘we can­not allow offi­cers to keep their firearms because we do not trust them.’ But you trust them to car­ry a firearm to police the pub­lic; how come they can­not be trust­ed to keep the weapon when they go home to pro­tect them­selves and their families?
After all, why would those who have total con­trol not sell access to guns? If you need a pass­port or birth cer­tifi­cate, you have to pay; the same is true for a dri­ver’s license. How could we expect cor­rupt offi­cials not to cap­i­tal­ize on this goldmine?

The new leg­is­la­tion by Minister Chang is long over­due; it will begin to set the stage that final­ly, the gov­ern­ment is get­ting seri­ous about the blood­shed in our coun­try. The Government also float­ed a gun amnesty amid over­whelm­ing firearm-relat­ed crimes in the coun­try. “This amnesty would allow per­sons who have ille­gal firearms to sur­ren­der firearms and ammu­ni­tion with­out pros­e­cu­tion,” [Chang said]. I am opposed to a gun amnesty, as stat­ed in the arti­cle linked on the subject.
https://​mike​beck​les​.com/​g​o​v​e​r​n​m​e​n​t​-​s​h​o​u​l​d​-​n​o​t​-​b​e​-​c​o​n​s​i​d​e​r​i​n​g​-​g​u​n​-​a​m​n​e​s​t​y​-​h​e​r​e​s​-​w​hy/

It will not be a panacea or a sil­ver bul­let, ‘if passed,’ but it will at least remove from the judge’s hands the abil­i­ty to turn mur­der­ous gun-tot­ing killers back onto the streets as soon as the police arrest them.
If there are peo­ple on the judi­cia­ry receiv­ing mon­ey to let gang­sters walk or if there are any judges with oth­er rea­sons for want­i­ng those crim­i­nals on the streets, this leg­is­la­tion would go a long way in end­ing that corruption.
Sure, more gang­sters will spring up and pick up guns; that’s okay, put them away for long stretch­es until they get the message.
I will be watch­ing the debate on this bill very close­ly to see which mem­bers of the People’s National Party will be oppos­ing this legislation.
We will do our best to ensure that they wear the brand crim­i­nal sup­port­er very well.
The oppo­si­tion PNP has pledged its full sup­port for the bill through its leader Mark Golding; how­ev­er, one oppo­si­tion MP and a tri­al lawyer Peter Champagnie already rebutted the idea of strong sen­tences, insist­ing that fin­ger­print DNA must be tied to the con­vic­tion of offenders.
In oth­er words, if there is no fin­ger­print, no con­vic­tion. I’ll tell this clown what will hap­pen in light of his stu­pid argu­ments; gang­sters will wear gloves. The insin­u­a­tion that the word of the police is no good for recov­ered firearms is as ludi­crous as the motive of Champagnie is questionable. 

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Mike Beckles is a for­mer Police Detective, busi­ness­man, a free­lance writer, black achiev­er hon­oree, and cre­ator of the blog mike​beck​les​.com.

Those of you who both­er to care to read my work or lis­ten to me com­plain about Jamaica’s lax laws know just how long I have per­son­al­ly been beg­ging for tougher sen­tences for crim­i­nals caught with ille­gal guns. I can­not tell how many arti­cles I have writ­ten beg­ging the author­i­ties to change the mean­ing­less laws that make it worth­while for peo­ple to com­mit vio­lent crimes.
In almost every arti­cle I write I have con­tin­ued my cru­sade for what is known as truth in sen­tenc­ing and manda­to­ry min­i­mums for cer­tain vio­lent crimes.
I will get to the rea­sons but first (a) truth in sen­tenc­ing means just what the sen­tenc­ing judge hand­ed down, a ten (10) year sen­tence should not be whit­tled down to six years, (b) manda­to­ry min­i­mum means for cer­tain cat­e­gories of crimes judges [must] hand down a cer­tain sen­tence, unless there are mit­i­gat­ing cir­cum­stances that are met in the statute that would allow an offend­er to receive a less­er sentence.
For exam­ple, two men fight­ing one push­es the oth­er who fell, hit his head, and dies, there was no prov­able intent to com­mit mur­der but the per­son is no less dead.
I am extreme­ly pleased that the leg­is­la­ture has seem­ing­ly awak­ened from its dan­ger­ous slum­ber and is doing its job. There is a new firearms act on the table, and the new manda­to­ry min­i­mum is fif­teen years for any­one caught with an ille­gal firearm.
Bravo, clap, clap, clap, when politi­cians meet the moment, we should com­mend them, and so I am com­mend­ing them for final­ly real­iz­ing that they must take action.
This bill is not yet law, how­ev­er, I am hop­ing that every­one will vote to pass this leg­is­la­tion; in the mean­time, I will be keep­ing my eyes open to see which politi­cian votes against it.

It is not exact­ly advis­able for mem­bers of one branch of gov­ern­ment to speak on the actions of anoth­er branch. As I said in a pre­vi­ous arti­cle about the judi­cia­ry and Sykes in par­tic­u­lar, the court seems to have got­ten more argu­men­ta­tive, opin­ion­at­ed and arro­gant under Sykes’ leadership.
Bryan Sykes knows that the new leg­is­la­tion is com­ing, so he is try­ing to get out ahead of the leg­is­la­ture by pre­tend­ing to hear the cries of the peo­ple about doing some­thing about the sen­tenc­ing that is being hand­ed down.
When you are giv­en a free hand you should be judi­cious with it or it will be tak­en from you.
He could not help him­self; how­ev­er, he had to speak on the work of anoth­er branch of gov­ern­ment as he hand­ed down sen­tenc­ing to a career criminal.
Judge Sykes sen­tenced 48-year-old Mark Shepherd to 15 a year sen­tences on the first count, which was even­tu­al­ly reduced to 10 years based on mit­i­gat­ing cir­cum­stance; sev­en years on count two; and the manda­to­ry 15 years on count three. The sen­tences are to run con­cur­rent­ly, so Shepherd, who has five pre­vi­ous con­vic­tions dat­ing from 1996 — will serve the longest of the three sen­tences, 15 years over­all.
Five pre­vi­ous felony con­vic­tions and the sen­tences hand­ed down did noth­ing to deter him. Here is a bit of news for those opposed to long sen­tences, from as far back as our laws were writ­ten when crime was extreme­ly low there were pro­vi­sions for a judge to put away a repeat offend­er as an ;incor­ri­gi­ble rogue.’ Had the court done it’s job he would not have brought harm to any­one else.
Societies have rule, those who refuse to live by those rules have no place in civ­i­lized soci­eties if they are unable to refrain from harm­ing others.

“We are now at the point where it is said 80 per­cent of homi­cides are com­mit­ted with the use of a firearm. So, in a sense, one can under­stand why the leg­is­la­ture respond­ed in the way that they have because here you have a sit­u­a­tion in which a firearm is being used to com­mit very seri­ous crimes — and the range of sen­tenc­ing does­n’t seem to have reflect­ed that gen­er­al fact. So, the par­lia­men­tar­i­ans are say­ing of judges, ‘We take a dim view of what you have been doing, so we are now going to con­trol your dis­cre­tion and set the min­i­mum posi­tion.’ And, if I must be can­did, I can’t say that I dis­agree.”(Bryan Sykes)
Ha haha­ha, it mat­ters not whether or not you dis­agree; the peo­ple’s rep­re­sen­ta­tives are speak­ing for the peo­ple, final­ly. This revolv­ing door for vio­lent crim­i­nals must end; as far as this hum­ble writer is con­cerned, I will con­tin­ue to fight with every drop of ener­gy I have until the leg­is­la­tors wake up and stop the wan­ton blood­shed in our country.
Violent crimes war­rant tough penal­ties, and if you are caught with an ille­gal weapon, you will spend a very long time in jail. Save me the damn sad stories.

“Quite a ratio­nal and rea­son­able response to the grow­ing prob­lem for a coun­try that does not man­u­fac­ture firearms. This is quite a rea­son­able position.”
“The leg­is­la­ture has tak­en the view that they are very dis­sat­is­fied with how the judi­cia­ry has been deal­ing with firearm offens­es. I have to assume that leg­is­la­tors are ratio­nal per­sons (note the unnec­es­sary dig at anoth­er branch of gov­ern­ment as it attempts to do what the peo­ple are ask­ing for)? Had they been sat­is­fied, they would not have embarked on the process of amend­ing var­i­ous bits of leg­is­la­tion since 2010 to insert min­i­mum manda­to­ry sen­tences.”(Sykes)
“I am not going to get into whether the leg­is­la­ture is wrong or right, but it seems as if there has been a lev­el of dis­qui­et with how the judi­cia­ry has been deal­ing with firearm offens­es.(Sykes)
Yes, that is why con­cerned Jamaicans like myself demand­ed that it be removed from the hands of you unelect­ed bureau­crats who con­tin­ue to show a wan­ton dis­re­gard for the killings or worse, are cor­rupt­ed based on the dis­parate sen­tences we have seen in the sen­tenc­ing of vio­lent killers.

So par­lia­men­tar­i­ans, as they are enti­tled to do, have tak­en a dif­fer­ent view of the mat­ter and decid­ed to reduce the dis­cre­tion that the tri­al judge has in some instances. Whether they are right or wrong is nei­ther here nor there at this point — it is just what is.”(Sykes)
Absolutely cor­rect, all of you have abused that dis­cre­tion the peo­ple gave you, and now they are tak­ing it back!!!
Remember how the police had very lit­tle over­sight and so they con­tin­ued to com­mit all kinds of ille­gal acts and end­ed up with INDECOM as a result?
Consider then just how the Jamaican judi­cia­ry has abused the dis­cre­tion giv­en it to be just, mer­ci­ful, yet firm with the peo­ple who come before the court.
The courts’ have betrayed the trust of their boss­es,( the Jamaican peo­ple). The peo­ple are now say­ing we are tired of your abuse, no more. It is for those rea­sons the peo­ple’s rep­re­sen­ta­tives have been forced to move on the peo­ple’s behalf or end up them­selves removed by the boss­es, the Jamaican people.
The peo­ple left it up to judges to deter­mine how much time a con­vict would spend behind bars as there was no min­i­mum sen­tence.; judges have been hor­ri­ble stew­ards of that trust.
I applaud National Security Minister Horace Chang for tabling the leg­is­la­tion, he cer­tain­ly has start­ed to listen.

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Mike Beckles is a for­mer Police Detective, busi­ness­man, a free­lance writer, black achiev­er hon­oree, and cre­ator of the blog mike​beck​les​.com.
 Feedback wel­come @ excellence@​hvc.​rr.​com

(Chief Judge), Bryan Sykes, ( note *judge* instead of [*jus­tice*] for obvi­ous rea­sons), chose to chide and chas­tise police wit­ness­es who have done the heavy lift­ing to the per­il of their own lives to bring a bunch of Klansman thugs to trial.
In one such episode, Sykes took DCP Fitz Bailey to task for the deci­sion of the police not to crim­i­nal­ly charge a coop­er­at­ing wit­ness who gave invalu­able infor­ma­tion and tes­ti­mo­ny which helped the pros­e­cu­tion’s case.
Sykes insist­ed to Bailey in open court that decid­ing not to charge the coop­er­at­ing wit­ness meant that gang­sters can decide to turn on their col­leagues if they believe they can avoid pros­e­cu­tion. (Can some­one explain to me what is wrong with that con­cept)? I do under­stand that tech­ni­cal­ly a tri­al judge may want to see all of the play­ers brought before the court, how­ev­er, this con­ver­sa­tion could be had by call­ing the pros­e­cu­tor and defense lawyers up to him for a pri­vate con­ver­sa­tion about it, not lash out at the police.
There is so much to unpack in his stu­pid out­burst that it hard­ly war­rants an intel­li­gent response, but one that asks,” where did they find this dude?
To add insult to injury, the ‘chief judge’ went on to tell Bailey that the deci­sion of the police did not bind him and that it is actu­al­ly, [wait for it].…..a judi­cial deci­sion whether the crown wit­ness should be charged.
So the judge is cor­rect; the deci­sion of the police can­not bind the tri­al judge; how­ev­er, the asser­tion that it is a judi­cial deci­sion whether the coop­er­at­ing wit­ness becomes a defen­dant is total balderdash.
Unless the judge is pre­pared to inves­ti­gate and pros­e­cute the case, he should shut his mouth; it is up to pros­e­cu­tors whether or not to charge a coop­er­at­ing witness.

Bryan Sykes ques­tioned how a wit­ness who con­fessed to seri­ous felonies was­n’t charged, which brings me to the ques­tion of just how smart and exposed is this man? Fitz Bailey explained to the self-absorbed Sykes that for the greater good, the police decid­ed that after a cost-ben­e­fit analy­sis, it was not in their inter­est to charge the witness.
Now I under­stand that not many peo­ple can under­stand this con­cept if the most senior jurist can­not grasp it.
♦Fisherman uses small fish to catch big fish.
♦ You give up some­thing to get something.
♦You bait a trap with cheese to catch a rat.
Of course, you would like to see all of these mur­der­ers in prison, but what if the only way you get to the head is to cut the shoul­der some slack?
I am real­ly try­ing to explain it to Sykes for the love of God here. What if the pros­e­cu­tion’s case is a lot shaki­er if you charge a coop­er­at­ing wit­ness? Using Bryan Sykes’ log­ic, it is okay to cut off your nose to spite your face. What if you have no case at all with­out that wit­ness­es’ coöper­a­tion? Do you still insist on a zero-sum out­come of all or nothing?
From the way the chief judge has been han­dling this case, it leaves many ques­tions; chief among them is, does the tri­al judge real­ly want a con­vic­tion of the defen­dants, or is he more inter­est­ed in grand­stand­ing against the process and the police?

The Klansman Gang tri­al is actu­al­ly a test case, the first case that will be a barom­e­ter for the new anti-crime leg­is­la­tion that this writer is proud to have pushed for repeat­ed­ly for over a decade. To break the back of crim­i­nal enter­pris­es, it is impor­tant to have Rico-style leg­is­la­tion to inves­ti­gate crim­i­nals. (See Rico statute; https://​www​.ojp​.gov/​n​c​j​r​s​/​v​i​r​t​u​a​l​-​l​i​b​r​a​r​y​/​a​b​s​t​r​a​c​t​s​/​r​i​c​o​-​r​a​c​k​e​t​e​e​r​-​i​n​f​l​u​e​n​c​e​d​-​a​n​d​-​c​o​r​r​u​p​t​-​o​r​g​a​n​i​z​a​t​i​o​n​s​-​a​c​t​-​s​t​a​t​ute
Sykes seems to have a seri­ous prob­lem with crim­i­nals get­ting their just due, and no one should be fooled by his seem­ing desire to have the wit­ness charged. His con­tin­ued hos­til­i­ty toward the police should not be lost on any­one watch­ing this case as it crawls through his courtroom.
The Gambino crime fam­i­ly is one of five Mafia fam­i­lies oper­at­ing in the United States. With the Gambino fam­i­ly, are the Lucchese, Bonano, Genovese, and Colombo families.
Facing a moun­tain of crime and peo­ple who sel­dom rat­ted on each oth­er, fed­er­al author­i­ties were forced into action, the result was that the Congress passed the Rico Statute in 1985.
The Rico Statute allowed Federal author­i­ties to inves­ti­gate and pros­e­cute mob fam­i­lies as a sin­gle group, all belong­ing to a sin­gle crim­i­nal enterprise…
As for the Gambino fam­i­ly, John Gotti, its col­or­ful and flam­boy­ant boss, he beat two pre­vi­ous fed­er­al raps and thumbed his nose at authorities.
By the time John Gotti was again in a fed­er­al court for his third tri­al, his famed lawyer Bruce Cutler was barred from rep­re­sent­ing him. Federal author­i­ties deemed Cutler a con­sligerie rather than a true defense lawyer, and as such, he was barred from Representing Gotti.
That was hard­ly Gotti’s only prob­lem; his infa­mous under­boss Sammy the Bull Gravano had flipped and became a coop­er­at­ing gov­ern­ment witness.

Gravano reached a deal with Federal author­i­ties which allowed him to plead guilty to 19 mur­ders for his tes­ti­mo­ny against his boss. He was also charged and sen­tenced to five years impris­on­ment; how­ev­er, since he had already spent four years in prison, in 1992, when John Gotti was con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to life with­out parole, Sammy, the Bull Gravano, only served one addi­tion­al year before enter­ing the wit­ness pro­tec­tion program.
Criminals do not fight fair, gov­ern­ments must be cre­ative in find­ing new ways to deal law­ful­ly with present and emerg­ing threats. Critical think­ing seems to be an entrenched prob­lem with some of Jamaicas’ lead­ers in posi­tions of pow­er, some mem­bers of that body seem more intent on asser­rt­ing their own per­cep­tion of pow­er, rather than hon­or­ing their oaths.
You have to bait a line to catch a fish. We will be watch­ing this case along with the rest of the coun­try to see whether the judi­cia­ry will con­tin­ue to make a mock­ery of our sys­tem of justice.
In 2018 (97) of the Island’s judges took umbrage to the tem­po­rary des­ig­na­tion giv­en Bryan Sykes to act as Chief Justice. In a terse­ly word­ed let­ter to Prime Minister Andrew Holness, they voiced their dis­qui­et with his deci­sion to place Sykes on pro­ba­tion rather than a per­ma­nent appointment.

Central to their dis­sat­is­fac­tion was the idea that the Honorable Prime Minister had the gall to sub­ject Sykes to his evaluation.
They per­ceived that the con­sti­tu­tion­al sep­a­ra­tion of pow­ers grants judges inde­pen­dence, and makes them answer­able only to the peo­ple. Jamaican judges are all appoint­ed, as such, the idea that the rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the peo­ple to whom they claim to be answer­able have no respon­si­bil­i­ty to ensure that only the best can­di­dates are appoint­ed to those posi­tions is mind-boggling.
The judges fired off a lengthy let­ter to the Honorable Prime Minister after they had sum­mar­i­ly shut down court pro­ceed­ings to attend a meet­ing in the nation’s cap­i­tal to reg­is­ter their dis­gust at the Prime Minister’s actions.
It is impor­tant to process those actions with­in the con­text of the then Opposition leader Peter Phillips’ con­dem­na­tion of the Prime Minister’s deci­sion to appoint ‘Sykes’ on a pro­ba­tion­ary basis.
The out­burst of the unelect­ed judges and their fraught anger at the Honorable Prime Minister’s deci­sion seemed to be more about what they see as an affront to their right to unfet­tered pow­er, couched in con­sti­tu­tion­al lan­guage of sep­a­ra­tion of pow­ers, rather than any real trans­gres­sion by the Prime Minister.

THIS IS THEIR ‘HOW DARE YOU’ LETTER

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Mike Beckles is a for­mer Police Detective, a busi­ness­man, free­lance writer, black achiev­er hon­oree, and cre­ator of the blog mike​beck​les​.com.
You mays send feed­back to mike @ excellence@​hvc.​rr.​com

A St Ann woman who fab­ri­cat­ed a sto­ry that she was raped in January 2021 was had her case con­clud­ed in the rather crim­i­nal-friend­ly man­ner one would expect in Jamaica.
To begin with, she dis­ap­peared, caus­ing those who knew her to be alarmed, and when she turned up, she con­coct­ed a mouth­ful of lies that she was raped; I sus­pect that the full intent of her lies was to cre­ate the impres­sion that she was abduct­ed then raped.
Thankfully the police did due dili­gence, and her sto­ry was found to be made up, and she was arrest­ed and charged for pub­lic mischief.
Now imag­ine for a minute that some man was sus­pect­ed of rap­ing her, imag­ine that man was seen, he could have been chopped to death, shot, and killed, if the police appre­hend­ed some­one, that per­son could have spent years in jail await­ing tri­al and even­tu­al­ly con­vict­ed on a lie.
I laid out that sce­nario just so that there is a fuller under­stand­ing of the seri­ous­ness of her false alle­ga­tions. The men­tal, phys­i­cal and finan­cial trau­ma she could have caused some inno­cent man is incalculable.

Now for the sen­tenc­ing, the woman plead guilty to the charges, and by the way, we do not know her name. Now I could see if a woman was legit­i­mate­ly raped and the jus­tice sys­tem chose to keep her iden­ti­ty pri­vate; I am in total agree­ment with that.
But why is the iden­ti­ty of a con­vict­ed crim­i­nal being kept a secret?
It requires police resources to inves­ti­gate these alle­ga­tions when they are report­ed, and it requires court resources to adju­di­cate the case to a conclusion.
The peo­ple have an inter­est in just out­comes; after all, it is the peo­ple’s mon­ey that pays the police, court staff, and, unfor­tu­nate­ly, the judges.
But those con­sid­er­a­tions were sec­ondary to senior parish judge Michele Salmon, who decid­ed against prison time for the con­fessed crim­i­nal, decid­ed against a mon­e­tary fine, decid­ed against com­mu­ni­ty ser­vice as a means to repay the people.
She opt­ed instead for a sen­tence of two years pro­ba­tion and counseling.
Well, there you have it, folks; it pays to com­mit crimes in Jamaica. You can rest assured that regard­less of the crimes you com­mit, a judge will allow you to walk out of court after plead­ing guilty or being con­vict­ed scott- free.
Please do not try to con­vince me that pro­ba­tion is a just penal­ty for this crime.

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Mike Beckles is a for­mer Police Detective, busi­ness­man, free­lance writer, black achiev­er hon­oree, and cre­ator of the blog mike​beck​les​.com.

Yesterday I again wrote on the seri­ous and con­se­quen­tial issue of judges repeat­ed­ly releas­ing mur­der sus­pects on bail even after they have killed on numer­ous occa­sions. In addi­tion to that, they sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly short-cir­cuit the crime-fight­ing process by grant­i­ng extreme­ly light sen­tences to con­vict­ed murderers.
As I indi­cat­ed yes­ter­day, judges hide behind the sec­tion of the bail act that says *when bail is con­sid­ered, it should not be used as a penalty*.(*paraphrased). https://​mike​beck​les​.com/​j​u​d​g​e​s​-​r​e​l​e​a​s​i​n​g​-​m​u​r​d​e​r​-​a​c​c​u​s​e​d​-​o​n​-​b​a​i​l​-​a​-​m​a​j​o​r​-​d​r​i​v​e​r​-​o​f​-​t​h​e​-​k​i​l​l​i​n​g​s​-​o​n​-​t​h​e​-​i​s​l​a​nd/

The idea that when a judge is tasked with con­sid­er­ing bail for a mur­der-accused, the fore­most thing in that judge’s mind is not to be puni­tive runs counter to where their focus should be.
The rights of crime-vic­tims’ and that of their fam­i­lies must take prece­dent over that of an accused mur­der­er. Weeks ago, I called on the gov­ern­ment and the oppo­si­tion par­ty to come togeth­er instead of try­ing to score cheap polit­i­cal points and put the Jamaican peo­ple first. The Administration in Jamaica House has demon­strat­ed a new will­ing­ness to engage the crim­i­nals; the oppo­si­tion People’s National Party has decid­ed to wait to see if the high mur­der rate will sour vot­ers on the gov­ern­ment and there­by return them to power.
It is a macabre cal­cu­la­tive and cyn­i­cal cal­cu­lus that should keep them away from Jamaica House for decades to come.
For its’ part, the Andrew Holness admin­is­tra­tion is nowhere near tough enough on the mind­less killers that con­tin­ue to pro­pel Jamaica into infamy, dubbed, the worlds’ mur­der capital.

One mem­ber of the JLP has con­sis­tent­ly earned my per­son­al ire by tak­ing steps that seem to cater more to crim­i­nals than crime vic­tims; that mem­ber is Justice Minister Delroy Chuck. Chuck has advo­cat­ed for a 50% reduc­tion in sen­tences for crim­i­nals who plead guilty to their crimes, includ­ing mur­der­ers. His rea­son­ing is that it clears court dock­ets, Imagine halv­ing the sen­tence deserved by a killer because it is impor­tant to clear court dock­ets? The log­ic of pol­i­cy-mak­ers bor­ders on the ridicu­lous and there­in lies the nations’ problems.
I have been opposed to that pol­i­cy from the start. The options should be the dif­fer­ence between death and life in prison for murderers.
However, since Jamaica refus­es to extri­cate itself from the rear end of her majesty the queen and since there is a mora­to­ri­um on the death penal­ty hand­ed down by the colo­nial ‘mas­ters,’ jamaica has by default dis­en­fran­chised itself from the option to send the killers home to their maker.
Delroy Chuck then turned tail as soon as there was a mas­sive out­cry from the pub­lic, a pub­lic that has grown exhaust­ed with the dai­ly killings, killings that have sapped their abil­i­ty to prop­er­ly grieve.
Chuck then tabled leg­is­la­tion that would grant pros­e­cu­tors the right of appeal in cas­es where they see incon­sis­ten­cies after he real­ized that crim­i­nals were being let out the door in a dis­grace­ful and dan­ger­ous man­ner by judges that did not care.
Though the leg­is­la­tion did not go near­ly as far as it should, as is the case with leg­is­la­tion to fight crime in Jamaica, it even­tu­al­ly became law in its watered-down form. The oppo­si­tion PNP has nev­er seen a bit of anti-crime leg­is­la­tion it did not hate; there­fore, it is chal­leng­ing to get any­thing mean­ing­ful done.

Last Year, Delroy Chuck, star­tled by pub­lic out­cry and from activists like this writer, begged the nation’s judges to be less lenient with vio­lent offend­ers. (wonders of won­ders).
On May 4^th, 2021, con­tribut­ing to the sec­toral debate, the jus­tice min­is­ter [begged] judges to hand down length­i­er sen­tences. (The absur­di­ty of a mem­ber of the elect­ed leg­isla­tive body beg­ging an unelect­ed and unre­spon­sive aloof body to respect the peo­ple’s wish­es was cer­tain­ly not lost on this writer).
During his speech, Chuck said the exec­u­tive branch of ‘Government was look­ing to the judi­cia­ry to tele­graph to crim­i­nals that vio­lence had severe consequences.’
Delroy Chuck failed to real­ize that in Jamaica, the exec­u­tive branch of Government is also the Legislative branch of gov­ern­ment under our par­lia­men­tary sys­tem of gov­ern­ment. And so, instead of beg­ging unelect­ed bureau­crats to respect the laws, the gov­ern­ment should table leg­is­la­tion that dic­tates manda­to­ry min­i­mum sen­tences for cer­tain vio­lent crimes.
The jus­tice min­is­ter said: “Where the crime, be it mur­der or oth­er seri­ous offens­es, is so gross, so grue­some, whether or not the offend­er pleads guilty, the court should send a soli­tary mes­sage, the strongest mes­sage pos­si­ble, that that indi­vid­ual, when he is sent to jail, won’t see out­side again.”
You think?
And that is the rea­son that this mat­ter should be treat­ed with Legislation, not beg­ging. As was to be expect­ed, Bryan Sykes, the chief jus­tice, was dis­mis­sive of the Minister, argu­ing, ” judges have to take into account the facts before them as well as the offense for which an indi­vid­ual has been charged.”
Yes, but they do not get to thumb their noses at the process and admin­is­ter their social­ist brand of jus­tice. In actu­al terms, Bryan Sykes seems to have lit­tle or no respect for the process, in my opinion.

In its final report to the par­lia­ment, the 2007 jus­tice reform task force chaired by Barry Chevvannes found the following.

Under Chief Justice Byran Sykes, the court has tak­en on an argu­men­ta­tive and some­what con­fronta­tion­al tone, with­out the req­ui­site respect for the con­cept of ‘we the peo­ple.’ Instead of explain­ing why cer­tain deci­sions are made and mak­ing cor­rec­tions where there is grave injus­tice done to the peo­ple’s cause, Sykes has been aloof, dis­mis­sive, and bla­tant­ly arrogant.
For those rea­sons, this mat­ter must once and for all be removed from the hands of unelect­ed bureau­crats and cod­i­fied into law so that the major­i­ty’s wish­es can be respected.
If Jamaica is to sur­vive and thrive, the leg­is­la­ture must act with alacrity to shut this door.

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. We can get the word out if each per­son who agrees with what we are doing shares this arti­cle to their social media page!

Mike Beckles is a for­mer Police Detective, busi­ness­man, free­lance writer, black achiev­er hon­oree, and cre­ator of the blog mike​beck​les​.com.

In a recent arti­cle, I asked the police fed­er­a­tion and the Police Officers Association to become more proac­tive in their crime-fight­ing strate­gies. Among those strate­gies should be data col­lec­tion on the judges who con­tin­ue to sup­plant the rule of law with their own per­son­al feelings.

Jamaica is caught up in a death grip, being crushed between a young and vio­lent gen­er­a­tion of killers and a judi­cia­ry decid­ed­ly intent on exact­ing its’ own will, regard­less of the con­se­quences to the public.
The Government (includ­ing the oppo­si­tion par­ty) and the law-abid­ing seg­ment of the pop­u­la­tion want the police to bring the mur­der num­bers down; what they are unwill­ing to do is to remove the hand­cuffs from the hands of law enforcement.
However, more detri­men­tal to the nations’ sur­vival is the dan­ger the judi­cia­ry pos­es to the every­day sur­vival of ordi­nary Jamaicans.
The con­tin­ued prac­tice of judges grant­i­ng bail to vio­lent mur­der accused, some sev­er­al times over while they await tri­al on pre­vi­ous mur­der charges, is a dan­ger­ous prac­tice that must be stopped imme­di­ate­ly as an impor­tant part of reduc­ing the killings on the Island.

This writer has been a con­sis­tent voice stand­ing with law-abid­ing Jamaicans and the police against the vio­lent killers and their facil­i­ta­tors in the judi­cia­ry. I have writ­ten dozens of arti­cles on this sub­ject detail­ing not just incon­sis­ten­cies in the grant­i­ng of bail and sen­tences hand­ed down but the rea­sons judges give for grant­i­ng bail while ignor­ing a salient pil­lar of the bail act, the pos­si­bil­i­ty to re-offend.
To begin with, the penal­ty for mur­der is already far too lenient; some mur­der con­victs are giv­en a mere seven(7) years for tak­ing some­one’s life. This tells us that at the bare min­i­mum, the penal­ty for mur­der on the Island does [not] have any deter­rent effect based on the high num­ber of killings report­ed to police each year.
As rep­re­hen­si­ble as these sen­tences are, the issue of bail is at the heart of the prob­lem, one that the leg­is­la­ture refus­es to attend to.
Judges trained at the Islands’ lib­er­al-pro-Marxists col­leges and uni­ver­si­ty tend to have a defense lawyer men­tal­i­ty, more detri­men­tal to the process; they share a belief that they have a duty to reha­bil­i­tate vio­lent offend­ers, con­se­quences to the pub­lic be damned.
Instances of mur­der accused grant­ed bail before tri­al com­mit­ting more mur­ders are well doc­u­ment­ed; some com­mit­ting more mur­ders are again arrest­ed and charged and grant­ed bail up to six times before fac­ing the first trial.

In recent times com­mis­sion­er Antony Anderson spoke out on this sub­ject, the com­mis­sion­er is a pub­lic ser­vant, and as such, he was con­strained as to what he could say and how he said them.
However, the mes­sage was clear, yet the stu­pid prac­tice of releas­ing vio­lent mur­der­ers on bail con­tin­ues unabated.
As this prac­tice con­tin­ues, the police report­ed that one of two men in their cus­tody con­nect­ed with Wednesday night’s killing of three young sib­lings in Irwin Heights St James was out on bail on oth­er mur­der charges.
Eleven-year-old Peta-Gaye Cook and her 19-year-old twin broth­ers, Givaughn and Givaughnie Stewart, were gunned down at their residence.
We can­not ignore the con­sti­tu­tion­al and moral premise of inno­cent until proven guilty; how­ev­er, the state has the duty to pro­tect life as its’ first obligation.
As pub­lic ser­vants, judges are bound to fol­low the law and use their dis­cre­tion in all mat­ters they adju­di­cate. Supplanting the law with per­son­al feel­ings and lean­ings has tak­en over the Jamaican judi­cia­ry with dev­as­tat­ing con­se­quences to the pub­lic, as we con­tin­ue to see.
The Islands’judges con­tin­ue to claim that they fol­low the law, but they are actu­al­ly fol­low­ing the parts of the bail act that serve their own interest.
They claim cor­rect­ly that bail should not be used as pun­ish­ment; what they fail to address is the part of the act that stip­u­lates that bail can be denied (a) based on the seri­ous­ness of the crime the accused is charged with & (b) the like­li­hood that the offend­er will re-offend.

In a recent arti­cle, I asked the police fed­er­a­tion and the Police Officers Association to become more proac­tive in their crime-fight­ing strate­gies. Among those strate­gies should be data col­lec­tion on the judges who con­tin­ue to sup­plant the rule of law with their own per­son­al feel­ings when they sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly return mur­der­ers onto the streets as soon as they are arrested.
We need to know their names have a detailed under­stand­ing of their judi­cial his­to­ry so that we can bet­ter mount a defense against their assault on the rule of law.
We can­not have unelect­ed judges rid­ing roughshod over the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem in the cor­rupt and oth­er­wise uneth­i­cal man­ner they have been engaged.
We know they love to trav­el on their for­eign visas; it is time that we approach the Justice depart­ment and Home Office with their pat­tern of crim­i­nal sup­port and have their visas revoked.
Let them stay in the filth they are help­ing to create.
Jamaica is an extreme­ly vio­lent nation; author­i­ties say gangs are respon­si­ble for 70% of the coun­trys’ homi­cides, which rose 10% last year to reach 47.7 per 100,000 inhab­i­tants, giv­ing it the world’s high­est mur­der rate.
In a June 2017 arti­cle in one of Jamaicas’ dai­ly papers Omar Hawthorne a lec­tur­er at one of the Islands’ pre­mier insti­tu­tions of advanced learn­ing, had this to say about judi­cial corruption.
Often, when we talk about judi­cial cor­rup­tion, the image is that of judges tak­ing bribes. However, judi­cial cor­rup­tion is a lot more. It includes all forms of inap­pro­pri­ate influ­ence that may dam­age the inde­pen­dence of jus­tice and may involve any play­er with­in the jus­tice sys­tem, includ­ing lawyers and admin­is­tra­tive sup­port staff. The ques­tion of cor­rup­tion is not only a mat­ter of rela­tions between judi­cial per­son­nel and court users; it is also about inter­nal rela­tions in the judi­cia­ry.
I strong­ly sub­scribe to most of the find­ings and sug­ges­tions with­in the Integrity Commission’s pol­i­cy paper linked here.
https://​www​.van​der​bilt​.edu/​l​a​p​o​p​/​j​a​m​a​i​c​a​/​0​3​2​7​1​1​.​T​h​e​G​l​e​a​n​e​r​.​pdf

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Mike Beckles is a for­mer Police Detective, busi­ness­man, free­lance writer, black achiev­er hon­oree, and cre­ator of the blog mike​beck​les​.com.

This is an inter­est­ing bit of news that I per­son­al­ly haven’t seen on the lamestream media. Okay, I seri­ous­ly do not both­er watch­ing tele­vi­sion-who does anyway?
But the facts of this case are both star­tling and interesting. 
Here a white crim­i­nal shoots three police offi­cers, killing one and seri­ous­ly injur­ing anoth­er, yet we heard noth­ing about it in the news.
Another thing- the police have released no infor­ma­tion on this alleged cop-killer whom they even­tu­al­ly killed. Why is that?
Imagine the uproar if a black per­son had shot three cops, basi­cal­ly killing two of them; it would be a round-the-clock con­dem­na­tion of the Black race on the (FIX) pro­pa­gan­da net­work, the race-mon­ger­ing crus­taceans who feed in the putrid bile of that swamp would be hav­ing a field day.
Here is the full sto­ry from the asso­ci­at­ed press.

A Joplin, Missouri, police offi­cer who was shot along with two oth­er offi­cers this week “will not recov­er” from his injuries, Police Chief Sloan Rowland said Thursday.
Rowland announced that patrol offi­cer Jake Reed’s fam­i­ly said he was being pre­pared to donate organs.
“We’re so proud, so thank­ful, and for­ev­er in debt for his ser­vice to this com­mu­ni­ty. … Jake is an out­stand­ing young man,” Rowland said. Cpl. Benjamin Cooper died after being shot in the ini­tial con­fronta­tion on Tuesday. A third offi­cer, Rick Hirshey, was also shot and was in seri­ous but sta­ble con­di­tion Thursday, Rowland said.
Reed joined the police force in 2017. He and Cooper were among the first offi­cers to con­front 40-year-old Anthony Felix at a shop­ping mall in Joplin Tuesday afternoon.
Felix shot the two offi­cers, stole a patrol car, and fled. He crashed the car and was on foot when Hirshey saw him try­ing to steal anoth­er vehi­cle and posi­tioned his patrol vehi­cle to stop the theft. Felix shot Hirshey through the wind­shield and hit him in the face, Rowland said.
Hirshey retired from the police force three months ago after more than 20 years of ser­vice but then returned to the depart­ment. He will face seri­ous health prob­lems and sev­er­al surg­eries in the days to come, the chief said.
Felix was then shot and killed by police Capt. William Davis, Rowland said. Davis, a vet­er­an of more than 15 years, left cov­er and exposed him­self to stop the sus­pect. “If not for Capt. Davis’ actions, addi­tion­al offi­cers and cit­i­zens could have been killed,” Rowland said. Rowland asked every­one to pray for all the offi­cers involved. He also thanked the com­mu­ni­ty for its out­pour­ing of sup­port since the shoot­ing. Police have not released any infor­ma­tion about Felix.

New York Mayor Eric Adams and the New York Police Department are under fire after a Bronx judge found incon­sis­ten­cies in a police officer’s recount of a drill rapper’s arrest that end­ed with a sus­pect and an offi­cer shot this year. NYPD offi­cer Taulant Gjonbalaj said they approached 16-year old Camrin’ C Blu’ Williams after he ignored their orders to remove his hands from his pock­ets dur­ing the Jan. 18 encounter.

Gjonbalaj alleged Williams start­ed fight­ing one of the offi­cers when they respond­ed to a “dis­or­der­ly crowd” in a Bronx neigh­bor­hood. The offi­cer said Williams’ gun went off in his pock­et dur­ing the scuf­fle strik­ing Officer Kaseem Pennant in the leg and Williams in the groin. Bronx Supreme Court Justice Naita Semaj said dur­ing a March 8 hear­ing that Gjonbalaj’s tes­ti­mo­ny runs counter to video footage of the inci­dent. Semaj said even though Williams, who has a his­to­ry of gun charges, was ille­gal­ly pos­sess­ing a weapon, author­i­ties had no rea­son to search the teen. She said Williams raised his hand when he was ordered and com­plied with offi­cers before being roughed up by Gjonbalaj and Pennant, which led to the gun’s acci­den­tal firing.

“He lit­er­al­ly does every­thing you tell your child to do when they’re approached by cops. He lit­er­al­ly kept his hands up. He lit­er­al­ly tried to record to make sure there was proof. He answered ques­tions he had no oblig­a­tion to answer,” Semaj said.
The judge ruled the rap­per, who recent­ly signed a deal with Interscope Records, be tried as a juve­nile and not an adult. The rul­ing received instant back­lash from the NYPD and Adams, who has been a loud crit­ic of drill music. Williams used an advance from the record deal to pay his $250,000 bail. “I agree with the judge that there is no deny­ing Mr. Williams had an ille­gal gun on him that night — a gun that end­ed up injur­ing both him and a police offi­cer,” said Adams, a for­mer NYPD cap­tain. “This was Mr. Williams’ sec­ond gun-relat­ed arrest and exact­ly the rea­son why we need to work to get guns off the streets.”

Drill music is often cat­e­go­rized by its vio­lent lyrics. The hip-hop sub­genre orig­i­nat­ed in Chicago, where the slang word “drill” report­ed­ly means to kill or mur­der. The may­or has crit­i­cized the music for its asso­ci­a­tion with a string of mur­ders in the city and has called for an inter­net ban of drill music videos that depict gang violence.
However, Adams report­ed­ly walked back the com­ments after meet­ing with drill rap­pers last month.
Adams said he was con­cerned about “vio­lent peo­ple who are using drill rap­ping to post who they killed, and then antag­o­nize the peo­ple who they are going to kill.” He vowed to work with the group of rap­pers, led by Maino, after the Feb. 15 meet­ing, but no fur­ther announce­ments have been made… Williams’ release on bond reignit­ed a push by Adams for stricter bond restrictions.

Under cur­rent New York law, cash bail is grant­ed for vio­lent felonies based on a suspect’s risk of flight. Adams believes a suspect’s “dan­ger­ous­ness” should also be con­sid­ered in deter­min­ing bail. While Semaj slammed the NYPD offi­cer for his “self-serv­ing” tes­ti­mo­ny, com­mu­ni­ty advo­cates said Adams owes res­i­dents an apol­o­gy after the judge’s rul­ing. “The may­or wrong­ly blamed bail reform for the release of a 16-year-old. Now, unsur­pris­ing­ly, we learn that the police fab­ri­cat­ed the cir­cum­stances lead­ing up to the inci­dent,” Marvin Mayfield, a direc­tor at the Center for Community Alternatives, said. “Video proved that this young per­son was uncon­sti­tu­tion­al­ly assault­ed, and it is now clear that he was the only per­son seri­ous­ly injured as a result of police action.” Daily News reporters said the police depart­ment and the may­or dodged direct ques­tions about Gjonbalaj’s testimony.

Deputy Commissioner of Public Information John Miller said the NYPD dis­agrees with Semaj and intends “to lit­i­gate this case in the court­room.” “A 16-year-old and a police offi­cer were each shot and wound­ed in this inci­dent. The bul­let came from a gun being car­ried by a teenag­er who was released in a pri­or gun arrest. The offi­cers were on patrol that night for the sole pur­pose of keep­ing our cit­i­zens safe. Those are the most crit­i­cal­ly impor­tant ele­ments of this case,” Miller said. “This is dan­ger­ous work, but the intent is to fos­ter peace and achieve just out­comes for all New Yorkers whether they are vic­tims, wit­ness­es, or young peo­ple who make wrong deci­sions to car­ry firearms.”(This sto­ry first appeared in the Atlanta Black Star)

The Lame-stream media sim­ply gob­bles up the script­ed police ver­sion of events and ran with it as if it was gospel. Is there any won­der that no-one cares about what is said on tele­vi­sion anymore?

Publisher’s note
I guess all of the abuse met­ed out to the young offend­er is jus­ti­fied if we sub­scribe to John Miller’s log­ic. By his log­ic, the end jus­ti­fies the means…because to them (police) it is a war and war is ugly, as is evi­denced by his com­ments; “The offi­cers were on patrol that night for the sole pur­pose of keep­ing our cit­i­zens safe. Those are the most crit­i­cal­ly impor­tant ele­ments of this case,” Miller said.
Not the fact that his offi­cers roughed up a teenag­er then lied about the sequence of events and the mate­r­i­al tenets of the case.“This is dan­ger­ous work,” mean­ing police may use what­ev­er tools they deem nec­es­sary to achieve the out­comes they desire.
John Miller has every right to defend his offi­cers, par­tic­u­lar­ly when a repeat offend­er is bailed and caught with a gun which end­ed up injur­ing a cop. I also under­stand the Mayor’s desire to have a safer city as well.
The thing that police offi­cers and blind zealots fail to under­stand is that the laws must be enforced with­out abro­gat­ing and vio­lat­ing the rights of cit­i­zens and that goes for crim­i­nal sus­pects as well.
We can­not have a soci­ety where police offi­cers sum­mar­i­ly lie in affi­davits and in court in order to gain con­vic­tions and to cov­er their ass­es because they refuse, or, are too stu­pid to fol­low rules.
We can­not have police offi­cers beat­ing up peo­ple who com­mit offens­es against the state and then lying about what occurred.
Police offi­cers do not get to exact vengeance on offend­ers regard­less of their crimes.
In a civ­i­lized soci­ety, we have an entire sys­tem of jus­tice that includes the police, pros­e­cu­tors, defense attor­neys, tiers of tri­al courts, and a whole range of oth­er agen­cies that make the sys­tem of jus­tice work.
It is for those rea­sons that we can­not tol­er­ate police offi­cers tak­ing on the role of judge, jury, and executioner…
In light of that John Miller does not get to gloss over phys­i­cal assault com­mit­ted by NYPD cops and per­jury as well, to add insult to injury.
Even bat­tle­fields have rules.….……(mb)

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Mike Beckles is a for­mer Police Detective, busi­ness­man, free­lance writer, black achiev­er hon­oree, and cre­ator of the blog mike​beck​les​.com.

Certain mark­ers must be laid down when cer­tain events occur, if not for any oth­er rea­son than to estab­lish prece­dent, day date, and time included.
The case of a Florida Special Education (5) year-old stu­dent alleged­ly beat­ing a female teacher neces­si­tat­ing a hos­pi­tal vis­it is one for the ages.
We are painful­ly aware that it is dif­fi­cult to bring crim­i­nal charges against chil­dren of a cer­tain age; nev­er­the­less, the ques­tion remains if the crime com­mit­ted by a young­ster of that age is any less painful to the vic­tim because the injury was inflict­ed by a child that young?
I cer­tain­ly do not have all the answers, but I find the Pembroke Pines Police Departments’ deci­sion [not] to charge the boy with any crimes a bit baf­fling. Shouldn’t that be the deci­sion of the pros­e­cu­tor’s office?

Jason B. Blank, chair­man of the Florida Bar’s Criminal Law Section, agreed with the deci­sion, espe­cial­ly with the attack hap­pen­ing in a spe­cial edu­ca­tion set­ting. “I have nev­er seen a 5‑year-old crim­i­nal­ly pros­e­cut­ed for any­thing like this, espe­cial­ly with the set of spe­cial cir­cum­stances on top of it,” Blank said. “I don’t think that was ever practical.”
The nar­ra­tive being that a five-year-old is inca­pable of form­ing intent seems strange. If a five-year-old is mad at his par­ent because he did not get his way goes into a room, picks up a gun, returns, and shoots his par­ent, is that par­ent any less seri­ous­ly hurt or dead because the child is only five?

The ulti­mate deci­sion rests with pros­e­cu­tors whether or not to bring charges. I am cer­tain­ly not advo­cat­ing that charges be brought against a child that young; how­ev­er, I can­not help won­der­ing whether the Pembroke Pines Police Department would have been that mag­nan­i­mous if the assailant was a lit­tle black boy?
I think not, that boy would have been charged with all kinds of felonies, and the ques­tion, “should he be charged as an adult,” would have been on the tongues of all the talk­ing heads.
For those rea­sons, mem­bers of the African-American com­mu­ni­ty must doc­u­ment these deci­sions as they are made so that they may demand equal treat­ment when the shoe is on the oth­er foot.

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Mike Beckles is a for­mer Police Detective, busi­ness­man, free­lance writer, black achiev­er hon­oree, and cre­ator of the blog mike​beck​les​.com.

Police Corporal sus­pect­ed of tak­ing his own life.

The Officer Corporal Osbourne Ximmines of the Gayle Police sta­tion St, Mary and from Threadways District Saint Catherine is believed to have com­mit­ted sui­cide at his home.
The police report­ed that they were called to the home, where they found the deceased offi­cer in a sit­ting posi­tion with a sin­gle bul­let wound to the head. His firearm was report­ed­ly in his left hand. 
At this time, we are unaware whether or not the deceased offi­cer was left-hand­ed; this is impor­tant as the police launch their inves­ti­ga­tions to deter­mine whether it was sui­cide or a staged murder.