Bye Bye Carl.…..

Measurable per­for­mance is the met­ric used in deter­min­ing suc­cess and of course the lack there­of deter­mines failure.
Truth be told if you are offered a job and you know you do not pos­sess the req­ui­site skills for the job you should have the hon­esty and char­ac­ter to say so .
You should only take a job if you are giv­en the tools to get the job done​.You must say “give me these tools (lay­ing out what­ev­er those tools are), allow me the free­dom and lat­i­tude to get the job done with­out interference”.
If you take a job in which the blame and respon­si­bil­i­ty rests with you , you must be giv­en the tools with which to get the job done. If you fail to ask for the tools and lat­i­tude you need ‚then you make the trag­ic mis­take of tak­ing on a sit­u­a­tion in which you were des­tined to fail.
Common sense must trump raw ambi­tion. If your ambi­tion to hold the office is greater than your desire to suc­ceed then you are respon­si­ble for the fail­ure which occurred on your watch.

Jamaica’s Crime Not Rooted In The Ghettos.…

It came as no sur­prise to me when I learned that Dr Carl Williams, Jamaica’s Police Commissioner had decid­ed to call it quits.
Williams deci­sion comes amidst ris­ing num­bers in mur­der and oth­er seri­ous crimes.
It was no sur­prise because I have per­son­al­ly been call­ing for him to step aside because he had not demon­strat­ed that he had a grasp of whats need­ed to fig­ure out the Island’s bur­geon­ing crime epidemic.

I have no sym­pa­thy for Williams as he exits the stage as oth­er serv­ing and past mem­bers seem to have for him.
My loy­al­ties lie with the near­ly 800 or so offi­cers who leave annu­al­ly after see­ing the total and utter bull­shit that the JCF has become and make the tac­ti­cal and cal­cu­lat­ed deci­sion to leave before it con­sumes them,.
That’s char­ac­ter, that’s bravery.
A man who decides to accept the job to sit atop a shit pile should expect to see turned up noses at the stench ema­nat­ing from him..

Williams lead­er­ship of the JCF may be summed up in one word,“FECKLESS”.
I want­ed to allow a few days to pass before I said any­thing about the com­mis­sion­er’s deci­sion to step aside,I did not want to respond impul­sive­ly even though it was the news I want­ed to hear.
One of my dear friends opined to me that “say what we want, Williams was a clean Commissioner who had good char­ac­ter”.
Incidentally the Commissioner has also report­ed­ly said he is leav­ing with his char­ac­ter intact.
As I said to my friend, it is remark­able if the best thing one can say about William’s, and trum­pet­ed by him, is that he was of good char­ac­ter, then his tenure was an even big­ger flop than any­one imagined.
Saying ice is cold is redun­dant. Saying the fire is hot is no com­pli­ment to fire, fire is sup­posed to be hot.
Police offi­cers are sup­posed to have good char­ac­ter. Good char­ac­ter is not a mea­sure­ment of one’s suc­cess. The office demand­ed it before he was even hired. The office demand that each con­sta­ble so too must have good character.
As chief con­sta­ble it is crit­i­cal that the com­mis­sion­er have impec­ca­ble character.

Carl Williams has been the most emi­nent­ly edu­cat­ed per­son to become com­mis­sion­er of Police on the Island.
What seemed to have slipped by the deci­sion-mak­ers is that supreme­ly edu­cat­ed does not nec­es­sar­i­ly mean the best per­son for the job, or even the most qualified.
But since Jamaica is ‚and has always been a nation with lead­ers with their heads up their col­lec­tive ass­es they do not get that.
I have noth­ing against Williams the man. What I had a prob­lem with is Carl Williams the Commissioner of Police who failed to pro­tect the peo­ple who work under his com­mand from per­se­cu­tion by those who would use their perch­es to build names for themselves.
I am opposed to Carl Williams the com­mis­sion­er who failed to do the things he could do to make the JCF bet­ter and more respect­ed as a law-enforce­ment agency.

Carl Williams did not cre­ate the prob­lems which plague the JCF but he damn sure did­n’t make the force bet­ter in the time he presided over it.
He saw the video clips of police offi­cers being assault­ed in the streets.
He saw the clips of peo­ple in the face of offi­cers with cell phones.
He saw peo­ple who were pro­mot­ed under his watch walk away leav­ing junior offi­cers to strug­gle with offend­ers they are attempt­ing to arrest.
He nev­er did a damn thing to ensure that offi­cers are ade­quate­ly taught the prop­er tech­niques to effect arrests regard­less of protest.
He nev­er made them under­stand that the entire force would stand behind and along­side them when they do their jobs.
He nev­er told them that no fly by night piece of ass-wipe could pre­vent the police from doing their job and whomev­er has a prob­lem with that would find them­selves in cuffs before they fig­ured out what happened.
He saw female offi­cers stand­ing by like win­dow dress­ings as their male coun­ter­part strug­gle to make arrest.
He saw peo­ple step­ping in to take offend­ers being arrest­ed away from young offi­cers doing exact­ly what they are told to do.
Williams did nothing.
Williams said nothing.
Williams changed nothing.

If Carl Williams was a prod­uct of the streets he would have got­ten his ass out of 103 Old Hope Road and get into the streets like Joe Williams and Herman Rickets did and see what the young men are facing.
He would have told crim­i­nals there is no hid­ing place. He would have told them with­out equiv­o­ca­tion, that “we will use what­ev­er force nec­es­sary to bring you to justice”>Or we will bring jus­tice to you .
“You resist we will take you to the ground and we will pile on you until you stop resist­ing”. “you pull a weapon on a cop and you are dead, we will met force with com­men­su­rate force” .
Whether the likes of Terrence Williams and his crim­i­nal lov­ing cronies like it or or not, that what police brass do they stand with their offi­cers until they are proven to be in the wrong.
That is polic­ing, peri­od. It’s not always pret­ty but it does not have to be always ugly, if you break the law we are com­ing after you. That’s what police do. Issuing emp­ty threats only reveal how pathet­ic you are.
Where is Duppy film mis­ter commissioner?
Williams lacked the back­bone and the nec­es­sary under­stand­ing of lead­er­ship to effec­tive­ly lead, and because of that he had to go.

What Does Montagues Appointment Say About Administration’s Seriousness About Crime.…

In the same way that the mem­bers of the PNP paid lip ser­vice to crime in office, while active­ly sup­port­ing parts of the crim­i­nal under-world and in some cas­es engag­ing in crim­i­nal activ­i­ty sin­gu­lar­ly and col­lec­tive­ly, the admin­is­tra­tion of Andrew Holness no more intend to do any­thing about crime.
Where else but Jamaica would an agron­o­mist be cho­sen to head a secu­ri­ty apparatus?
I mean seri­ous­ly, what is he going to do grow crime?
Well he cer­tain­ly has.
Why has Holness not come out and cat­e­gor­i­cal­ly denounce crime and throw his unmit­i­gat­ed sup­port behind law-enforcement?
The sim­ple answer is that they have police pro­tec­tion, they believe fun­da­men­tal­ly they can accom­plish their nar­row polit­i­cal goals in the mad­ness of may­hem and mur­der with­out rock­ing the boat.

There is no grey area in this cav­al­cade of mur­der which has so fright­en­ing­ly become a part of Jamaica’s pop­u­lar cul­ture. Either you abhor and con­demn it, or you tac­it­ly sup­port it because it fur­thers your end game.
We know that the entire PNP with the excep­tion of a cou­ple of it’s prin­ci­pals can­not con­demn crime and mur­der, that polit­i­cal par­ty is too far gone, enmeshed in the slimy morass of the Island’s crim­i­nal under­world and corruption.
The Prime Minister has had every oppor­tu­ni­ty to take a prin­ci­pled stance against the scourge of crime. What he has done instead is make the most basic periph­er­al com­ments, effec­tive­ly brush­ing it aside.
As I said before his pick to head the crit­i­cal National Security Ministry spoke vol­umes about his com­mit­ment to the erad­i­ca­tion of crime from the get go.

No knock on Robert Montague he may be a good man, but he is a lousy Minister of National Security , through no fault of his own.
You sim­ply do not ask a butch­er to per­form brain surgery.
How in hell do you do the best job pos­si­ble if you have absolute­ly no train­ing in nation­al secu­ri­ty or have an under­stand­ing of polic­ing and law enforce­ment challenges?
Juxtapose that with a Commissioner of Police who sees his offi­cers under siege in the streets and cow­er in fear of Terrence Williams and you get a fucked up sit­u­a­tion in which crime can only increase.
Carl Williams abdi­ca­tion of his duties to pro­tect the young men and women under his com­mand , by allow­ing them to be wrong­ful­ly per­se­cut­ed is trea­so­nous to them and their families.

In the ensu­ing peri­od lead­ing up the selec­tion of the next per­son set up to fail by the cow­ard­ly and crim­i­nal­ly com­plic­it polit­i­cal struc­ture on the Island, there will be much com­ments com­ing from past mem­bers of the high command.
Many of whom could not inves­ti­gate their way out of a brown paper bag, but wants to be commissioner.
This is not time for car­toon char­ac­ters and clown shows.
I sug­gest those past mem­bers take a seat.
The Police high com­mand is a colos­sal fail­ure, has always been.

Sadly I must con­clude It is time that a Commissioner of police be cho­sen from over­seas, one who is uncon­strained in his abil­i­ties to go after crim­i­nals wher­ev­er they are .Whether they are in Jamaica House , Kings House or any oth­er house.
The Island’s crime epi­dem­ic is made pos­si­ble because some peo­ple have placed them­selves above the laws.
This must come to an end.