YOU SIMPLY CANNOT MAKE THESE THINGS UP; WE BRING THEM TO YOU SO YOU MAY DECIDE FOR YOURSELVES.

A Long Beach, California, school resource offi­cer fatal­ly shot an 18-year-old moth­er in the head as she fled a fight in her car. Now, two days after she died, police are inves­ti­gat­ing the shoot­ing as a homicide.
“Manuela ‘Mona’ Rodriguez, who was struck in the upper body in a shoot­ing inci­dent on Sept. 27, 2021, suc­cumbed to her injuries,” the Long Beach Police Department announced Thursday. “In light of this news, detec­tives are now inves­ti­gat­ing this mat­ter as a homicide.”
The news comes just a day after the Long Beach Unified School District vot­ed to fire safe­ty offi­cer Eddie Gonzalez for vio­lat­ing the district’s use-of-force pol­i­cy when he fired his weapon at a mov­ing vehicle.
“We believe the deci­sion to ter­mi­nate this officer’s employ­ment is war­rant­ed, jus­ti­fied, and, quite frankly, the right thing to do,” dis­trict Superintendent Jill Baker said after Wednesday’s vote.
Gonzalez was already on leave short­ly after the inci­dent took place last Monday.
Police say, Gonzalez, who’d been dri­ving by in a patrol vehi­cle just moments before the shoot­ing, noticed a fight hap­pen­ing a block away from Millikan High School, where he worked. Rodriguez had been fight­ing an uniden­ti­fied 15-year-old girl for rea­sons that are still not known.

Gonzalez stopped his car and decid­ed to inter­vene in the brawl. The offi­cer threat­ened to pep­per spray the two girls, accord­ing to an eye­wit­ness, after which they dis­persed. As the offi­cer approached again, Rodriguez alleged­ly ran and got into the pas­sen­ger side of a near­by gray sedan where Rafeul Chowdhury, the 20-year-old father of her 5‑month-old son sat, along with his 16-year-old brother.
As the trio drove away, offi­cer Gonzalez pulled out his ser­vice weapon and fired his gun at the car. Though police haven’t spec­i­fied how many shots were fired, social media video appears to show the offi­cer fir­ing two shots.

A bul­let struck Rodriguez in the back of the head, accord­ing to eye­wit­ness­es who spoke to local news affil­i­ate KTLA5. She was tak­en to Long Beach Memorial Hospital where she arrived in crit­i­cal con­di­tion. By Oct. 4, she was declared brain dead, accord­ing to state­ments by her fam­i­ly. They took the young moth­er off life sup­port the next day.
Gonzalez alleged­ly nev­er gave any addi­tion­al orders after the two girls stopped fight­ing, 16-year-old Shahriear Chowdhury told KTLA5.
“All we did is just got in the car and left,” he told the news sta­tion last Wednesday. “He nev­er told us to stop any­time soon, and the way he shot us, it wasn’t right.”
Rodriguez’s cousin Yessica Loza has now set up a GoFundMe to help raise mon­ey for the five-month-old child she leaves behind.
“She was smart, beau­ti­ful, lov­ing and any­one who knew her knew how big her heart was, how full of life she was and how much she loved her fam­i­ly,” Loza wrote of Rodriguez on the GoFundMe page. “Most espe­cial­ly her son who was her entire life, pride and joy.”

While Gonzalez hasn’t been charged yet, well-estab­lished poli­cies with­in the school dis­trict bar resource offi­cers from fir­ing at mov­ing vehi­cles. Additional prece­dent also exists at the fed­er­al lev­el, known as the “flee­ing felon rule.” A police offi­cer can only use dead­ly force to pre­vent the escape of a flee­ing sus­pect if the offi­cer has a good-faith belief that the per­son flee­ing pos­es a sig­nif­i­cant threat or seri­ous phys­i­cal injury to the offi­cer or oth­ers, accord­ing to the 1985 Supreme Court case Tennessee v. Garner. This sto­ry orig­i­nat­ed at (Vice newS)

As American police con­tin­ue their dai­ly assault against cit­i­zens of col­or, we ask the ques­tions that the cor­po­rate media will not ask. Literally, every day more and more infor­ma­tion comes to light of police atroc­i­ties against cit­i­zens of the United States, cit­i­zens of col­or. If com­mit­ted by secu­ri­ty forces in oth­er coun­tries, some of these atroc­i­ties would receive rebuke, receive sanc­tions by the United Nations.
Why are these dai­ly human rights abus­es allowed to con­tin­ue with­out any atten­tion from Human Rights Agencies? Where is Amnesty International in all of this, or is it safe to say that Amnesty International and oth­er Fraudulent Agencies that pur­port to care about human rights only care when the offend­ers are Black or Brown?

In the land of the free, judges dish out no-knock war­rants to police on the flim­sy argu­ments (by cops) that if they announce them­selves, they will be in dan­ger. Imagine heav­i­ly armed cops dressed like pow­er rangers with semi-auto­mat­ic weapons and weighed down with ammu­ni­tion, afraid for their safe­ty when they are break­ing down cit­i­zens’ homes, destroy­ing every­thing in sight as they sup­pos­ed­ly search for drugs in a hate-filled frenzy.
The body cam­eras they are sup­posed to acti­vate and wear when inter­act­ing with the pub­lic — they get to decide whether or not they turn them on dur­ing those encounters.
• They decide when to mute the audio.
• They decide what to redact from the record­ings (actions that are the same as tam­per­ing with evi­dence, yet there are absolute­ly no con­se­quences when they erase evi­dence need­ed in court proceedings.
• They get to decide whether record­ings are hand­ed over to the fam­i­lies of their vic­tims, usu­al­ly pro­duced to fam­i­lies after intense court bat­tles even though police are pub­lic employ­ees paid by the tax­pay­ers. The equip­ment is also the prop­er­ty of the tax­pay­ing public.
• Even though there is free­dom of Information laws in the United States, police tend to flout the laws with impuni­ty, basi­cal­ly oper­at­ing out­side the laws that gov­ern every­one else.
• The abil­i­ty of police to flout the laws, com­mit per­jury even in court with­out con­se­quence makes it lit­er­al­ly impos­si­ble for peo­ple of col­or to receive any jus­tice in the courts, even with­out the racial­ly biased pros­e­cu­tors and judges that pop­u­late the American Criminal Justice System.
WATCH THIS VIDEO

https://​www​.face​book​.com/​w​a​t​c​h​?​v​=​8​6​9​7​6​7​8​0​0​1​5​1​333

On what author­i­ty, you ask, can police jus­ti­fy the egre­gious instances of civ­il rights abuse with­out consequence?
In 2016 the United States Supreme Court ruled in a 6 – 3 deci­sion that in some cas­es, evi­dence of a crime can be used against a defen­dant even if police obtained it ille­gal­ly. According to the Associated Press, the 5 – 3 deci­sion drew “heat­ed dis­sents from lib­er­al jus­tices who warned that the out­come would encour­age police to vio­late people’s rights.” (ya think?) The rul­ing comes in a case in which South Salt Lake City Police Department nar­cotics detec­tive Douglas Fackrell stopped defen­dant Joseph Edward Strieff in 2006. Fackrell sus­pect­ed Strieff of being involved in drug activ­i­ty but didn’t actu­al­ly have “rea­son­able sus­pi­cion,” required by the U.S. Constitution for inves­ti­ga­to­ry stops.
During ques­tion­ing, Fackrell “relayed Strieff’s per­son­al infor­ma­tion to a police dis­patch­er — a rou­tine prac­tice dur­ing police stops — and learned Strieff had an out­stand­ing traf­fic war­rant.” The detec­tive then arrest­ed Strieff based on that war­rant and found a small amount of metham­phet­a­mine on his per­son; Strieff was charged and con­vict­ed for unlaw­ful pos­ses­sion. On Fackrell, U.S. Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in her pop­u­lar dis­sent, “In his search for law­break­ing, the offi­cer in this case him­self broke the law.”

Since then, we have seen that police have tak­en these Supreme Court Actions to mean that they have unfet­tered action to do as they please, includ­ing to take life with impunity.
This writer con­tin­ue to main­tain that the Supreme Court con­tin­ues to be a grave threat to the rights and free­doms of the aver­age American.
Coupled with the doc­trine of qual­i­fied immu­ni­ty cre­at­ed by the court, American police offi­cers have a license to abuse the rights of cit­i­zens at will with lit­tle to no fear that they will be held accountable.
We now see police con­duct traf­fic stops by using lies that dri­vers failed to indi­cate before a turn, that the dri­ver hit a yel­low line, was dri­ving unsteady, or any num­ber of lies they dream up to jus­ti­fy their inten­tions to search a cit­i­zen’s auto­mo­bile and run their licens­es for warrants.
We have seen police ille­gal­ly stop motorists and spend an inor­di­nate amount of time hold­ing the motorist hostage as they fish for some­thing to charge the motorist with. These are [not]the actions of a free society.
These actions direct­ly con­tra­vene the Constitutional fourth amend­ment guar­an­tee a cit­i­zen has against ille­gal gov­ern­ment intru­sion into their per­son­al spaces.

In her moral and com­mon­sense dis­sent to the court’s 2016 rul­ing, Justice Sonia Sotomayor said:
The Court today holds that the dis­cov­ery of a war­rant for an unpaid park­ing tick­et will for­give a police officer’s vio­la­tion of your Fourth Amendment rights. Do not be soothed by the opinion’s tech­ni­cal lan­guage: This case allows the police to stop you on the street, demand your iden­ti­fi­ca­tion, and check it for out­stand­ing traf­fic war­rants — even if you are doing noth­ing wrong. If the offi­cer dis­cov­ers a war­rant for a fine you for­got to pay, courts will now excuse his ille­gal stop and will admit into evi­dence any­thing he hap­pens to find by search­ing you after arrest­ing you on the war­rant. Because the Fourth Amendment should pro­hib­it, not per­mit, such mis­con­duct, I dis­sent. I do not doubt that most offi­cers act in “good faith” and do not set out to break the law. That does not mean these stops are “iso­lat­ed instance[s] of neg­li­gence,” how­ev­er. Many are the prod­uct of insti­tu­tion­al­ized train­ing pro­ce­dures. The New York City Police Department long trained offi­cers to, in the words of a District Judge, “stop and ques­tion first, devel­op rea­son­able sus­pi­cion later.”
Most Americans of col­or and even poor­er whites are now liv­ing that dystopi­an night­mare in their every­day lives.
Scoop​.com argues, The United States and its allies do not call the U.S. a “police state,” but, if this phrase has any mean­ing, then it clear­ly does apply, and a strong case can be pre­sent­ed that the U.S. might even be more of a police state than is any oth­er nation on Earth.
In January of 2021, Scoop​.com​.nz reported

Since 2015, police offi­cers have fatal­ly shot at least 135 unarmed Black men and women nation­wide, an NPR inves­ti­ga­tion has found. NPR reviewed police, court, and oth­er records to exam­ine the details of the cas­es. At least 75% of the offi­cers were white. The lat­est one hap­pened this month in Killeen, Texas, when Patrick Warren Sr., 52, was fatal­ly shot by an offi­cer respond­ing to a men­tal health call.

For at least 15 of the offi­cers …, the shoot­ings were not their first — or their last, NPR found. They have been involved in two — some­times three or more — shoot­ings, often dead­ly and with­out consequences.

In fact:

Of the offi­cers involved in the dead­ly shoot­ings of unarmed Black peo­ple over the last five years, 13 were charged with mur­der. Two were found guilty.NPR’s report alleged a num­ber of rea­sons for that “with­out con­se­quences,” but ignored the most impor­tant one: In 1967, the U.S. Supreme Court cre­at­ed what is, in prac­ti­cal real­i­ty, a new law, almost a total ban against con­vict­ing a police offi­cer of mur­der if he kills some­one while on the job. The ‘Justices’ called this judge-made law (sub­se­quent­ly reaf­firmed by the Supreme Court many times, the lat­est being in 2020) “qual­i­fied immu­ni­ty,” but it is very close to being total immu­ni­ty, and thus vir­tu­al­ly all of the many abus­es that NPR report­ed there can be traced back to it. Being a main­stream ‘news’-medium, the deep­er lev­el of real­i­ty is cen­sored out by the edi­tors and managers.(scoop.com.nz wrote.)

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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. 

There is some­thing to be said about the para­bles old­er black peo­ple dish out to their, chil­dren, waste not, want not, what goes around comes around, spit at the sky it falls in your face.….…..a hit hog hollers.
Over the years, two of the loud­est and most dis­grace­ful­ly dis­re­spect­ful peo­ple on New York City pub­lic pay­roll have been Patrick Lynch, who heads the NYPD patrol­men’s union, and Ed Mullins, the sergeant who heads the union for oth­ers in his rank.
Make no mis­take about it, the vast major­i­ty of the close to approx­i­mate­ly 36,000 mem­bers of that orga­ni­za­tion, regard­less of col­or, are crude, coarse, and dis­re­spect­ful to mem­bers of the pub­lic who pay their salaries and benefits.
That is not to say that every­one who enters the depart­ment does so intend­ing to do harm; they just become accli­ma­tized to the cul­ture of dis­dain that the NYPD has had for the aver­age New York City res­i­dent who is not wealthy and white.

Both Patrick Lynch and Ed Mullins rep­re­sent the worst of the traits that have plagued the NYPD for decades.
Consequently, mem­bers are social­ized into under­stand­ing that no mat­ter how bad­ly they behave or treat the pub­lic, they will be defend­ed by the two insub­or­di­nate racists who head the two unions.
Neither Mullins nor Lynch has demon­strat­ed any regard or respect for their civil­ian boss­es, the Mayors elect­ed by the cit­i­zens of New York City, par­tic­u­lar­ly Democratic Mayors in the heav­i­ly Democratic city.
On the con­trary, the two union heads have been extreme­ly def­er­en­tial and respect­ful of Rudolph Guiliani and Michael Bloomberg, Republicans who have basi­cal­ly giv­en them carte blanch to abuse and vio­late rights as they see fit.
No one should be sur­prised then that the FBI Had cause to raid the office of Ed Mullins as well as his home on Long Island.
Ain’t it a bitch how these clowns go into New York City and abuse the black and brown cit­i­zens of the city then go home to Long Island where they live out their racist tendencies.
Why are they allowed to live out­side the city, draw a salary and huge ben­e­fits from city res­i­dents whom they despise and hate, dis­re­spect city lead­ers, and get away with it?

HERE IS THE STORY

The con­tro­ver­sial chief of a New York Police Department (NYPD) sergeants’s union has resigned after the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) raid­ed his home and the union head­quar­ters. Ed Mullins, the pres­i­dent of the NYPD Sergeants Benevolent Association (SBA), resigned on the request of the union’s board, accord­ing to a mes­sage it sent to its mem­bers. FBI spokesper­son Martin Feely told the Associated Press (AP) that agents were “car­ry­ing out a law enforce­ment action in con­nec­tion with an ongo­ing investigation.”Agents were seen com­ing out of Mullins’s home on Long Island and the SBA’s head­quar­ters in Manhattan, where they were seen clutch­ing big box­es and black garbage bags. “The nature and scope of this crim­i­nal inves­ti­ga­tion has yet to be deter­mined,” the SBA mes­sage said. “However, it is clear that Mullins is appar­ent­ly the tar­get of the fed­er­al inves­ti­ga­tion. We have no rea­son to believe that any oth­er mem­ber of the SBA is involved or tar­get­ed in this matter.”

The union also said Mr Mullins was “enti­tled to the pre­sump­tion of inno­cence” and asked its mem­bers to “with­hold judg­ment until all the facts have been estab­lished.” The union’s day-to-day func­tion­ing and the “impor­tant busi­ness of the SBA” could not be dis­tract­ed by the “exis­tence of this inves­ti­ga­tion,” it said. Messages seek­ing com­ment over the raids were left with Mr Mullins by the AP but calls to him went to his voice­mail. Mr Mullins has court­ed con­tro­ver­sy many times in the past, often the result of his social media use. The for­mer union chief had last year attacked NYPD lead­er­ship and the city’s Mayor Bill de Blasio, a fre­quent source of his anger. He had come under fire and was slapped with charges after post­ing the arrest details of Chiara de Blasio, the mayor’s daugh­ter, over protests that had erupt­ed in the city after the death of George Floyd. Mr Mullins had also attacked Mr De Blasio for tak­ing an anti-police stance.

“Since first tak­ing office in 2014, De Blasio’s incen­di­ary anti-police rhetoric has already result­ed in three police offi­cers being exe­cut­ed while sit­ting in police vehi­cles, Molotov cock­tails being lobbed at offi­cers and into police vehi­cles, armed assaults on police facil­i­ties, cops being pelt­ed with debris, and whole­sale dam­age to police and pub­lic prop­er­ty,” he wrote in an arti­cle for the Daily Mail ear­li­er this year. Mr De Blasio shot back at Mr Mullins after the FBI raids, say­ing he had “dis­hon­ored his uni­form, his city and his union more times than I can count.” “It was just a mat­ter of time before his end­less hatred would catch up with him. That day has come.”

In anoth­er instance, Mr Mullins had tweet­ed, using the SBA’s offi­cial Twitter account, call­ing the city’s health com­mis­sion­er a “b***h” who had “blood on her hands” after she sparred with the NYPD over half a mil­lion hos­pi­tal-grade face masks. He had also report­ed­ly called Congressman Ritchie Torres a “first-class w***e.” Along with the FBI raids, Mr Mullins is also fac­ing an NYPD enquiry for his posts on social media and vio­la­tion of NYPD con­duct rules. He has open­ly sup­port­ed for­mer US pres­i­dent Donald Trump, who he met at the White House in 2020. He also appeared in a TV inter­view with a QAnon cof­fee mug in the back­ground. Mr Mullins, a police offi­cer since 1982, rose to the rank of sergeant in 1993 and was elect­ed pres­i­dent of the SBA in 2002.(https://​news​.yahoo​.com/​n​y​p​d​-​u​n​i​o​n​-​c​h​i​e​f​-​r​e​s​i​g​n​s​-​f​o​l​l​o​w​i​n​g​-​1​1​1​6​5​4​0​4​2​.​h​tml)

Full dis­clo­sure, I have not done the research to deter­mine whether or not the tri­al of 33 indi­vid­u­als under the Criminal Justice Suppression of Criminal Organisations) (Amendment) Act is the largest sin­gle tri­al in Jamaica’s history.
However, I believe that it is the largest under this rel­a­tive­ly new Act, and though it came late, I com­mend the author­i­ties for final­ly mov­ing to pass this legislation.
Frankly, this leg­is­la­tion should have been passed more than three decades ago. We will nev­er know how many lives could have been saved had the author­i­ties moved to end the car­nage by pass­ing laws like this that make it clear that vio­lent acts of crim­i­nal­i­ty will not be tolerated.
Even so, the law does not go near­ly far enough, par­tic­u­lar­ly when con­sid­ered against Jamaica’s unique sit­u­a­tion of judges that sup­plant the will of the peo­ple and the law with their own views and polit­i­cal feel­ings as to how vio­lent crim­i­nals are to be treated.

Literally every day, we see mur­der­ers grant­ed bail, have their sen­tences shaved by the court of appeals, or over­turned alto­geth­er by these judges who no one elect­ed, and who strong­ly believe they should not be questioned.
As some­one who stri­dent­ly lob­bied for this leg­is­la­tion, I believe it fell well short of what it should have been as it relates to manda­to­ry ‑min­i­mum sen­tences for cer­tain cat­e­gories of vio­lent crimes. It also does not go far enough on truth in sentencing.
The law adopts some of the US Rico statute’s tenets, yet leg­is­la­tors failed to add the nec­es­sary teeth that would demon­strate once and for all that the days of wan­ton mur­ders are indeed over in Jamaica.
Why they failed to add enough teeth to the leg­is­la­tion is any­body’s guess, but this writer will delve deep­er into the ‘why’ at a lat­er date.

The tri­al this time includes these defen­dants; Andre Bryan, Kevaughn Green, Tomrick Taylor, Damaine Elliston, Kalifa Williams, Daniel McKenzie, Michael Whitely, Pete Miller, Dylon McClean, Dwight Hall, Carl Beech, Lamar Simpson, Donavon Richards, Tareek James, Stephanie Christie, Fabian Johnson, Jahzeel Blake, Roel Taylor, Rushane Williams, Kemar Harrison, Joseph McDermott, Jermaine Robinson, Rivaldo Hylton, Jason Brown, Andre Golding, Marco Miller, Chevoy Evans, Brian Morris, Andre Smith, Dwayne Salmon, Ricardo Thomas, Ted Prince, and Owen Ormsby.
“Kudos” to the mem­bers of the secu­ri­ty forces that put the work in on behalf of their coun­try; it seems to any care­ful watch­er that despite its inabil­i­ty to shed itself of dirty cops and incom­pe­tence, the JCF and affil­i­ate agen­cies now han­dling crim­i­nal inves­ti­ga­tions are the only agen­cies stand­ing between anar­chy and the law-abid­ing Jamaicans.
One of the things that caught my eyes, which comes as no sur­prise, is the forty (40) crim­i­nal defense lawyers rep­re­sent­ing the 33 accused.

We ful­ly appre­ci­ate the need for all defen­dants accused of crimes to have an appro­pri­ate defense. It is that vig­or­ous defense that guar­an­tees that Government does not steam­roll ordi­nary cit­i­zens who may be innocent.
But some­times, it bears not­ing that the defense rep­re­sen­ta­tion lev­el and the type of defense lawyers mount on behalf of oth­er­wise seem­ing­ly poor, une­d­u­cat­ed defen­dants are cir­cum­stan­tial evi­dence of the defen­dan­t’s guilt.
Jamaica has cho­sen to build a cot­tage indus­try around vio­lent crim­i­nal­i­ty rather than cre­ate mea­sures to end it.
From the pro­lif­er­a­tion of funer­al par­lors, bands, and of course, the oppor­tu­ni­ty for rapa­cious lawyers to fight the sys­tem on behalf of crim­i­nals, Jamaica is ripe to con­tin­ue being a par­adise for the pro­lif­er­a­tion and growth of crim­i­nal gangs.
We watch with the rest of the world to see what this court does with this case, even as there is a con­tin­ued cry that judges in the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem are destroy­ing the rule of law by inject­ing their own lib­er­al bias­es into their adjudications.
It is a dis­grace and it must end now.

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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. 

The wit­ness­es’ chill­ing tes­ti­mo­ny in the Klansman gang tri­al bore out some impor­tant details that Byran Sykes will sure­ly miss.
According to one wit­ness who tes­ti­fied remote­ly, Klansman gang boss Andre “Blackman,” Bryan ordered the killing of a man known as [Outlaw]. The indi­vid­ual killed in Lauriston had been marked for death by Bryan. According to the self- con­fessed gang­ster turned state wit­ness, Bryan had asked him for a ride to the scene in a sep­a­rate vehi­cle from the shooter’s because the reput­ed Klansman leader “want­ed to see Outlaw before he was killed.”
He parked on an oppo­site side of the road so Bryan could have his wish, and they watched the soon-to-be vic­tim for about five min­utes. After pulling away from the area where shots were heard fired, Bryan start­ed laughing.
A phone call moments lat­er informed them that “Outlaw” had been killed, was met with more laugh­ter from Bryan, accord­ing to the witness.

Note; the fore­gone evi­dence was giv­en to the court on September 22^nd.
It is impor­tant to fol­low this sequence so that a bet­ter pic­ture may emerge as to the pathol­o­gy of these socio­path­ic killers oper­at­ing in our coun­try, even as the secu­ri­ty forces and the gov­ern­ment, includ­ing the courts, respond to them with incom­pe­tence and deference.
It is impor­tant to note that accord­ing to the wit­ness’s tes­ti­mo­ny, Andre Blackman Bryan burst into laugh­ter after watch­ing his intend­ed vic­tim and hear­ing the gun­shots. Like a beast of prey, he stalked his vic­tim, know­ing that he had ordered him killed and that the vic­tim’s life would be snuffed out in an instant based on his orders.
He want­ed the added sat­is­fac­tion of watch­ing him alive, know­ing that his words, his com­mand would end Outlaw’s life.
I warned in an arti­cle days ago, this very court will do every­thing in its pow­er to return these mur­der­ers to the streets to con­tin­ue their reign of ter­ror, giv­en the slight­est lie and non-issue raised by the CRIMINAL defense team.

Now let us look at some impor­tant fac­tors in the evi­dence giv­en to the court the next day, September 23^rd. I under­stand that the court has no oblig­a­tion to look for issues of sociopa­thy. Certainly, I would not expect a court in Jamaica to care enough about vic­tims of these sociopaths to note the degree of degen­er­a­cy in them, even as it is bla­tant­ly clear to every­one else.
The wit­ness, who has claimed to be the gang’s banker and Bryan’s per­son­al dri­ver, among oth­er things, made this asser­tion while detail­ing for the court the mur­der of a for­mer depor­tee on Jones Avenue in Spanish Town in 2019.
Asked by the pros­e­cu­tor lead­ing the evi­dence whether Bryan — who had report­ed­ly told his hench­men that, “Mi want [unnuh] to go kill di Rasta inna di lane,” — had offered any expla­na­tions as to why the man was to die and if he had par­tic­i­pat­ed in those dis­cus­sions, the wit­ness said, “I was tak­ing orders, Sir.”

As the wit­ness gave evi­dence and detailed the grue­some nature of the killings, Andre “Blackman” Bryan burst into uncon­trolled laugh­ter to the point he was seen wip­ing away tears from his eyes,-tears that flowed from laughter.
The court will not be called upon to deter­mine the psy­cho­log­i­cal con­di­tion of Andre “Blackman,” Bryan. Neither will his sociopa­thy help to deter­mine inno­cence or guilt.
What is clear is that this defen­dant is a sociopath. He has a blood-lust and is total­ly indif­fer­ent to the sanc­ti­ty of human life, regard­less of who the per­son is. (Full dis­clo­sure, I am not a med­ical doc­tor, psy­chi­a­trist, or health professional…)

The chances that a crim­i­nal defen­dant will be found guilty in a Jamaican court are pret­ty low. The courts exact an undue and inor­di­nate bur­den on the pros­e­cu­tion, which is any­thing but “beyond a rea­son­able doubt,” which ought to be the standard.
Based on the court’s his­to­ry, that stan­dard has been cir­cum­vent­ed for the steep­er, ” with­out any doubt.” .….And that’s before the appeals process.
Given the remote chance of a con­vic­tion, the appel­late court is ready and will­ing to aid con­vict­ed mur­der­ers by let­ting them loose on a con­coct­ed tech­ni­cal­i­ty or shave some time off the light sen­tence hand­ed down by the tri­al court.
The derange­ment being exhib­it­ed by this defen­dant came about because this nation decid­ed to hug up don cul­ture. It came about because each lit­tle shit­head can vie to see who can be more ruth­less in tak­ing life-who can hand out the ill-got­ten spoils from the unchecked acts of extor­tion, mur­der for hire, and the gen­er­al macabre killings.
They laugh because they are cel­e­brat­ed rather than reviled. They laugh because they have zero respect for the process, not the police nor the pros­e­cu­tors. After all, they know that the tri­ers of facts are ready and wait­ing to give them a pass for their sociopathy.

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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. 

It is still a mys­tery to me why it takes so long for police offi­cers to be arrest­ed when they com­mit crimes for every­one to see?
When ordi­nary mem­bers of the pub­lic com­mit crimes they’re imme­di­ate­ly arrest­ed. When Black and Bron Americans com­mit the most minor infrac­tion they are sum­mar­i­ly gunned down at the drop of a hat.
So, I am yet to under­stand the long delays and tor­tured process that goes into arrest­ing those who have a high­er bur­den [not] to break the laws?
We have all seen the videos now mur­der in plain sight; yet to get jus­tice when police are involved is like find­ing water in the Saraha. It is as dif­fi­cult as putting a camel through a needle’s eye.
Why is that? (mb)

WATCH THE VIDEO AND PROSECUTOR’S STATEMENTS BELOW.

STORY

In a statement Thursday, Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle said that after receiving medical records and after further investigation into the July 26 incident at the Royal Palm Hotel, the misdemeanor charges that had been previously filed have been upgraded.

In a state­ment Thursday, Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle said that after receiv­ing med­ical records and after fur­ther inves­ti­ga­tion into the July 26 inci­dent at the Royal Palm Hotel, the mis­de­meanor charges that had been pre­vi­ous­ly filed have been upgraded.“All aspects of this July 26^th police inci­dent are tak­en very seri­ous­ly by my pros­e­cu­tors,” Fernandez Rundle’s state­ment read. “The inves­ti­ga­tion has been and will be as thor­ough and com­plete as pos­si­ble since our entire com­mu­ni­ty has been shocked and offend­ed by what we have seen

Sgt. Jose Perez and Officer Kevin Perez now face felony bat­tery charges, while Officer Steven Serrano faces an offi­cial mis­con­duct charge. The new charges will be offi­cial­ly brought before a cir­cuit court judge next week.
Two oth­er offi­cers — Robert Sabater and David Rivas — face mis­de­meanor charges in the incident.
The inci­dent began when offi­cials said offi­cers approached 24-year-old Daltona Crudup for park­ing a scoot­er ille­gal­ly on 9^th Street and Ocean Court. Crudup fled from offi­cers and struck an offi­cer with the scoot­er, offi­cials said. The offi­cer had to be hos­pi­tal­ized with a leg injury that required crutches.
While try­ing to get away, Crudup ran into the lob­by of the hotel on Collins Avenue, where offi­cers took him into custody.
Surveillance footage showed Crudup run into an ele­va­tor at the hotel, where he had been stay­ing. Right behind him was an offi­cer who took him into cus­tody at gunpoint.

But moments lat­er, sev­er­al more offi­cers respond­ed and Crudup was kicked in the head mul­ti­ple times while he was on the ground and in hand­cuffs, Fernandez Rundle said. A sec­ond man, 28-year-old Khalid Vaughn, start­ed tak­ing video of Crudup’s arrest with his phone, and was arrest­ed on charges of resist­ing an offi­cer and inter­fer­ing with a law enforce­ment inves­ti­ga­tion, offi­cials said. Body-worn footage showed an offi­cer tack­ling Vaughn before anoth­er offi­cer is seen repeat­ed­ly punch­ing him in the rib cage area, Fernandez Rundle said. The charges were lat­er dropped against Vaughn. Fernandez Rundle said Crudup did not sign the HIPPA waiv­er to allow pros­e­cu­tors to view his med­ical records until Aug. 25, and that’s when pros­e­cu­tors were able to ful­ly review the extent of Crudup’s injuries.“A deep­er under­stand­ing of the actu­al injuries was nec­es­sary to file these felony bat­tery charges,” Fernandez Rundle said.
The five offi­cers were placed on admin­is­tra­tive leave fol­low­ing the inci­dent, and have been sus­pend­ed. (NBC Miami reports)

The tri­al of 33 defen­dants alleged to be mem­bers of the Klansman Gang should first inform the author­i­ties of the seri­ous nature and the com­plex­i­ties the nation faces as transna­tion­al crim­i­nals coa­lesce in fur­ther­ance of their crim­i­nal goals.
For years this writer has called for tough laws typ­i­cal to the Rico Statute used by the United States to break the back of orga­nized crime.
That Statute pros­e­cutes crim­i­nal defen­dants act­ing in con­cert in fur­ther­ance of crim­i­nal wrong­do­ings and pun­ish­es them harshly.
Jamaican author­i­ties, faced with the exis­ten­tial threat of gang takeover of our coun­try, cob­bled togeth­er a hap­haz­ard piece of anti-gang leg­is­la­tion that does not go near­ly far enough in send­ing the appro­pri­ate mes­sage to gang­sters that they will be held ful­ly accountable.

Even as the police depart­ment, in its hap­haz­ard way, was warn­ing the coun­try that there was an exis­ten­tial threat fac­ing the coun­try through the gang for guns trade, know- it ‑all mouth­pieces like Horace Levy were telling the gov­ern­ment and peo­ple, that the killer gangs were actu­al­ly not gangs at all,-they were “cor­ner crews,” just guys hang­ing out on the corners.
Of course, nei­ther of the PNP admin­is­tra­tions that pre­ced­ed this JLP admin­is­tra­tion did much to secure the nation against this rather seri­ous threat.
Things came to a head after years and years of implau­si­ble deni­a­bil­i­ty and com­plic­i­ty. Prime Minister Andrew Holness was forced to con­cede that the threat posed by the transna­tion­al crime syn­di­cates oper­at­ing in Jamaica was out­side the abil­i­ties of the police to control.
Holness’s come to Jesus moment suc­ceed­ed the for­mer PNP’s min­is­ter of nation­al secu­ri­ty, Peter Bunting. He threw up his hands and declared that the only thing that could save Jamaica from the crim­i­nals ram­pag­ing unchecked was divine intervention.

https://​mike​beck​les​.com/​c​h​a​n​g​-​p​a​u​l​w​e​l​l​-​b​e​g​s​-​d​i​a​s​p​o​r​a​-​c​r​i​m​i​n​a​l​s​-​n​o​t​-​t​o​-​s​e​n​d​-​g​u​n​s​-​w​h​e​n​-​h​a​s​-​b​e​g​g​i​n​g​-​c​r​i​m​i​n​a​l​s​-​e​v​e​r​-​w​o​r​k​ed/

But that was also a lie- a big lie. In fact, the Jamaican peo­ple know the truth, Christians and non-Christians, Theist and Atheist, Rasta and bald­head, no one is com­ing to save the coun­try from crim­i­nals. The Savior they seek is us; we are the change we seek.
It took decades of bad-mouthing the police, starv­ing the depart­ment of resources, inter­fer­ing in the job of the police, and refus­ing to pay offi­cers a liv­able wage, effec­tive­ly caus­ing a flood of migra­tion that still today, the depart­ment can­not stop. They allowed the media and oth­er “eat-a-food” enti­ties like Jamaicans for Justice and oth­ers to spread pro­pa­gan­da and lies against the police, which got us to where we are today.
Both polit­i­cal par­ties are respon­si­ble for it.

The net result is that we now have a bet­ter-equipped police depart­ment than three decades ago. However, they still haven’t ful­ly moved to the more pro­fes­sion­al blue den­im across the board, and female offi­cers are still wear­ing skirts.
The depart­ment is still encum­bered by the same polit­i­cal inter­fer­ence, lack of ade­quate pay & leg­isla­tive sup­port. It is still hob­bled by train­ing that is so out­dat­ed that it is both shame­ful and laughable.
None of the issues fac­ing those who enforce the laws is more daunt­ing than the judges who sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly return dan­ger­ous gang mem­bers to the streets upon con­vic­tion with mere slaps on the wrists.
The police com­mis­sion­er Antony Anderson recent­ly spoke out against this prac­tice, albeit tongue-in-cheek and hav­ing arrived at the dance a day late and a dol­lar short.

The pros­e­cu­tion alleges that the defen­dants car­ried out a range of mur­ders, con­spir­a­cies to mur­der and extor­tion, and arson through­out St Catherine with­in the four years between 2015 & 2019. It said the gang’s head­quar­ters at Jones Avenue in Spanish Town was used by gang mem­bers for plan­ning their exploits and was also where brief­ing and debrief­ing in respect of crimes took place. The man said to be the leader of the gang, Andre Bryan, also known as Blackman and Teacha, is also among the 33.
Prosecutors also allege that defen­dants, which com­prise the “Blackman fac­tion” of the gang under Bryan’s lead­er­ship, had var­i­ous roles in which they act­ed as “killers, dri­vers, look­out men or watch­men, gun­smiths, and foot soldiers.
Even with the hard work put in by inves­ti­ga­tors and the chal­lenge pros­e­cu­tors have of win­ning con­vic­tions against these bru­tal, ani­mal­is­tic killers, the peo­ple face the daunt­ing prospect that the crim­i­nal cod­dling judges will let most defen­dants walk .”
And if that does­n’t hap­pen, there is always the court of appeals that is always will­ing to inject itself into the tri­al court’s deci­sions; if not to cut the con­vict­ed mur­der­ers loose, at least shave some time from their sentences.

https://​mike​beck​les​.com/​j​a​m​a​i​c​a​n​-​p​m​-​s​h​o​o​k​-​o​v​e​r​-​h​a​i​t​i​a​n​-​l​e​a​d​e​r​s​-​d​e​m​i​se/

It was only after Haitian President Jovenel Moïse was mur­dered in his own home in July of 2021 that the Jamaican Prime Minister final­ly woke up from his life­long stu­por on the seri­ous­ness of the gangs’ chal­lenges to nation­al security.
No, the videos were not depict­ing the heavy weapon­ry they unleashed against the secu­ri­ty Forces in May Pen as they robbed the Chinese busi­ness. It was­n’t because of any of the oth­er videos that he closed his eyes to, as the very peo­ple he said police would not be kick­ing down doors to get the crim­i­nals while he was cam­paign­ing and even after he was elect­ed to office, it was only when he felt that he was vul­ner­a­ble he decid­ed to speak out.
“We are mak­ing long-term invest­ments in infra­struc­ture and human devel­op­ment, but we have an urgent prob­lem that, if we don’t use excep­tion­al pow­ers to address, those gangs can become a seri­ous threat to the State.” 
“I don’t have to expand and unpack that state­ment any­more. Ninety miles away from here; you see what can hap­pen.”(Andrew Holness)
Only after a region­al leader was assas­si­nat­ed and his own mor­tal­i­ty became a real­i­ty did he final­ly awake from his damn slum­ber and begin to real­ize that being born in Spanish Town, or wher­ev­er, does not make a damn dif­fer­ence; this is an exis­ten­tial crisis.
Holness spent his entire polit­i­cal life bad-mouthing the police and polic­ing in gen­er­al, giv­ing def­er­ence to the vilest crea­tures over the men and women who risk life and limb to defend our coun­try so that he can sleep safe­ly at night.

So as this tri­al progress, be pre­pared to see the lib­er­al elites sit­ting in judg­ment use the posi­tions giv­en them by the peo­ple against the people.
Be pre­pared to see them decide on slaps on the wrists for these vicious mis­fits who made con­scious deci­sions to oper­ate out­side soci­etal norms.
Because the buck stops with them and no one should dare ques­tion them because ques­tion­ing them is bring­ing the jus­tice sys­tem into dis­re­pute. This is the stuff tyran­ny is made of.
Imagine the affron­tery; unelect­ed bureau­crats decid­ing that their actions should not be ques­tioned because they know what’s best for us; we don’t…

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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.