Déjà vu? Maybe, but to those old enough to remember, it sure seems like a second go-around of testosterone-laden posturing by two military super-powers, and our diminutive Jamaica is once again caught in the middle.
As part of his duties as the practical executive head of state of Jamaica, Prime Minister Andrew Holness over the last few days have been on a 9‑day working visit to the people’s republic of China. At the same time Admiral Craig Faller, commander of the United States Southern Command, who visited Jamaica issued a warning to Jamaica. Quote: “We see that other external actors, other regions of the world that do not share the same values, are operating in conjunction with [Venezuelan President Nicolás] Maduro for their own good.” “Russia is right there alongside contributing disinformation, and China is in there as well as part of the disinformation campaign.”
Interestingly, military people are not allowed to engage in politicking in the United States. Additionally, Jamaica is not a state, neither is it a territory of the United States. Jamaicans are quite capable of thinking for themselves and so Faller’s statements were grossly unwanted, condescending and out of order.
There are several theses that could be written about the American-Jamaican experience, not the least of which occurred in the ’70s at the heights of the cold war between the United States and the Soviet Union in which Jamaica became a pawn. The idea that Jamaica, and indeed many other poor nations across Africa and Latin-America should be wary of perceived Chinese benevolence goes without saying. In a conversation, I had with some friends recently, I likened the Chinese experience to a [Trojan horse], I argued that indeed, Jamaica and Africa should be careful of the Chinese gifts and entreaties. Already there are signs that Chinese money does come with terrible strings many of which are still not visible to its debtors.
The Chinese Belt and Road pact, part of a global development initiative is destined to be successful because like the initiatives of others, supposedly aimed at nation-building, it is not executed at the point of a gun. In that stealth approach, however, the Chinese may be particularly dangerous to naïve nations in need. There should be no doubt about Chinese expansionist ambitions not just in Jamaica, but across the globe. There should never be any doubt that the Chinese are spreading around money with ulterior motives that benefit China, and sets China up as a global counterweight to America’s hegemony.
It is not that Admiral Craig Faller is wrong on the merits. His temerity and gall made him wrong. As a visitor to Jamaica, Faller had no right to speak on political issues as if Jamaica is Guam, or Puerto Rico. Jamaica is a small nation 4411 square miles and 2.7 million people. If the United States wanted to use its power and influence for good, Jamaica could be a developed state like Dubai or Singapore today. Offering that kind of help through loans, grants, and technical expertise, the United States would not have to worry about poor Jamaicans trying to enter the United States. The United States has had its chance to be a better role model to Jamaica, a fledgling Democracy merely 57-years old. After the 1970s which saw many smaller nations being used as pawns between the two competing super-powers, Jamaica demonstrated that as a nation she was diametrically opposed to Communism in 1980 when the American backed Edward Seaga of the JLP was elected, winning 51 of the then 60 seats in the Legislature. After eight years of the JLP, the Manley PNP was returned to power. Since then stewardship of the country has been shared between the two political parties.
The cold war ended under Ronald Reagan’s presidency which ran simultaneously to Seaga’s stewardship of Jamaica. Contrary to the hype, the Soviet Union collapsed under its own weight rather than anything Reagan or anyone else may have done. In the years ensuing since the fall of the Soviet Union, the United States has enjoyed a total and complete hegemonic monopoly across the globe. During that time the United States has made tremendous strides militarily, technologically and otherwise, acquiring untold wealth in the private sector as it spreads its wings as the sole superpower in the world. At the same time, the tiny Island Nation of Jamaica, a short hop from America’s Florida shores has struggled with poverty, and crime aggravated by the flood of illegal American guns.
America had a chance to demonstrate to the world that it stands with those who have stood by her. Jamaica has always stood steadfastly with the United States, she did so in the early years of world war two and again in the nineteen-eighties when she resoundingly rejected communism. Instead of helping Jamaica in a meaningful way to develop her infrastructure, Roadways. Bridges. Water supply. etc, America embarked on wars across the globe, many of which were totally unnecessary. In the meantime, the United States treated Jamaica as an unwanted stepchild. Deportations and disenchantment are the defining characteristics that permeate the relationship between the two. Still, because of the prospect of a better life, Jamaicans still line up in Liguanea, trying to get a visa to enter the United States. Despite paying tremendous sums of money just to apply for a visitor visa only a tiny fraction of applicants are granted a visa. The 90 plus percent who are denied a visa do not get their money back.
In response to Faller’s unsolicited statements, the Chinese Embassy in Kingston issued a release in which they said the following. “Facts speak louder than words. Sino-Jamaica, Sino-Caribbean, and Sino-Latin American coöperation, which features equality, transparency, and mutual benefit, is conducive to regional peace, stability, and development and will not be stopped by any force.” “Irrespective of the intentions by Admiral Faller making those irresponsible accusations, China will continuously and unswervingly work together with Jamaica and other Latin American and Caribbean countries to jointly promote the Belt and Road coöperation for shared benefits, contributing to the building of a community with a shared future for mankind.”
The inclusion of the terms, equality and mutual benefit were particularly resonant in my opinion. There is a perception that in relationships with the United States and smaller nations there is no equality, or respect. Many see those relationships as a take it or leave it affair. Those perceptions will, and have greatly influenced the way poorer nations respond to Chinese entreaties. Trojan horse or not.
Mike Beckles is a former Jamaican police Detective corporal, a business owner, avid researcher, and blogger. He is a black achiever honoree, and publisher of the blog chatt-a-box.com. He’s also a contributor to several websites. You may subscribe to his blogs free of charge, or subscribe to his Youtube channel @chatt-a-box, for the latest podcast all free to you of course.
There are hundreds of cases of horrific murders committed in Jamaica each year, that would cause any reasonable person of sound mind and judgment to say this cannot stand. In most cases, the horrific details are not shown to the Jamaican people. Media houses sometimes do not have the imagery, and in other cases have determined that the images are far too gruesome for public consumption. The value of that strategy is arguable, as many Jamaicans still seem to be in the fog about the savagery of the Island’s criminals.
In inner-city communities, and now all across the Island, in once-peaceful communities, people live in total fear of their own neighbors. They know that the men living next door are dangerous killers, but they are too terrified to even report their activities to the authorities.
The last person executed in Jamaica was Nathan Foster, who was convicted of murder and hanged in 1988. The Jamaican Parliament then placed a moratorium on the death penalty until 2009, when it was lifted. Even so, since then, not a single person has faced the death penalty regardless of the horrific nature of the crimes they committed. Not only has there been no hangings ( the previous method of death for capital offenders), on the rare occasion a mass murderer is convicted, he is given a laughable sentence, sometimes as little as five years in prison or less. The confluence of cozy complicity with criminality at all levels, has served to embolden traditional criminals, and has created a new set of even more dangerous trans-Atlantic criminal enterprises.
Instead of taking steps to protect the country and its inhabitants from the mindless killing machines, administrations of both Political parties have opted to go in the opposite direction. By that I mean, they have opted to be more conciliatory toward the criminal gangs which are the familial base of the murderers. Both political parties and elements within the security apparatus are affiliated with elements in the criminal underworld. This was common knowledge from decades ago when I was a law enforcement officer. Today, we know this from actions taken by the Americans in the cancellation of visas and other punitive measures against politicians and law enforcement officials. We also see these associations manifested in the inability and unwillingness of the police to investigate arrest and prosecute certain well-placed criminals. In fact, it is well known that the Jamaican police only go after low-level street criminals, while well-connected gangland aficionados and their political sponsor’s thumb their noses at the law with impunity.
The two political parties pay lip service to the rule of law through high profile photo-ops and the passage of toothless watered-down anti-crime measures, while simultaneously deconstructing the potential of the JCF to effectively tackle the gangs. The passage of the INDECOM Act is one such measure which gives the impression locally and internationally, that the much-maligned police force was indeed guilty of widespread extra-judicial killings and other acts of criminality. Sure, there were some extra-judicial killings and other acts of criminality within the constabulary, but those were by-products of political interference and the starvation of the security forces of vital resources. Show me a country or a security service that does not have those dark secrets in their past and present. This does not mean that we agree with them. We work to make our security services better thereby removing the need for those practices. The perception that the police were inherently corrupt presented a golden opportunity in 2010 for the JLPs Bruce Golding to create INDECOM the Independent Commission Of Investigations and place at its head a known anti-political functionary Terrence Williams. Terrence Williams’s brother was a junior minister in the administration. The passage of the INDECOM Act was one of the rare instances that both political parties agreed on a piece of legislation. Coming up with legislation which further hamstrung the police was something both political parties could easily agree on. And they did. The result was a horrific piece of legislation which could easily be named the [criminality enhancement act]. Instead, they named it the INDECOM Act. The truth of the matter is that this legislation would (a) further pacify the population in their favor against the hated police and (b) give them a freer hand to continue with their criminal affiliations with a much weaker and neutered police force. But they were not done. A phalanx of foreign-based human rights agencies set up shop on the Island. The Inter American Commission on Human Rights, Amnesty International, and others all of a sudden cared about poor Jamaicans well-being. Never mind that in the case of the birthplace of those agencies, the United States and Britain respectively, poor black and brown people are treated as disposable commodities. Additionally, local human rights groups emerged, all have seats at the table. New legislation must first pass muster with them. Whatever laws are passed are basically toothless endeavors that do nothing to remediate the burgeoning crime epidemic. Jamaica is now constrained by the United States and England as to how it can treat its most dangerous criminals. On the contrary, no one gets to tell either country how to protect its citizens. The JCF became a paper elephant.
Had the Bruce Golding administration sought to change the paradigm by investing in the recruitment, training and equipping of the JCF with the resources spent on INDECOM Jamaica would have had a first world police department, with first-world capabilities. The government of Jamaica spent: $366.492 million in fiscal year 2016/2017 on INDECOM, while the agency received $230.616 million from other sources. According to INDECOM, it receives funding from various international donors. This gives rise to the question, why? Why are foreign groups funding a watchdog group instead of assisting the Jamaica Constabulary Force with the resources it needs to fight trans-national crime and terrorism?
INDECOM insists; that since inception, it has also received support by way of sponsorship from international partners: the Department for International Development (DFID), the United States International Narcotics and Law Enforcement (INL), European Union (EU) and Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA). DFID and EU provide annual funding used to offset expenses of the Commission to include payments of salaries and internationally recognized training programs. For 2017, the contributions of our international sponsors were directly linked to the successful execution of the Commission’s hosting of the Caribbean Use of Force in Law Enforcement Conference in May. https://www.indecom.gov.
It should be noted that INDECOM does no law enforcement work. And so the financial resources it receives from its overseas sponsors, supposedly from the United States, for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement, are either(a) misused or (b) questionable in its designation. It is the JCF that is tasked with law enforcement, including the fight against illegal narcotics. Why would the Americans in good faith give money to a [police oversight group], under the guise of Narcotics and Law Enforcement? If the Americans were serious about Narcotics and law enforcement its monetary contribution would have gone to the JCF for training and equipping officers to effectively fight the scourge of illicit drugs coming into the Island from South America and the guns deluging the Island from America’s own shores.
The entirety of the issues driving crime on the Island is myriad and complex. Nevertheless, the foregone provides a glimpse into the belly of the beast. Out of the incompetence and complicity of the two political parties comes the creation and proliferation of murderous criminal gangs. Jamaica has always struggled with maintaining the rule of law, particularly in certain hotspots created and maintained by .…..you guessed it. Politicians. However, the steps taken by the two political parties have led to a state of dread and fear across the Island. One such case which is chronicled on Thursdays Observers, gives a morbid glimpse of what is really happening even as politicians continue to paint a picture of progress and perfection.
OBSERVERSTORY
JOEITH Lynch, 18, and her mother Charmaine Rattray were not total strangers to the group of about eight or nine marauding gunmen who in July 2011 shot and hacked them to death before beheading them. But the ‘memory’ of the savagery of that night was enough to drive three of the five to confess their involvement, claiming that it was either they carry out the brutal crimes or be killed.
Caution statements entered on behalf of three of the five who yesterday pleaded guilty in the Supreme Court in downtown Kingston at the beginning of the trial, detailed the moments leading up to the horrific crimes and the days following, claiming they have been tormented by memories of the incident.
“I got involved in it though I couldn’t do nothing about it. Either I was involved or I would be killed. Is not something that I wishfully wanted to take part of. I know I was dealing with some serious people. It was either I go or I die,” Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Paula Llewellyn read from one of the statements.
According to the accused, he was called and told that the two were to die because they had been witnesses to the death of Scott Thomas (another individual in the area who was killed shortly before) and “them talk too much”.
He said late that night about nine of them, all members of the notorious Klansman Gang, went to the house in Lauriston, St Catherine, where he heard one female say “I did nothing” twice after the door was kicked off, followed by Lynch crying for help and shouting the name of one of the accused who was known to her, followed by a gunshot. He said the head of the mother was chopped off and taken away and he was sent back inside for Lynch’s head which he threw into a gully as instructed because it was “bleeding too much”.
One of the accused, who happens to be a relative of Lynch, in his caution statement, said on the night in question he was home when he was approached by one of his cronies who told him that they were going on the road that night. He claimed that when he met with him later that night he gave him a cutlass and a file. They were joined by a few more men at which time he was told that “a Crystal (Joeith) and har madda wi a guh fah ’cause the general sey dem fi dead”.
He said after the front door to the women’s dwelling was kicked off, one of his allies said, “Si di gal deh, chop her up”. He claimed he pretended to chop her three times, then chopped her the fourth time, but not with his “strength”. He said he was then asked, “A so yuh chop somebody?” before the cutlass was taken away from him by another who proceeded to further chop Lynch, who screamed his name twice before she was shot in the head by that individual.
He said he heard her mother in the other room saying “The blood of Jesus is against you” before he heard gunshots in that room. The accused claimed he then ran from the house in pursuit of another individual who had been chopped by him during the ordeal. He does not, however, know what happened afterward.
“That’s all mi do, that’s all mi know what happen; mi nevah know dem a go cut off dem head. Next morning mi wake up and hear, mi feel so sad. After dat mi have sleepless nights at home, and that’s all mi know, mi can’t sey a dat deh man cut off di people dem head cah mi nevah deh deh when di head dem a cut off,” he said in the statement.
Yesterday, the first witness for the prosecution testified that upon being alerted about the incident while on patrol in the wee hours of the morning he proceeded to the dwelling where, upon entering, he observed the mutilated, headless bodies of the women in pools of blood in their bedrooms with “blood all over” the beds, three to four spent shell casings in one room, and one spent shell in the other.
Yesterday, DPP Lewellyn said the post-mortem results for Rattray showed that she had received eight chop wounds with the cause of death being traumatic shock caused by multiple shots and chop wounds.
Lynch’s cause of death was also traumatic shock and multiple chop wounds. She was shot in the head and also chopped in the face and on her hands.
The DPP, noting the men’s statements, pointed out that “duress is not a defense to murder”. She said further that the men “knew they were going on a move to cause death, even if they did not indicate that they did the chopping or the shooting”, though admitting to being armed with either a gun or a cutting implement.
“They were all there aiding and abetting… they were in common design to cause the death of these women,” Llewellyn said, referencing case law to detail why the prosecution had settled on the charge of non-capital murder.
Yesterday, three of the five, in a surprise twist, pleaded guilty to non-capital murder, while the remaining two accused pleaded not guilty to murder.
Currently, non-capital murder cases, which can be tried with seven jurors, refer to those in which the particular offense is not punishable by death.
The DPP, in making the opening submission and referring to the three said, “The allegations are perhaps the facts now that the men have pleaded guilty.”
All five suspects lived on Rio Cobre Drive, a short distance away from the home of the victims. It is alleged that between 11:30 pm on July 19, 2011, and 5:45 am July 20, 2011, both deceased were shot, chopped and beheaded. Both women had been allegedly warned that they were marked for death but the elder female stubbornly refused to relocate from the area, reportedly saying “if is fi mi time is fi mi time”.
Prior to yesterday’s proceedings, the DPP had indicated that she intended to ask for the death penalty for the men who have been in custody for nine years.
Social inquiry reports are to be provided for the three and Supreme Court Judge Justice Vivienne Harris said the sentencing hearing for the men is set for Wednesday, December 11, at 2:00 pm.
The trial for the remaining two continues today at 10:00 am and is expected to last two weeks.
Mike Beckles is a former Jamaican police Detective corporal, a business owner, avid researcher, and blogger. He is a black achiever honoree, and publisher of the blog chatt-a-box.com. He’s also a contributor to several websites. You may subscribe to his blogs free of charge, or subscribe to his Youtube channel @chatt-a-box, for the latest podcast all free to you of course.
Philadelphia Eagle’s Malcolm Jenkins and other pro ball players release a video highlighting the death of college football star at the hands of cops By Dawn Onley — November 6, 201
Police brutality and gun violence are being highlighted in a series of powerful public service announcements that launch today.
The first video unveiled tells the story of 20-year-old Danroy “DJ” Henry, a college football star who was killed nine years ago by police near Mount Pleasant, New York. The PSAs are part of a new initiative by Philadelphia Eagles safety, Malcolm Jenkins, and the Players Coalition to raise awareness of police brutality and racial inequities.
Several years after Colin Kaepernick drew attention to police brutality and racial injustice by taking a knee during the National Anthem, Jenkins and the Players Coalition are picking up the torch by launching “The Responsibility Program” to inform football enthusiasts on these longstanding and persistent issues.
Murderer cop Aaron Hess formerly of the Mount Pleasant New York Police Department
Henry was gunned down by police on Oct. 17, 2010, while they were allegedly responding to a disturbance. Somehow the student became their target.
They claimed that DJ was shot because the car he was driving in sped up, and that he tried to run people over instead of stopping. Witnesses painted a different picture, saying the officer was the aggressor and shot DJ unjustly. This claim was ultimately backed up by another officer, who came forward and told the truth with video footage shot at the time of the incident.
At the time of his killing, Henry played football at Pace University with dreams of going pro.
DJ’s PSA is narrated by his mother, Angella.
“Never in a million years would we have thought this could have happened to us, and it continues to happen to so many other families,” Angella says in the video. “Our son is everybody’s son. We need to do more to create change.” The story originated here: https://thegrio.com/
Houston, TX — 42-year old Lydell Grant, a Black man from Texas, has been behind bars for the past 7 years serving a life sentence after being convicted of a murder that he says he did not commit. There has even been a DNA test administered that has proved his innocence, and yet he still remains in prison.
Grant was accused of chasing down and fatally stabbing Aaron Scheerhoorn, a 28-year old man, near a night club in Montrose, Texas in December 2010. Grant was arrested days after the incident because of a Crime Stoppers tip.
During the trial, no one testified about whether the victim and Grant, who was a gang member and has previous arrest records, knew each other before the incident. He has since maintained his innocence and said that he did not commit the crime. But in 2012, Grant was convicted and sentenced to life in prison for murder.
Just recently, new evidence and testimonies prove his innocence. Aside from eyewitnesses who said Grant was not the one who killed the victim, the state DNA expert testified that Grant’s DNA does not match the DNA recovered from below the victim’s fingernails.
Moreover, the DNA test, which was even retested by the Innocence Project of Texas and the DPS crime lab, reveals that the identified suspect still remains at large.
While his release and exoneration are on the process, he could have been released on bond. Last week, Grant was in court for the hearing that would allow him to be released on bond, but the judge ruled he will remain in custody.
Another hearing is scheduled in late November but his family was somehow disappointed that Grant would still have to remain in custody and their reunion was postponed until then.
“We know he’s innocent, and we’re gonna fight to the end,” his aunt, Kitsye Grant, told ABC13. “They really need to go and find the right person. What I feel bad for is the mother of the young man, the victim. They got the wrong person.”
ASIFFERGUSON WASN’T BADENOUGHTOTHIS STATE’S REPUTATIONAS A RACISTBACKWOODSPLACEHEREWEGOAGAINWITHTHESENEANDERTHALS
KANSASCITY, Mo. (AP) — Kansas City voters on Tuesday overwhelmingly approved removing Dr. Martin Luther King’s name from one of the city’s most historic boulevards, less than a year after the city council decided to rename The Paseo for the civil rights icon.
Unofficial results vote showed the proposal to remove King’s name received nearly 70% of the vote, with just over 30% voting to retain King’s name.
The debate over the name of the 10-mile (16.1 kilometer) boulevard on the city’s mostly black east side began shortly after the council’s decision in January to rename The Paseo for King. Civil rights leaders who pushed for the change celebrated when the street signs went up, believing they had finally won a decades-long battle to honor King, which appeared to end Kansas City’s reputation as one of the largest U.S. cities in the country without a street named for him.
But a group of residents intent on keeping The Paseo name began collecting petitions to put the name change on the ballot and achieved that goal in April.
The campaign has been divisive, with supporters of King’s name accusing opponents of being racist, while supporters of The Paseo name say city leaders pushed the name change through without following proper procedures and ignored The Paseo’s historic value.
Emotions reached a peak Sunday, when members of the “Save the Paseo” group staged a silent protest at a get-out-the-vote rally at a black church for people wanting to keep the King name. They walked into the Paseo Baptist Church and stood along its two aisles. The protesters stood silently and did not react to several speakers that accused them of being disrespectful in a church but they also refused requests from preachers to sit down.
The Save the Paseo group collected 2,857 signatures in April — far more than the 1,700 needed — to have the name change put to a public vote.
Many supporters of the Martin Luther King name suggested the opponents are racist, saying Save the Paseo is a mostly white group and that many of its members don’t live on the street, which runs north to south through a largely black area of the city. They said removing the name would send a negative image of Kansas City to the rest of the world, and could hurt business and tourism.
Supporters of the Paseo name rejected the allegations of racism, saying they have respect for King and want the city to find a way to honor him. They opposed the name change because they say the City Council did not follow city charter procedures when making the change and didn’t notify most residents on the street about the proposal. They also said The Paseo is an historic name for the city’s first boulevard, which was completed in 1899. The north end of the boulevard is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
The City Council voted in January to rename the boulevard for King, responding to a yearslong effort from the city’s black leaders and pressure from the local chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, a civil rights organization that King helped start.
U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, a minister and former Kansas City mayor who has pushed the city to rename a street for King for years, was at Sunday’s rally. He said the protesters were welcome, but he asked them to consider the damage that would be done if Kansas City removed King’s name.
“I am standing here simply begging you to sit down. This is not appropriate in a church of Jesus Christ,” Cleaver told the group.
Tim Smith, who organized the protest, said it was designed to force the black Christian leaders who had mischaracterized the Save the Paseo group as racist to “say it to our faces.”
“If tonight, someone wants to characterize what we did as hostile, violent, or uncivil, it’s a mischaracterization of what happened,” Smith said. “We didn’t say anything, we didn’t do anything, we just stood.”
The Rev. Vernon Howard, president of the Kansas City chapter of the SCLU, told The Associated Press that the King street sign is a powerful symbol for everyone but particularly for black children.
“I think that only if you are a black child growing up in the inner city lacking the kind of resources, lacking the kinds of images and models for mentoring, modeling, vocation and career, can you actually understand what that name on that sign can mean to a child in this community,” Howard said.
If the sign were taken down, “the reverse will be true,” he said.
“What people will wonder in their minds and hearts is why and how something so good, uplifting and edifying, how can something like that be taken away?” he said.
But Diane Euston, a leader of the Save the Paseo group, said that The Paseo “doesn’t just mean something to one community in Kansas City.”
“It means something to everyone in Kansas City,” she said. “It holds kind of a special place in so many people’s hearts and memories. It’s not just historical on paper, it’s historical in people’s memory. It’s very important to Kansas City.”
The fight against dangerous criminals and the harm they do to society is an all hands on deck affair. Tragically, and to the detriment of the country, this effort has been seen as purely a policing issue in Jamaica. The (infama fi ded), [informer should die] mantra is a testament of the side that pop culture has taken in this fight, personified and exemplified in the dancehalls. The average Jamaican citizen was not always opposed to giving information to the authorities which would aid in the apprehension of dangerous criminals. However, as the culture shifted, and corruption and criminality became more mainstream, soo too has citizens balked at providing information to the authorities.
The tragedy inherent in Jamaica’s case, and I daresay in other areas of the Caribbean, is that there are stubborn residual vestiges of the colonial past which refuses to let go of old habits and thinking. In the case of Trinidad and Tobago for example, though the nation moved toward self-autonomy and officially became a republic on August 1st, 1976, some of the old thinking still remains as I will get to later.
Gary Griffiths not about pretense a cop who gets the job done.
In Jamaica, one of the most intransigent stumbling block to dealing effectively with the scourge of criminality as it has been in Trinidad and Tobago, has been a Judiciary which is hell-bent on acting as a social workforce. Nowhere is the judiciary more adamant that it is important to have an independent judiciary than in Jamaica. However, the local judiciary seems to believe that independence is synonymous with, answerable to no one. When the judiciary, like the elected government, begins to, or has acted in a way that is antithetical to the good of the country, then it becomes necessary to change the way they are allowed to operate. We do that by codifying into law certain changes to the latitude that was allowed the judiciary, (eg) truth in sentencing. This means that whatever sentence was handed down at trial for violent offenders is what they serve. We also should codify into law the sentences which should be handed down for certain violent categories of crimes. Bail should also be revisited as it relates to violent offenders who maim and kill. It is brain-dead and profusely ignorant to argue about guarantees within a constitution written over 57) years ago, when most of the issues affecting us today did not exist then.
The core issue of (Bail) or whether courts grant them, are critical to the criminal justice system, and to law enforcement. If bail is granted arbitrarily as it has been in Jamaica’s case, it endangers witnesses, destroys prosecutors cases, frustrates investigators, and ultimately thwarts the process of justice. None of which seems to make any difference to the Jamaican judiciary and their chief cheer-leaders in the criminal defense profession. And so the [people’s case], as all cases are, it becomes solely the prerogative of the police and a few dedicated prosecutors to protect the people’s interest. Jamaican judges seem to feel no obligation to the [people] who pay their salaries, or about the detrimental consequences of their individual and collective actions on the society.
Though Trinidad & Tobago’s population is roughly half of Jamaica’s, and though Trinidad is arguably a rich country, with oil and gas deposits and a vibrant manufacturing sector. The country over the last two decades or so has been plagued with a serious gang problem. Murders have moved from roughly one hundred per year to over five-hundred per year. An over four hundred percent increase in just fifteen years. As it is in Jamaica many of the characteristics which factor into the existence and enhancement of this crisis are the same. Corrupt politicians who funnel money to their cohorts for government projects. Warring gangs fighting for turf. The gangs get their power from dirty politicians for whom they do favors, and are rewarded with lucrative government contracts. Additionally, Trinidad and Tobago are only seven miles from Venezuela a major drug trans-shipment hub of drugs from Colombia to West Africa and other destinations.
The similarities between Jamaica and Trinidad are almost surreal. in Trinidad, as in Jamaica, entire communities live in fear, in some instances, homes are abandoned, others are set on fire, and even others are pot-marked with bullet holes as rival gangs duel it out against each other. Activists argue that the rot is not outside the power of the government to stop the madness, they say the security measures and laws are not enough to make a difference. The brunt of the pressure is on the Police department, a force which has been.….….….….….….….….get this, accused of extra-judicial killings, and overly aggressive tactics. These are the exact bullet points used in Jamaica, ( a)demonize the police and (b) get on with the business of corrupt governance. Because of course, the population is too dunce on the one hand, and too pretentious on the other to understand it.
Enter Trinidad’s police Commissioner Gary Griffiths, a former military captain, former national security adviser, former minister of national security. The résumé of commissioner Griffiths reads almost verbatim like that of Jamaica’s Antony Anderson. Griffith’s résumé details that he received a Meritorious medal for duties performed during the 1990 attempted coup in the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago. A leader who is unafraid to step in the mud and take the criticisms of the know-nothing Monday morning quarterbacks, who criticizes everything, but has contributed nothing. And maybe that is the difference between Griffiths and Jamaican police commissioners past and present… Griffiths is unafraid, undeterred or unbowed by the corrupt politicians in his country. He is unmoved by the criminal lawyers, who he labels [lawyer-criminals], who are active cheer-leaders to the judges and magistrates who return the dangerous criminals to the streets as soon as the police arrest them.
In blasting a magistrate who recently released a gangster arrested with multiple illegal weapons, commissioner Griffiths alluded to the rights and duty of lawyers to defend their clients. Nevertheless, he poignantly assailed the lawyer-criminals who operate outside the laws, all while doing so as officers of the courts. This has been the tradecraft of Jamaica’s criminal lawyers, or should I say Jamaica’s [lawyer-criminas] as well? Griffiths pulled no punches in responding to a reporter’s question about lawyers who on television questioned his right to speak out against the magistrate. This is the kind of prehistoric medieval wall, that Caribbean magistrates and judges operate under as public servants, not elected by the people, but with a belief that they are immune from criticisms. In Jamaica, this nonsensical notion exists on steroids. However, if you take a salary from the public, you are not immune to, or shielded from questions and accountability to the public. Judges across the region are quick to say they cannot respond to the criticisms leveled against them, but they are quite happy to have the criminal lawyers who benefit from their abuse of the process defend them in the media pro-bono.
Gary Griffiths
One of the differences of the Trinidadian system from Jamaica’s, is that the police services in their republican democracy are not subjugated to, or answerable to the Ministry of national security, and by extension the ruling political party. It is that independence that allows Gary Griffiths to speak and operate with such confidence and autonomy as opposed to Jamaica’s little puppet police leadership, which are shit scared of the dirty politicians and their supporters who are still stuck in the colonialist mindset. Gary Griffiths alluded to receiving daily death threats, he does not seem to mind them, he has a task to complete. The noise from the peanut gallery of well-connected criminals in high places Griffiths brushes aside, and warned, no one is above the law. Jamaica’s officials are far too compromised and conflicted with process and form, to matter in this existential fight. Gary Griffiths gets it.
Mike Beckles is a former Jamaican police Detective corporal, a business owner, avid researcher, and blogger. He is a black achiever honoree, and publisher of the blog chatt-a-box.com. He’s also a contributor to several websites. You may subscribe to his blogs free of charge, or subscribe to his Youtube channel @chatt-a-box, for the latest podcast all free to you of course.
A 61-year-old man has been arrested by Milwaukee police in an acid attack on a stranger who said the assailant told him to “go back to your country.”
Police said they’re investigating Friday night’s attack, which left Mahud Villalaz with second-degree burns to his face and vision problems, as a hate crime and expect the district attorney to bring charges within a week. Police didn’t release the name of the man they arrested on Saturday.
Villalaz, 42, described how he parked his car outside a restaurant and was approached by the assailant, a white man upset that he was too close to a bus stop.
“He started talking like, ‘You don’t respect my laws. You can’t invade my country, so go back to your country,’” Villalaz, who is a U.S. citizen and Latino, told NBC News.
A Milwaukee police spokesperson characterized the crime as aggravated battery. Alderman Joe G. Perez said he has been assured the suspect will face hate crime charges.
This “was a heinous crime that will have a long-term impact on the life of the victim,” Perez said in a statement. “We as a community need to come together to work through our differences and learn to respect one another and diffuse conflict.”
Mahud Villalaz, 42, said he was accused of being an illegal immigrant before he was splashed with the liquid, which burned his face.
Villalaz said he moved his car after the man’s outburst. But the assailant, he said, was still there ― and still angry.
Surveillance video shows the two men facing one another on the sidewalk when the assailant, wearing a hooded coat, suddenly splashes Villalaz with a cup of liquid investigators believe was battery acid. Villalaz quickly covers his face and lurches backward, out of the camera’s view, as the assailant, still holding the cup, calmly steps toward him.
“I don’t want this guy near my kids, near my family,” Villalaz, fighting back tears, told reporters on Saturday. “My son calls me today, ‘Daddy what happened to you?’ What do I tell him? Some crazy guy did this to me?” https://www.huffpost.com/
The protest follows disturbing videos showing police allegedly punching teens on a transit platform and storming a subway car with guns drawn.
Some 1,000 demonstrators poured onto downtown Brooklyn streets and into at least one subway station Friday evening to protest police brutality and aggressive policing in the transit system.
Marchers chanted, “Hands off black kids, NYPD,” and “Hey, hey, ho ho, NYPD has got to go.” Activists criticized the “over-policing” of the transit system amid a new crackdown on fare-beaters that they say is heightening tension between New Yorkers and an increased number of police assigned to the subways. They want the new program dropped. Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced the beefed-up operation this summer to place an additional 500 uniformed officers on subways and buses to battle fare evasion and other crimes.
Friday’s protest was triggered after a troubling video emerged last weekend on social media showing a police officer apparently punching two teenagers near a fight on a Brooklyn subway platform. One of them, a 15-year-old, and his family announced a $5 million notice of claim ahead of a planned lawsuit against the officer and the New York Police Department, WABC‑7 reported.
“I’m truly concerned about what I saw on that video,” Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams said at a press conference after the video emerged. “You cannot openly punch a young person in the face merely because you are caught up in the aggression of the moment.” (See the video above.)
He called for an investigation and new training for officers.
A separate disturbing video showed police with guns drawn storming a subway car filled with passengers to apprehend a 19-year-old suspect whose arms were raised in surrender for allegedly failing to pay the $2.75 fare by hopping a turnstile. “Call my mom,” he told someone on the train. He was charged with fare evasion. A spokesman for the NYPD said police believed he had been carrying a gun, but no weapon was found. Democratic presidential candidate Julián Castro slammed the dangerous confrontation apparently launched over a subway fare. Protesters on Friday attacked both the violence in the transit system and the program that appeared to increase the likelihood of conflict. Story originated here: https://www.huffpost.com/
INDECOM has been in existence since 2010. The Agency’s head and the politi-fools who created and maintain it argues that it is an act of parliament. As if an act of parliament is something that is irreversible. The agency releases it’s quarterly reports in grandiose fashion, replete with media gaggle at it’s plush New Kingston Offices. All this, while the police which has served the Jamaican people for 303-years still occupy run down delipidated workspaces, unfit for habitation. That, however, is a matter for another time. The point is that the commissioner of INDECOM believes that the quarterly report must be critical of, and confrontational with the police,. Terrence Williams does not believe that a report can be complimentary, or conciliatory. So every quarter he trots out like the little troll he is, to tear down the Police department with some cockamamie story or another, that he feels will garner the most backlash against the police when he bitches against some wrongdoing or another.
Never mind that all across Jamaica people are dropping like flies to the marauding gunmen and nobody seems to have a clue how to stop the killings. One of the most insane things that I have heard, is the totally ridiculous call for the police to stop shooting criminals. As far as Terrence Williams is concerned innocent dead Jamaicans is in no way connected to the number of violent confrontations police have with criminals. But he is not alone, there are many of these sanctimonious, self-indulgent fools who Monday morning-quarterback whatever police do with a critical eye. Horace Levy and Peter Espeut are two of the leading propagandists,’ et al, as well. Never mind that neither of these parasites has ever been shot at, much less shot by criminals. The other nonsense we hear is that it is up to the police to minimize the number of gangsters they kill. In other words, Jamaican cops operating in one of the most volatile and hostile environments on the planet, must be the most surgical in how they do their jobs. Never mind that before one performs cosmetic surgery to remove the scars, the all-important work of life-saving surgery must first be done. That means that we first remove the murderers before we contemplate anything else.
Terrence Williams
The idea of oversight for police officers is not a novel concept, this writer, a former police officer, understands this all too well. Accountability works for the good of citizens and police alike. Where we run into problems is when those who take on the task of oversight turn their mission into a crusade, because they are of the belief in that oversight means lording over, and being in control of. Terrence Williams exemplifies that.
It is with that in mind that the comments of the police federation chairman were so appropriate in responding to Terrence Williams’ outrageous recommendations to the government. Sergeant Patrae Rowe police federation chairman blasted Williams’ comments in INDECOM’s quarterly report as absurd. Williams, in his usual glory-hound persona, recommended that cops charged with what he calls (egregious breaches of law or practice) be discharged from the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF) without awaiting criminal proceedings.
In other words, the constitutional guarantee of the presumption of innocence afforded to all Jamaicans in the constitution, is to be removed from police officers. What makes the demand more outrageous is the fact that police officers are not acting on their own when they don their uniforms, they are acting on behalf of the state. It is with that particular thought in mind, that developed countries recognize that officers need an added layer of protection. In the United States that protection is called qualified immunity. Qualified immunity is a legal doctrine in United States federal law that shields government officials from being sued for discretionary actions performed within (their official capacity), unless their actions violated “clearly established” federal law or constitutional rights. Of course, any breach has to first be proven before punitive sanctions are attached to the offending party.
In his own words, Terrence Williams argued, “in egregious cases, where clear breaches of policy, practice or law are apparent… officers be discharged from the police service, without awaiting pending criminal proceedings”. Ha, so there you have it, this very prominent lawyer who wanted to be Director of Public Prosecutions, is advocating for a presumption of guilt before trial. What’s more, he is advocating for a presumption of guilt in a situation where arguably there should be a reinforcement of the presumption of innocence.
At a time when crime is through the roof, at a time when Jamaicans are slaughtered in record numbers, at a time when a single murder does not garner a raised eyebrow, the country needs to ensure that it’s resources and support are squarely behind its law enforcement officers. Additionally, the police department cannot retain the officers it has, much less to meet recruitment quotas, because of shitty pay, bad working conditions, and INDECOM, it is way past time for Terrence Williams and Hamish Campbell to go. It is way past time for INDECOM to be disbanded.
It is clear to Jamaicans who chose not to be blinded by politics that Terrence Williams has one strategy, and that is to destroy what’s left of the JCF. He has single-handedly done more to aid the expansion of criminal networks in Jamaica through his Don Quixote style assault on the JCF, than any other person ever has. Sergeant Rowe argued “The nature of policing requires frequent interaction, violent interaction, with criminals. With the crime rate that Jamaica is currently experiencing, if the number of police officers involved in a confrontation with criminals are to be removed off front-line duties, who does the job of the police? Everybody can’t be removed off front-line duties simply because they are under investigation. I think INDECOM’s reason has to have more depth than this.” Rowe’s comments were in response to Williams’ absurd recommendation that “officers under suspicion should be removed from front-line duties to ensure there is no appearance of collusion or tolerance of such incidents.”
In other words, validated confirmation of wrongdoing is no longer the goal, mere suspicion that an officer has done something wrong should be enough to have officers removed from their duties.
This is the kind of thinking which could only come from (a) a mentally incapacitated individual, or (b) an individual who is so demented, hateful and vengeful that maggots have completely eaten away whatever brain matter he had. That is the derangement syndrome that INDECOM has come to represent. The Jamaican people have a choice to make. They can continue with this Albatros on the nation’s collective back, and watch their loved ones murdered daily. Or they can demand that the Act be repealed. In the meantime, it behooves those with the power to remove this mental degenerate before he does any more harm.
SHARETHISARTICLE
Mike Beckles is a former Jamaican police Detective corporal, a business owner, avid researcher, and blogger. He is a black achiever honoree, and publisher of the blog chatt-a-box.com. He’s also a contributor to several websites. You may subscribe to his blogs free of charge, or subscribe to his Youtube channel @chatt-a-box, for the latest podcast all free to you of course.
The white, former regional manager claims racial discrimination in her firing, which came after the arrests of two black men in a Philadelphia Starbucks sparked protests.
People enter the Starbucks in Philadelphia’s Center City to participate in staff training to prevent racial discrimination on May 29, 2018. The arrest of two black men at the Center City Starbucks sparked local and national outrage. Jessica Kourkounis /Reuters
A white former regional manager for Starbucks alleges in a lawsuit that she was a victim of racial discrimination when the coffee giant fired her after the arrests of two black men in a Philadelphia store last year sparked local and national outrage.
In the suit filed Monday in the U.S. District Court for New Jersey, Shannon Phillips alleges she was a 13-year employee of Starbucks, overseeing stores in southern New Jersey, the Philadelphia area, Delaware and parts of Maryland, when employees at a Philadelphia store called 911 in April 2018 to say two black men were trespassing.
The men, who an attorney said were at the store for a business meeting, were arrested.
They were eventually let go after about eight hours in police custody, with a district attorney’s spokesman saying there was a “lack of evidence” of a crime.
Starbucks did not press any charges, but rather apologized and, on one morning the following month, closed its more than 8,000 stores across the country for racial sensitivity training.
Phillips says in her lawsuit that after the arrests she “immediately took steps to learn additional information about the events … address strong community reaction” and “ensure the safety” of Starbucks’ employees and customers.
She also “took steps to ensure that the retail locations within her area were a safe and welcoming environment for all customers, regardless of race,” the suit says.
About a month after the arrests, Phillips was ordered to suspend one of her subordinates, a white 15-year employee, who was a Starbucks manager but had nothing to do with the arrests or the store where they occurred, the suit says. The manager who was responsible for the store, who is black, was not penalized.
Her bosses told her that nonwhite employees at the store whose manager they wanted her to suspend had been paid less than white employees. Phillips objected, pointing out that store managers have nothing to do with determining salaries, which are set by a different division of the company, according to the lawsuit.
The next day, Phillips was fired, with managers telling her “the situation is not recoverable.”
Phillips claims in the suit say that she regularly “received positive performance evaluations and related merit driven bonuses and salary increases.” She says she would still have her job if she were not white.
A Starbucks spokesman told NBC News the company denies the lawsuit’s claims: “We do not believe there is any merit to it and we’re prepared to present our case in court.”
Phillips is seeking a jury trial and compensatory and punitive damages. First appeared on https://www.nbcnews.com/
One of my undying wishes as a young police officer many years ago in Jamaica was to see our country move from a nation of men and transform itself into a nation of laws. Unfortunately, this did not seem to be in the cards anytime in my lifetime, and since I had only one life I was not about to wait around for that change to happen, I exited the stage. The inequitable and unjust dispensation of justice is one of the reasons crime continues to be a stubborn problem for our country. When poverty and austerity force some people to tighten their belts while they witness others who are so fat they have to loosen theirs, that’s a problem.
In that cesspool of contradiction and irony, dwells the upper crust who came into prominence through education. One would have thought that having witnessed the ravages of colonial domination they would be more empathetic to a system that favors equity and justice. Not so, for the most part, they became the new colonial masters themselves. It’s now 2019 and though many have died out leaving a younger generation with the same values they had, still some remain alive and still they believe they have a right to impose their will on the future of our nation. There is still the lingering assumptions within that group that somehow they have the final say in how our country should be run, and that whatever they say is law.….……No they are not the law, everyone in public office must obey the laws and comport themselves as such.
Enter the erstwhile powerhouse lawyer Frank Phipps, Queen’s Counsel, in a rather lengthy article for one of the local papers. Phipps: “The statement by Delroy Chuck, minister of justice, that was critical of the way the police acted in taking former minister of education and others in custody attracted nationwide attention with a call on the prime minister to demote him. This would be laughable but for the fact that so many believe it was misconduct that deserves some form of reprimand, including Chuck himself who withdrew the statement as being inappropriate for the minister of justice.
Clearly, the distinguished Frank Phipps with whom I have tangled before, on issues of common sense and protocol, has forgotten about the importance of the presumption that justice is done, and not just that it be done. Now full disclosure, I am not a lawyer, and as such, I make no claim as to the specificity or minutia of the laws, however, if Mister Phipps believes that as Minister, Delroy Chuck can say whatever he wants about a case which is still being adjudicated, clearly he is off his bonkers. As a Minister within the Government, (not to mention the minister with the Justice portfolio), Minister Chuck, or anyone in that capacity, has no business attacking state agents, particularly when there is no evidence of wrongdoing. Delroy Chuck knew that his comments were inappropriate and that is the reason he withdrew them.
Nevertheless, in a rambling diatribe of vacuous legalese, designed ultimately to confuse the reader Frank Phipps went on.
These allegations, besides being a ridiculous restraint on free speech for Chuck, beg the question of whether he spoke on behalf of the Government, as a Cabinet minister, for which he should be sanctioned, and, more importantly, whether what was said merits his comment — no one has said it didn’t. His offence was a crime of omission identified as selective justice in a vacuum, without evidence to be heard otherwise. Chuck’s withdrawal has left me hanging out alone for this small-scale version of the greater problem, defending individuals against the State’s excessive use of force. Paradoxically, in this case the accuser became the accused – Delroy Chuck’s criticism of the police lands him being accused of protecting an accused person for political reasons; a situation not unknown on the plantations. The remedy is not to deny Ruel Reid his rights and dignity as an accused with the presumption of innocence.
It would be insane of me to try to dissect Mister Phipps’ Article point by point, as I would become exactly what I am critiquing. Sufficing to say that the entirety of the article seemed to be a sprinkling of law, fealty to friends and a political defense against the right of police to enforce the laws.
Noted and once revered, Harvard Law Professor Allan Dershowitz, has been a staple on American television for years. His views on the law were accepted as the final say, almost as a Supreme Court decision. So too has Mister Phipps been revered in Jamaica. However, Allan Dershowitz’s alleged affiliations with Donald Trump seemed to have [trumped] common sense, like most of the other flunkies and toadies, Allan Dershowitz’s fealty and support of Donald Trump makes him so toxic and reviled he is only welcome on FOX, the propaganda arm of the political right. Tragically, Mister Phipps has unwittingly cast himself in the untenable role as Jamaica’s Allan Dershowitz. Despite disagreeing with mister Phipps on a number of issues in the past, I have the utmost respect for his legal acumen. He should seek to preserve that respect which he has earned over his lifetime, and through his body of work, and not squander it as Dershowitz has squandered his. Maybe, just maybe it’s time for the esteemed mister Phipps to start thinking about packing it in.
Mike Beckles is a former Jamaican police Detective corporal, a business owner, avid researcher, and blogger. He is a black achiever honoree, and publisher of the blog chatt-a-box.com. He’s also a contributor to several websites. You may subscribe to his blogs free of charge, or subscribe to his Youtube channel @chatt-a-box, for the latest podcast all free to you of course.
The cop was not particularly aggressive or abusive toward the young lady. He was passively aggressive, something both he and the other responding cop cooked up to accuse the young woman of. Whether he was this way with her because he realized there were several people filming the encounter as he alluded to the other responding officer and to dispatch is open to speculation. The larger question, however, is whether this officer would have bothered stopping a young white woman riding her bicycle under the very same scenario as he did with this student? Since there is no way to know for sure what was in his heart prior to the stop, we may never know if he would. However if past is precedent, it is almost impossible to imagine a scenario in which a young white woman (student) would have been stopped and interrogated simply for riding down the wrong side of the road.
Considering the many and varying offenses that a police officer could concern himself with while out on patrol, it seems rather strange that a cop would bother to stop a young woman riding her bike down the wrong side of the road and go to the lengths he did. He was well within his right to stop her in my humble opinion and maybe say to her “Maam you are riding on the wrong side of the road”. and advise her that she could be ticketed if she persisted. I mean the cop can be a total douche if he wants to. He does have that right, but riding a bicycle down the wrong side of the road… really?
These are the kinds of encounters that cause hatred and animosity between communities and police. It is nonsense stops like this one which gives more and more credibility to the premise that when it comes to people of color police go out of their way to over-police, becoming oppressive overseers rather than peace officers. Nothing was gained by this stop. It placed his department in a bad light and puts taxpayers in that state in legal jeopardy in case she decides to sue.
I never could quite put my finger on exactly what it was about the Vermont United States, Senator Bernie Sanders which scares the s**t out of me. Maybe it is his dogged pursuit of the presidency even at the age of 78. It just seems too narcissistic, and overly ambitious to me. Maybe it is because his one claim to fame is that he marched with Doctor King. Or maybe it’s the fact that he did not stand up for his state’s only black female lawmaker, state Rep. Kiah Morris, who stepped aside due to racist threats against her and her family.
Morris wrote that political discourse had become “divisive, inflammatory and at times, even dangerous.” One white supremacist even threatened her life. Morris and her attorney have accused the local police of not responding adequately to her concerns. Despite being an elected official, she told the newspaper, “I couldn’t even find the protection and the justice that my family deserves.” She called the situation “stunning,” according to (NPR). It may also be that Bernie Sanders a Brooklyn Jew, one of those who never fail to remind us of the holocaust, opposes reparations for African-Americans who forcibly gave free service to America, arguably for hundreds of years.
With all of that, I may very well have been wrong about Bernie Sanders. After all, his seeming obsession with a couple of issues at the expense of others may be just the way socialists are. But then during a question and answer session at a Historically Black College and University, Benedict College on Saturday, a young black man, a student, asked the Senator how he should handle getting pulled over by a police officer. In typical whiteness, the senator and presidential candidate responded; “respect what they are doing, so that you don’t get shot in the back of the head.”
This response though incredibly ignorant, fully explains how white people simplistically and dismissively see the murders and assaults on black people as not the fault of the racist monsters in uniform, but that of the victims themselves. Because of course, all of the innocent Black people who have been stopped and murdered by police, from Philando Castille who was murdered while driving with his fiancé and stepchild, to Michael Bell who was murdered by NYPD uniformed killers on the very day he was to be married, did cause their own deaths.
We do understand that slavery as an institution persisted somewhere between 246 and 400-years in America because of the lack of character and decency by not just those who owned slaves, but by whites who did not. Most whites did not own slaves, but those who didn’t, did not care that their fellow humans were held in servitude against their will. As long as it wasn’t them being treated that way they did not care. That ought to put to rest the alternative fact[sic] idea, that it was their goodness which caused slavery to be abolished, it wasn’t.
The fact that a candidate running for the Democratic nomination in 2019 could offer up a solution as infantile as the one Sanders did, on the seminal issue which plagues blacks, the base of the Democrat party, is rather telling. For as long as this country has existed as a nation, and even before, black people have borne the brunt of abuse from white people. Let us stop pussyfooting around this issue. We have victims and we have perpetrators. White people do not get to hide or dictate how we speak about this issue, or whether we speak about it at all. From the plantations to slave patrols, to what we now know as policing, black Americans have been hounded abused and murdered, and it persists today. Show me your papers! Let me see your ID! It’s all the same thing.
Bernie Sanders believes that all Black people have to do is to continue to bow down to their oppressors who abuse and kill them under the color of law. I wonder whether he would have had the same advice for the practicing Jews to Hitler’s assault? On second thought, I know he would not. You see, in the same way, Sanders does not believe reparations which are owed a million times over and with interest, should be paid to African-Americans, why would he care whether they are murdered by police? It is for those reasons that black voters should tell Bernie Sanders to go to hell.
I recently read someplace that there are allegations from some quarters of the JCF that some of it’s harshest critics are past members. I found that observation curious, because regardless of the divergent views of past members they are generally supportive of the work the men and women still serving are doing for our country. So, the first order of business as it relates to the JCF, is to understand just who its friends are.
At the same time, I also understand that there may be two or more groups of past members. Those who resigned and walked away, and those who retired after serving out their careers. It may be instructive to reconcile that the views of those two groups may be dissimilar in some ways.
Personally speaking, I am the least bit interested in the opinions of the JCFper se, efforts are best directed at those who are empowered to act for the betterment of the agency and ultimately the country at large. And in that vein, we see where the JCF has used rather suspect arguments to justify bad policy and gross incompetence.
One of the first rules of applying justice is a simple concept that “justice must not only be done but it must also appear to be done.” That means perception is an integral part of the process. That concept seems to be lost on the hierarchy of the JCF which incompetently refuses or fails to develop policies commensurate with the demands of todays policing, and ensuring that members are fully steeped and apprised of those policies.
Failure to do so has resulted in an incident like that which saw eggs on the face of the JCF as a result of the Gary Welsh kerfuffle. Citizens perceived that the matter was handled with inequity and injustice and was not in line with the way average Jamaicans are treated by those who enforce the laws. It matters not that the intent is righteous. The police department is a service provider to the Jamaican people, as such, it is their opinion, their perception which matters. Not that of some incompetent beauracrat wearing a clown costume.
Another matter which has irked members of the public and rightly so, was how Ruel Ried and his co-accused turned up in court while in custody without handcuffs. For those of us in the know, we know that this is how the JCF does business. But this old way of doing business cannot and should not continue to be the status quo.
According to one local publication some members of the public were up in arms recently at what seemed to be preferential treatment handed out to former government minister Ruel Reid and his four co-accused in the corruption scandal enveloping the Ministry of Education and the Caribbean Maritime University, after they were led into court without being placed in the handcuffs usually seen on detainees.
True to form, one member of the police hierarchy told the media, the threat level of the persons being taken before the courts while in police custody must be assessed and the decision taken whether to use restraints. “It’s always about assessing if a person in custody will pose a danger to others or try to escape custody. We do not always handcuff persons in our custody as a hard and fast rule,” said the cop. And therein lies the problem. Every person arrested or told he/she is to be arrested becomes a danger, and a flight risk. That has got to be the mentality of officers. It is that mindset that drastically reduces the risk of escape and criticisms of preferential treatment.
The article went on to side with the cop, by arguing that there is no hard and fast policy requiring cuffs. Obviously, neither the reporter nor the supposed police source has ever heard about safe custody of prisoners. Every police officer must understand the fundamentals of safe custody of prisoners, it is in the police training manual. (precise) Even so, if there was no such policy, the question must be, why would there not be a policy, considering the many instances in which prisoners have escaped police custody? Ineptitude and incompetence! If there is no hard policy on an issue as specific as safe custody of prisoners, how can there be a punitive remedy when there are prisoner escapes? How do you enforce a policy which does not exist? How do you change the lax attitude of the rank and file to their duties when there are no hard and fast rules?
That aside, who did not think that this would have caused average folks to argue there are two sets of enforcement rules, one for the rich and powerful, and another for everyone else? This flies in the face of the consent decree between those who do the policing and those who are policed. When the police fail to catch these mistakes before they happen they will continue to be criticized as inept and incompetent. Inept and incompetent are adjectives which others perceive in us, it is up to us to fix those perceptions, not for observers to change their perceptions of us. Not when they pay our salaries.
Mike Beckles is a former Jamaican police Detective corporal, a business owner, avid researcher, and blogger. He is a black achiever honoree, and publisher of the blog chatt-a-box.com. He’s also a contributor to several websites. You may subscribe to his blogs free of charge, or subscribe to his Youtube channel @chatt-a-box, for the latest podcast all free to you of course.
Couple who was arrested allegedly for shoplifting
A Phoenix police officer who pointed a gun and yelled profanities at a Black family in May will be fired, the chief of police said Tuesday.
“The Disciplinary review board (DRB) recommended [Meyer] receive a six-week unpaid suspension, but the decision on discipline is mine,” Chief Jeri Williams said at a news conference. “And after meeting with the officer Chris Meyer personally, and considering all the facts of the case, I have notified him of my intention to terminate his employment.”
In June, the Phoenix Police Department opened an investigation into some of its officers over their use of excessive force in a shoplifting-theft incident involving 22-year-old Dravon Ames.
We previously reported, viral video of the May 29 incident shows officer Meyer screaming threats at a family in a van; Dravon, his pregnant fiancé Aisha Harper, 24, and their two young daughters.
“You’re gonna f*cking get shot!” the cop yells at one point. “I’m gonna put a f*cking cap in your f*cking head.”
Ames, Harper and their daughters, Island, 4 and 1‑year-old London, were held at gunpoint after Island walked out of a dollar store with a Barbie-like doll – unbeknownst to the parents.
The arresting cops lied in their reports, neglecting to mention their threats to kill the family. They also reportedly turned off their dash and body cameras. As one Twitter user noted, “This is not unconscious bias. It’s malicious, calculated, life-threatening racism.
A disciplinary review board recommended Meyer receive a six-week suspension.
“In this case, a 240-hour suspension is just not sufficient to reverse the adverse effects of his actions on our department and our community,” Williams said Tuesday.
“Unlike other professions, we don’t have a luxury of a do-over,” she said.
Months after the incident, Ames and Harper said they’re still shaken.
“Some nights we don’t get no sleep. Some nights you just still think about what happened,” said Ames. “So to know that he’s been fired gives us some type of relief, but there is still a lot more work to be done.”
Ames is referring to police reform and the family’s impending settlement with the city.
“This is partial justice for my clients. For them to get full justice, the job is now mine to get them compensation in the lawsuit,” said attorney Tom Horne. “We will try to mediate, if the city is reasonable, we will settle.”
If you believe that either of the two political parties is going to do anything about the serious crime problem in our country you are wrong. The fact is that despite a show of bi-partisan kumbaya between the two parties, neither of the two parties or their leadership, individually, or combined, will do a damn thing toward deconstructing the literal and ideological garrisons which have pitted Jamaicans against Jamaicans from as early as the early 1960s.
THEPNP
Peter Phillips’ PNP, has always been a bastion of criminality.
As far as the People’s National Party is concerned the party’s very existence is contingent on the continuation of zones of political exclusions. For readers who are not steeped in the nuances of the Jamaican culture, zones of political exclusions are referred to colloquially, and locally as [garrisons]. The term [Garrison] is defined as; “a place where troops are stationed in a fortress or town to defend it”. In Jamaica’s case, they are political constituencies, held by one party or the other, not manned by official soldiers of the state, but defended by gunmen loyal to the party which holds that political constituency. Votes are delivered en-bloc to the member of parliament, but are not necessarily reflectively of the wishes of the people who live in those geographical areas. Fear of death is the general reason people vote the way they do in those areas. Over the decades’ political handouts and other goodies have solidified the political opinions in the zones of exclusions, making the views of those who live in them virtually and truly politically homogonous. The PNP has more than twice the number of garrisons as the ruling JLP. As such, the PNP is less likely to want to deconstruct a system that benefits the party politically. The continuation and expansion of the garrisons in the nation’s politics erode the very foundation of our democratic society. Additionally, the PNP has always benefitted from the lack of education or miseducation of the poorest Jamaicans, many of whom live.….…in the zones of exclusion. When people are not allowed to think for themselves, they are told how to vote, in exchange for a few handouts, they cannot become who they were destined to be. Garrisons diminish people, but those who control the garrisons are not about to give up the power they have over those people who are enthralled by them with cult-like loyalty.
THEJLP
Holness’ loyalty is not with those who enforce the laws, it is with those who would enhance and further empower criminality in our country
The JLP also has its share of garrisons, the infamous Tivoli gardens is a JLP stronghold. It has been characterized as the mother of all garrisons. It has been one of the Achilles heels of the Jamaica Labor Party, which began as the law and order party. Somewhere along the road, the JLP decided that it had to match the PNP which had sold itself as the party of the little man. That populist mantra did not match the history of the PNP which began with elitists founders like Norman Manley the foreign-educated Barrister. The party of Alexander Bustamante the blue-collar guy, found itself being described as the party of the rich elites. That label stuck to the JLP throughout the 70s, 80s, 90s and even to the present day. The JLP as a political party in the reality of today, is not immune to the temptations of political power. Like the PNP it has allowed itself to buckle to temptation and has fallen victim to corruption. Party leaders from Edward Seaga to Bruce Golding, did not do nearly enough to disassociate themselves from the worst actors within the criminal underworld. Andrew Holness, the present Prime Minister, is a personal beneficiary of a garrison constituency. He arrived in Jamaica House a student of the old guard. That old guard must be deferential to the forces within the communities which place politicians in power. Those forces are never aligned with the rule of law. Additionally, Holness schooling which further shapes his world view, was straight out of the leftist University of the West Indies, not known for its support for the rule of law either. Andrew Holness, is a product of the old politics, and though he would like to portray himself as a new kind of leader, he is no different than others before him who berated and disrespected law enforcement and by extension, the rule of law. It isn’t that Andrew Holness wants a country infested with dangerous criminals. I have never spoken to him, but from his actions on other fronts, it is clear that the Prime Minister wants to accomplish great things for the Jamaican people. The questions are not about the PM’s intentions, they are about his ideas on how to accomplish his goals.
Hyper-partisans are quick to disregard or seek to discredit anyone who seeks to shine a light on those they hold in high regard. That is okay with this writer. Understand that we all need heroes. It is important to appreciate that no one person has all of the answers and the Prime Minister like everyone else, should acquaint himself with those realities. It is not enough just to have other people with ideas, it is important to find enough qualified people with divergent views on the same subject. Tragically for the rule of law and law-abiding citizens of Jamaica, the country is stuck in a bi-polar state of the black dog and the black monkey. Neither party’s leadership has demonstrated that they understand the complexities of the present dilemma, much less the willingness to change them.
Absent that consensus, we end up as we are today, in a stalemate in which both political Party’s leadership are jockeying for position in the race to the bottom. No political leader wants to make bold statements on crime. Apart from their own personal and financial interests in the culture of crime, they dare not speak out,-out of fear of the media, the criminals in their constituencies, as well as the criminal supporting groups which have infested our country. As a consequence, the country is immersed in a never-ending cycle of violence and death, because neither political party has the cajones to step on the serpent.
Mike Beckles is a former Jamaican police Detective corporal, a business owner, avid researcher, and blogger. He is a black achiever honoree, and publisher of the blog chatt-a-box.com. He’s also a contributor to several websites. You may subscribe to his blogs free of charge, or subscribe to his Youtube channel @chatt-a-box, for the latest podcast all free to you of course.
Throughout the late 19th century racial tension grew throughout the United States. More of this tension was noticeable in the Southern parts of the United States. In the south, people were blaming their financial problems on the newly freed slaves that lived around them. Lynchings were becoming a popular way of resolving some of the anger that whites had in relation to the free blacks.
Whenever you wonder about the hatred and disinterest which exist as black people are murdered today, look at these monsters at this lynching
From 1882 – 1968, 4,743 lynchings occurred in the United States. Of these people that were lynched 3,446 were black. The blacks lynched accounted for 72.7% of the people lynched. These numbers seem large, but it is known that not all of the lynchings were ever recorded. Out of the 4,743 people lynched only 1,297 white people were lynched. That is only 27.3%. Many of the whites lynched were lynched for helping the black or being anti lynching and even for domestic crimes.
Was lynching necessary? To many people, it was not, but to the whites, in the late 19th century it served a purpose. Whites started lynching because they felt it was necessary to protect white women. Rape though, was not a great factor in the reasoning behind the lynching. It was the third greatest cause of lynchings behind homicides and ‘all other causes’.
A typical lynching and burning
Most of the lynchings that took place happened in the South. A big reason for this was the end of the Civil War. Once blacks were given their freedom, many people felt that the freed blacks were getting away with too much freedom and felt they needed to be controlled. Mississippi had the highest lynchings from 1882 – 1968 with 581. Georgia was second with 531, and Texas was third with 493. 79% of lynching happened in the South.
Of the lynching that did not take place in the South, mainly in the West, were normally lynchings of whites, not blacks. Most of the lynching in the West came from the lynching of either murders or cattle thieves. There really was no political link to the lynching of blacks in the South, and whites in the West.
Not all states did lynch people. Some states did not lynch a white or a black person. Alaska, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Connecticut were these few states that had no lynchings between 1882 – 1968.
Although some states did have lynchings, some of them did not lynch any blacks. Arizona, Idaho, Maine, Nevada, South Dakota, Vermont, and Wisconsin were some states that did not lynch any blacks to record.
Quite a few states did, in fact, lynch more white people than black. In the West, these greater number of white lynchings was due to political reasons, not racial reasons. California, Colorado, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming lynched more whites than blacks.
It’s sad to think that we look at other countries and deem them immoral for killing their own people, but we overlook the fact of what happened in the late 1890s to the late 1960s. This is something that we cannot overlook and do not need to try to overlook it. http://www.chesnuttarchive.org/classroom/lynchingstat.html
MAY 19, 1918
Walter White was sent by the NAACP to investigate lynchings in Brooks- Lowndes County, Georgia. The lynching of Mary Turner was one of the investigations. Abusive plantation owner, Hampton Smith, was shot and killed. A week-long manhunt resulted in the killing of the husband of Mary Turner, Hayes Turner. Mary Turner denied that her husband had been involved in Smith’s killing, publicly opposed her husband’s murder, and threatened to have members of the mob arrested. On May 19th, a mob of several hundred brought her to Folsom Bridge which separates Brooks and Lowndes counties in Georgia. The mob tied her ankles, hung her upside down from a tree, doused her in gasoline and motor oil and set her on fire. Turner was still alive when a member of the mob split her abdomen open with a knife and her unborn child fell on the ground. The baby was stomped and crushed as it fell to the ground. Turner’s body was riddled with hundreds of bullets.
Black veterans were targeted and lynched
TENNESSEE 1918
Walter White, The Crisis, May 1918
(Of fair skin and with straight hair, Walter White, assistant secretary for the NAACP, used his appearance to increase his effectiveness in conducting investigations of lynchings and race riots in the South. He could “pass” and talk to whites, but identified as Black and could talk to members of the African American community. Through 1927 White would investigate 41 lynchings.)
Jesse McIlherron was prosperous in a small way. He was a Negro who resented the slights and insults of white men. He went armed and the sheriff feared him. On February 8, he got into a quarrel with three young white men who insulted him. Threats were made and McIlherron fired six shots, killing two of the men.
He fled to the home of a colored clergyman who aided him to escape, and was afterward shot and killed by a mob. McIlherron was captured and full arrangements were made for a lynching. Men, women, and children started into the town of Estill Springs from a radius of fifty miles. A spot was chosen for the burning. McIlherron was chained to a hickory tree while the mob howled about him. A fire was built a few feet away and the torture began. Bars of iron was heated and the mob amused itself by putting them close to the victim, at first without touching him. One bar he grasped and as it was jerked from his grasp all the inside of his hand came with it. Then the real torturing began, lasting twenty minutes.
During that time, while his flesh was slowly roasting, the Negro never lost nerve. He cursed those who tortured him and almost to the last breath derided the attempts of the mob to break his spirit. https://www.naacp.org/history-of-lynchings/
In the first of a two-part series, yesterday we published Mexico and Jamaica’s march into failed statehood). It is a pattern we discern, and a set of similarities which exists in the way Mexico and Jamaica have approached the challenges they face in dealing with the murderous criminal gangs, and narco-terrorists in the two countries. One of the myths about how we should deal with dangerous criminals, is that societies can (1) convince criminals to cease and desist,[ be it drugs and gun-running, extortion human-trafficking or whatever], or, (2) live with, and accept their existence and the cancerous harm they bring to our societies. Personally, I do not subscribe to either of the two options and neither should you. Criminals push the envelope until society puts a stop to the liberties they take against the law-abiding. The money and power they derive from their criminal activities, they do not give up because they are asked to. Those derivatives must be wrested from them, confiscated and put to the greater good. The very acts of trying to pacify gangsters, are viewed as weaknesses. Gangsters and narco dealers are quick to fill the power vacuums which results from Government inaction and complicity. Jamaican authorities give the citizens the impression that they are conflicted about crime. In actuality, many are deeply invested in the crime culture. They are owners and shareholders in security companies and other businesses which depend on a high crime rate to survive. Mark Shields, a British cop( colonial overseer), was brought in supposedly to modernize the Jamaican police department, he got in on the act. He married a Jamaican bride, and is now involved in the private security industry. Why fix the system when they can profit from it?
I referenced Mexico as I seek to highlight another society faced with similar conditions as happening in my own beloved Jamaica. Of course, there are other nations in our hemisphere that could potentially have taken the place of Mexico with the same effect. Honduras, Guatemala, Nicaragua come to mind. The latter three, however, are well along the failed state highway, so much so that their citizens are leaving in droves. This is creating a huge humanitarian crisis for Mexico and the US which have their own problems. When we are honest enough to admit facts we begin to realize that as people are leaving Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua, so too would people leave Jamaica but for the fact that we are an island and not a country with land borders. In 2014, 4 in 10 Jamaicans said given a chance they would leave our country. That number may be a lot higher today. In the case of Mexico, as in Jamaica, one of the crucibles which have resulted in the present lawlessness, is the rampant corruption on the part of Government officials. Corruption inexorably leads to the precipitous decline in the rule of law and the growth of lawlessness and murder, the type our country is now experiencing.
In Mexico, officials at the highest levels, as is in Jamaica, have not only turned a blind eye to the development of criminal enterprises, there is strong evidence that political leaders are heavily invested in criminal conduct on the one hand, and being facilitators on the other, or both. In both Mexico and Jamaica the powerful political class has acted as a buffer between law enforcement and criminal enterprises. In Mexico’s case, there have been leaders who emerged with the desire and determination to take the fight to the drug cartels. However, limits on their times in office and entrenched corruption in the public sector created the impression that the strategy could and did not work. As president of Mexico from 2006 to 2012, Felipe Calderón presided over one of the bloodiest eras in his country’s history. Calderón’s critics say his decision to deploy the military against the drug cartels led to the massive increase in killings. President Calderone explained that he had no regrets about the way he decided to fight the drug war. If he could do it all over again, he wouldn’t change a thing, he said.
The former president points to research that suggests violence was already on the rise by the time he was elected. He says rampant corruption in state and local governments undermined his strategy. And he offersdata that suggests murders were actually falling in some key cities by the time he left office. Other research showed that no other country in the Western Hemisphere experienced an increase in homicide rate or absolute number of homicides as large as Mexico’s. The violence only continued to climb under his successor, Enrique Peña Nieto.
It is easy to understand that the entrenched nature of the corruption in Mexico would result in those killings. The narco kingpins hit back to show their power and disdain for the authority of the state. During the ’80s and 90, ‘s the killings and bombings in Colombia escalated as Pablo Escobar hit back with everything he had, as he fought to avoid extradition to the United States. In 2010 violence peaked as Christopher Duddus Coke’s militia banded with other gangs to protect Coke from extradition to the United States as well. The inescapable truth is that dislodging entrenched criminal empires in a situation in which public officials are corrupt is extremely difficult. The longer countries wait to eradicate criminal empires the more difficult it becomes to succeed against them. Removing them without bloodshed is impossible. During the American civil war, the Union general George Mclellan built up a huge army but refused to move against the treasonous rebels. President Abraham Lincoln was forced to remove him and put in his place a man who was unafraid to do what it takes to win a war. Given McClellan’s penchant for caution, had Linclon not acted to remove him the United States would not exist as we know it today.
Wars mean spilled blood, it is never our desire to see blood spilled, but the decision to go to war with the state is always up to those who thumb their noses at the laws. It is not the fault of the state to decisively put down such revolt. Make no mistake about it, we are at war with those who take the lives of the innocent. If we are to have any semblance of a civil society we have to make the hard choices at some point that the state must prevail. That the greater good of the nation must take precedent over our fear of upsetting bleeding-heart criminal supporters, who pretend to be watchdogs and protectors of human rights. Wars are not won through appeasement. Wars are won by real leaders who make the hard choices to confront evil head-on, unafraid to buck the trends, unmindful of criticisms. The biggest beneficiaries of the sacrifices of heroes are those who sacrifice nothing.
A corrupt Colombia criticized Los-Pepes during the dark days of Pablo Escobar’s reign. Sure, Los Pepe, spilled blood, but they saved a nation. Today Colombia is not a Scandanavian prototype, but she is a country that was given a new start. Today Colombians can live in relative peace and security. They can raise their children free from daily bombings and the specter of imminent death. The longer Jamaica dithers and allows the lawlessness to take hold the closer she inches to becoming a failed state. No invading army will restore the rule of law. We either stop the lawlessness now or become once and for all a failed state run by gangsters. We are precipitously close to that point.
Mike Beckles is a former Jamaican police Detective corporal, a business owner, avid researcher, and blogger. He is a black achiever honoree, and publisher of the blog chatt-a-box.com. He’s also a contributor to several websites. You may subscribe to his blogs free of charge, or subscribe to his Youtube channel @chatt-a-box, for the latest podcast all free to you of course.
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