“I have told him, and I’m telling him again, that strug­gles, even those that are just, can ulti­mate­ly come at Israel’s expense.”

JERUSALEM, Aug 6 (Reuters) — Israel’s pres­i­dent sug­gest­ed on Thursday that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been overzeal­ous in oppos­ing the Iran nuclear deal, open­ing a “bat­tle­front” with Washington and iso­lat­ing his coun­try. Reuven Rivlin, who holds the large­ly cer­e­mo­ni­al head of state post, argued in three sep­a­rate news­pa­per inter­views that Netanyahu’s vig­or­ous cam­paign against last mon­th’s nuclear deal between world pow­ers and Iran could ulti­mate­ly hurt Israel. A for­mer right-wing politi­cian with a his­to­ry of strained ties to the prime min­is­ter, Rivlin has voiced his own reser­va­tions about the deal but put it in a wider diplo­mat­ic con­text in the interviews.

“I am very wor­ried about the bat­tle­front that has opened up between (U.S. President Barack) Obama and Netanyahu and the (state of) rela­tions between the United States and Israel,” he told the Maariv news­pa­per. “The prime min­is­ter has waged a cam­paign against the United States as if the two sides were equal and this is liable to hurt Israel. “I must say that he under­stands the United States bet­ter than I do, but, nonethe­less, we are large­ly iso­lat­ed in the world,” Rivlin said in some of his most crit­i­cal com­ments about Netanyahu’s strat­e­gy on the Iranian issue since becom­ing pres­i­dent a year ago. “I have told him (Netanyahu), and I’m telling him again, that strug­gles, even those that are just, can ulti­mate­ly come at Israel’s expense,” the pres­i­dent told the Haaretz dai­ly. In a speech on Wednesday, Obama defend­ed the agree­ment as a “hard-won diplo­mat­ic solu­tion” that has gained almost unan­i­mous inter­na­tion­al sup­port. Obama acknowl­edged his admin­is­tra­tion’s split with Netanyahu, who has called the deal a threat to Israel’s sur­vival and urged Congress to oppose the accord. But he said that the Israeli leader, though sin­cere, was wrong.

Netanyahu, in a web­cast to U.S. Jewish groups on Tuesday, said it was his duty to make Israel’s posi­tion heard. “The days when the Jewish peo­ple could not, or would not, speak up for them­selves — those days are over,” Netanyahu said, cau­tion­ing the nuclear deal would not do enough to curb Iranian atom­ic projects with bomb-mak­ing poten­tial. In a third inter­view, this one with the Yedioth Ahronoth news­pa­per, Rivlin urged the prime min­is­ter to patch up his rela­tion­ship with Obama. “I think they have very sim­i­lar per­son­al­i­ties … and it’s not good for them to annoy each oth­er at the expense of the United States and Israel,” he said. (Additional report­ing by Ori Lewis;.
Story orig­i­nat­ed here: Israeli President Rivlin: Netanyahu’s Anti-Iran Drive Isolates Israel

Acting Police Commissioner Errol Alexander has sent a stern warn­ing to crim­i­nals after a num­ber of attacks on the police in recent times.

Speaking on Wednesday’s “Call The Police” pro­gramme on state-owned Radio Saint Lucia, Alexander said: “We had our meet­ing last week with the Police High Command and we are on high alert in rela­tion to defend­ing ourselves.

“So I am send­ing a mes­sage out there that if the crim­i­nals think that we are in Jamaica, we are not in Jamaica, we are in Saint Lucia, and we will take what­ev­er mea­sures nec­es­sary to pro­tect the safe­ty of our police officers.”

Alexander was com­ment­ing on reports that criminal/​s opened fire on the Richfond Police Station in Dennery over two weeks ago. No one was injured in the ear­ly-morn­ing attack.

The top cop also dis­closed that mis­siles were report­ed­ly thrown at police offi­cers on patrol on Chaussee Road in Castries.

But Alexander said the police is not back­ing down and will use what­ev­er is nec­es­sary to defend themselves.

“I want to inform crim­i­nals that we are not flat on our backs and we have a right to defend our­selves and we have a right to match force with force, and if they believe they have more force than us, well fine,” Alexander said

The com­mis­sion­er also dis­closed that sev­er­al young men con­front­ed a police con­sta­ble on the last day of Carnival, how­ev­er the offi­cer “froze”.

“That is why some­thing did not hap­pen. But I am say­ing if you are so bold in doing so we will be bold in tak­ing the rel­e­vant action that we have to take. We have to pro­tect our­selves,” he said.

- See more at: we-are-not-in-jamaica-we-have-a-right-to-match-force-with-force-com­mis­sion­er-tells-crim­i­nals-who-attack-cops

Whenever we hear a siren, I tell my fam­i­ly, “Let’s pray for who­ev­er is in trou­ble,” fig­ur­ing that cov­ers any­one who has had an acci­dent, any­one whose house is on fire, any­one who is the vic­tim of a crime, or even any­one who has com­mit­ted a crime.

The oth­er day, a police car went by our van, and my moth­er said, “Let’s pray for that police offi­cer.” I was ashamed to realise that I had nev­er real­ly thought about the police offi­cers being the ones in need of prayer — but they are. When they go to answer a call, they nev­er know what they’ll be deal­ing with — some­thing small, some­thing real­ly awful and dan­ger­ous, or maybe noth­ing at all. Or it might be the last thing they do on earth. They nev­er know.

The news is full of police offi­cers who did their job wrong, and who abused their pow­er. It’s a good thing to shine a light on cor­rupt or out-of-con­trol police forces, and we should all know what our rights are as cit­i­zens. However, too many Jamaicans sim­ply don’t con­sid­er the police to be on their side, and that is an intol­er­a­ble state for our coun­try to be in.

Now, along with the awful sto­ries of cor­rup­tion and bru­tal­i­ty, we hear the occa­sion­al sto­ry about a police offi­cer going out of his or her way to per­formsome extra­or­di­nary act of gen­eros­i­ty or ser­vice, and that, too, is a good thing to shine a light on. But even these sto­ries — the acts of extreme kind­ness or brav­ery — don’t pro­vide the full pic­ture of a typ­i­cal day in the life of a first-respon­der. What’s com­mon­place, and which goes large­ly unno­ticed by most of soci­ety, is that thou­sands of police offi­cers do every­thing right every time. Everyday, they take care of the sit­u­a­tion, help some­one out, and make the com­mu­ni­ty safer. These typ­i­cal days, of course, don’t make the news — but they are occa­sions of poten­tial dan­ger every sin­gle time. The police need our prayers as much as the peo­ple they are there to serve.

And what about the bad apples? They need prayer, too. Every siren should be a reminder that some­one is in trou­ble — a vic­tim, a per­pe­tra­tor, an offi­cer who is ready to do the right thing, and an offi­cer who is in dan­ger of doing the wrong thing. So next time you hear a siren, say a Hail Mary for those who are Catholics Christians or a quick “Jesus, please be with who­ev­er needs your help” — and remem­ber that that includes the chil­dren of God who are in uniform.

ROGER GOODWILL

Seminarian for the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Kingston, Jamaica.
Story emanat­ed here: Letter Of The Day: Pray For The Police

THE GLEANER pub­lished an arti­cle on October 22, 2013 titled ‘I did it for my girl’. If you remem­ber the sto­ry, I was shot on a pub­lic pas­sen­ger vehi­cle while try­ing to stop a rob­bery, just as Crystal Thomas was try­ing to do. I, how­ev­er, was lucky enough to over­come my attack­ers and even­tu­al­ly killed one.

I was grant­ed the Medal of Honour for Gallantry, which I received on October 21, 2013 at King’s House.

I urge The Gleaner to con­vince the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF), and the coun­try, that the late Constable Thomas also be grant­ed the Medal of Honour for Gallantry, as she did, in fact, fight and save oth­er lives that were on that bus. In fact, she made the ulti­mate sac­ri­fice for the peo­ple she solemn­ly swore to pro­tect as a ser­vant of this country.

I mourn for my col­league who was not as lucky as I. May her soul rest in peace, as she died a war­rior for the JCF and her country.

JERMAINE BURGHER Story orig­i­nat­ed here: give slain cop gal­lantry medal

The Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF) is respon­si­ble for the safe­ty, secu­ri­ty and law-enforce­ment duties on the island nation. Numerous cops have been killed in the line of duty, and the cre­ation of a memo­r­i­al to those offi­cers could help improve the pub­lic per­cep­tion of the police.

Such a memo­r­i­al park would serve to remind cit­i­zens and vis­i­tors of the risks that law-enforce­ment per­son­nel take when they per­form their duties, and of the respon­si­bil­i­ties that they take on as mem­bers of the JCF.

Originally cre­at­ed by the British after coloni­sa­tion in 1655, the JCF con­tin­ues to fol­low the frame­work of the British sys­tem with regard to offi­cer rank and some gen­er­al pro­ce­dures. Reorganised mul­ti­ple times over the years, the police force today pro­motes offi­cers from among the ranks, some­thing that was not done pre­vi­ous­ly, and active­ly recruits women to serve as well.

Violent out­breaks in var­i­ous parts of Jamaica con­tin­ue to plague the coun­try peri­od­i­cal­ly, and gang vio­lence has also increased in recent years. Both of these chal­lenges present the JCF with issues that can make the job more dan­ger­ous than in oth­er coun­tries (The History of the Jamaica Constabulary Force, 2011).

More than 30 police per­son­nel have been killed in the three years end­ing in 2011; some of these were killed in the line of duty while oth­ers were killed mere­ly for being known JCF personnel.

Just few days ago, we lost Constable Crystal Thomas, a young, hard-work­ing and bright female cop. The sim­plest and least cost­ly alter­na­tive to memo­ri­alise the slain con­sta­ble, and oth­ers, is erect­ing a wall of hon­our in National Heroes Park.

Slain While Serving

This option has been pro­posed and announced on sev­er­al occa­sions, and would list the names of those offi­cers who have been killed. This alter­na­tive has the advan­tage of plac­ing the memo­r­i­al in a park that is already ded­i­cat­ed to hon­our­ing Jamaica’s heroes, includ­ing war heroes, as well as lead­ers such as Marcus Garvey.

In addi­tion, National Heroes Park is already known island­wide, and even inter­na­tion­al­ly, which pro­vides addi­tion­al pub­lic­i­ty for the JCF memorial.

However, the park itself was con­sid­ered dan­ger­ous until rel­a­tive­ly recent­ly, and hav­ing a police memo­r­i­al erect­ed as part of a larg­er park could decrease the sig­nif­i­cance of the memo­r­i­al in the minds of observers.

I believe the death of Constable Crystal Thomas should give every Jamaican the moti­va­tion for a change of heart about how we view police personnel.

I hope some­thing will hap­pen real soon.

GEORGE G. ROACH
US Army (Retired)
Story first appeared here. Honour Slain Police With Heroes Park Memorial

ST CATHERINE Jamaica – Another police­man is in hos­pi­tal after he was alleged­ly shot this morn­ing in Spanish Town, St Catherine.The police’s Corporate Communications Unit (CCU) said the inci­dent hap­pened about 2:30 am and the con­sta­ble is cur­rent­ly being treat­ed at hos­pi­tal. While CCU did not pro­vide details on the shoot­ing, reports reach­ing OBSERVER ONLINE are that the law­man, who is cur­rent­ly on inter­dic­tion, was work­ing as a secu­ri­ty guard when he was shot by a firearm hold­er. It is believed to be an acci­den­tal shoot­ing. The inci­dent comes after Monday night’s shoot­ing of a police­man dur­ing a rob­bery in Clarendon. He too was admit­ted for treat­ment at hospital.

Junior gov­ern­ment min­is­ter Damion Crawford, is con­tin­u­ing his cam­paign against the Independent Commission of Investigation, INDECOM.

This time he is accus­ing the enti­ty of only being inter­est­ed in pub­lic rela­tions while fail­ing to ful­fill its objec­tives. INDECOM was set up in 2010 to inves­ti­gate actions by mem­bers of the secu­ri­ty forces that result in death or injury to per­sons or the abuse of the rights of per­sons. However, in a series of social media out­bursts in recent weeks, Crawford has attacked the agency and the author­i­ties for alleged­ly only being inter­est­ed in pub­lic rela­tions. In a post on Twitter today, the East Rural St Andrew MP said INDECOM has been in the news fre­quent­ly but not in rela­tion to the con­vic­tion of bad cops. He says either there are only a few bad cops in Jamaica or INDECOM is incom­pe­tent, adding that per­for­mance is being sac­ri­ficed for pub­lic rela­tions. In a post last week Tuesday, Crawford, the Junior Minister in the Tourism and Entertainment Ministry, said the renew­al of Terrence Williams’ con­tract as head of INDECOM proves to him, that pub­lic rela­tions is more impor­tant than per­for­mance. Last Monday, Williams was sworn in for a sec­ond five-year term as com­mis­sion­er of the over­sight body.

In 2013, Crawford called for the clo­sure of INDECOM claim­ing that the enti­ty had failed to meet its objec­tives. Legislators are dis­cussing whether to estab­lish an over­sight body for INDECOM, with some crit­ics say­ing the inves­tiga­tive body has been ham­per­ing police efforts to catch crim­i­nals. INDECOM has claimed a major role for the approx­i­mate­ly 50 per­cent fall in police-relat­ed killings in 2014 when com­pared to 2013. Read more here. .Damion Crawford Continues Anti-INDECOM Campaign

Yet anoth­er mem­ber of the Jamaica Constabulary Force has been shot by gunmen.

The police­man, who is report­ed­ly attached to the St Catherine Police Division, was at a bar in Clarendon last night when he was set upon by two armed rob­bers. According to the Corporate Communications Unit of the force, the police­man was shot once in his arm. It is under­stood the bul­let may have lodged in his chest. The cop who is now in hos­pi­tal, is report­ed­ly in seri­ous, but sta­ble con­di­tion. Over the last three weeks three mem­bers of the con­stab­u­lary have been shot dead by gunmen.Story orig­i­nat­ed here: http://​jamaica​-glean​er​.com/​a​r​t​i​c​l​e​/​n​e​w​s​/​2​0​1​5​0​8​0​4​/​c​o​p​-​s​h​o​t​-​r​o​b​b​e​r​s​-​c​l​a​r​e​n​don

As the debate rages about the pow­ers of the Independent Commission of Investigations (INDECOM), to arrest and pros­e­cute mem­bers of the police force, a Joint Select Committee of Parliament on Thursday, con­tin­ued to exam­ine whether the body should be giv­en more pow­er to oper­ate and widen its remit.

INDECOM has been press­ing the gov­ern­ment to amend sec­tions of the act under which it oper­ates. The changes, being sought by Terrence Williams, INDECOM’s Commissioner, are geared at giv­ing the body pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al pow­ers sim­i­lar to that enjoyed by the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP). However,the police and the army have vehe­ment­ly object­ed to the request say­ing it will under­mine fair­ness and will be to the detri­ment of their mem­bers. In her pre­sen­ta­tion, Paula Llewellyn, DPP, said sev­er­al crit­i­cal issues must be con­sid­ered before a deci­sion can be made. “If the con­flicts are not prop­er­ly resolved and if there is not at the heart of the process col­le­giate con­sul­ta­tion, what will hap­pen is that the pros­e­cu­tion of a case inves­ti­gat­ed by INDECOM and the police or INDECOM alone or the police alone — which also touch­es and con­cerns INDECOM, will be under­mined.” She said the sit­u­a­tion is fur­ther com­pound­ed by a lack of clar­i­ty in who should take respon­si­bil­i­ty for a crime scene and oth­er dis­crep­an­cies under Section 33 of the INDECOM Act.

According to Sanchia-Gaye Burrell , Deputy DPP , as it stands the lack of clar­i­ty in the act gives allowances to cre­at­ing a doubt about one’s inno­cence. “Defense coun­sel will always latch onto what­ev­er it is that they believe will advance their clients case, now we will have to be placed in a posi­tion to have to clar­i­fy — why does JCF have some, why does INDCOME have some, who is inves­ti­gat­ing?” she said. The DPP also stat­ed that INDECOM has to fos­ter greater respect for the groups chal­leng­ing its request. She sug­gest­ed that if amend­ments are to be made, then pro­vi­sion should be put in place to man­date fur­ther con­sul­ta­tion on the part of in INDECOM in pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al matters.
Story orig­i­nat­ed here: http://​rjrnew​son​line​.com/​l​o​c​a​l​/​j​o​i​n​t​-​s​e​l​e​c​t​-​c​o​m​m​i​t​t​e​e​-​d​e​b​a​t​e​s​-​i​n​d​e​c​o​m​s​-​p​o​w​e​r​-​t​o​-​p​r​o​s​e​c​ute

THE Jamaica Observer has been giv­en crit­i­cal infor­ma­tion that one of three men who were stand­ing along Wellington Street in Denham Town, West Kingston shot and killed Police Constable Lynden Barrett last Tuesday night.

An impec­ca­ble source, who revealed that he was at the scene, also brushed aside claims by peo­ple of the area that the police­man was shot by his col­leagues. Constable Barrett is known to fre­quent the area and is well known by res­i­dents, many of whom he had devel­oped close rela­tions with. “Indian (as Constable Barrett is known) was in the area to drop off a pack­age to a woman when he saw three men stand­ing on a cor­ner. He knew all three of them, and from a short dis­tance away he saw a bulge in the side of one of them … the one that was wear­ing a mask,” the eye­wit­ness said, beseech­ing the Sunday Observer that his iden­ti­ty be kept confidential.

“Indian walked up to the man with the bulge, lift­ed his shirt and said: A wa you a do wid this ya gun ina you side.…”

The cop, accord­ing to the eye­wit­ness, tried to dis­arm the gun­men and a strug­gle devel­oped, result­ing in Constable Barrett being shot in the upper body and head. “The gun­man and the two oth­er men run off same time,” the eye­wit­ness said. “Indian stum­bled towards his car and col­lapsed. At the same time, a police team that was on patrol heard the shot and rushed to the area fast, fast, fast, so that’s how some of the peo­ple in the com­mu­ni­ty say that its the police who shoot him, but its not police who shoot him … is the boy wear­ing the mask,” the eye­wit­ness said. The Police High Command main­tained that the killing was done by gun­men, with Commissioner Dr Carl Williams, under fire for rat­ing him­self high­ly in the fight to reduce crime, insist­ing that Constable Barrett was not killed by friend­ly fire. “I know for sure that the crim­i­nals are respon­si­ble for it,” Dr Williams said last week.

“We are going to find them and bring them to jus­tice. We checked it out and they (killers) were not police. I know for sure that the crim­i­nals are respon­si­ble,” he said. Yesterday, head of the Criminal Investigation Branch, Assistant Commissioner of Police Ealan Powell told the Sunday Observer that the police had received sim­i­lar infor­ma­tion to that giv­en to this tabloid. “That’s the infor­ma­tion that we received too that three men were involved, and we have even got three names,” Powell stat­ed. “He had gone into Denham Town to check some­body and had the alter­ca­tion with the three men, so this talk by the res­i­dents that he was killed by police is non­sense. There was a police team in Denham Town at the time that had stopped near to a lot­to shop and heard the gun­shots. They rushed to the scene and found him on the ground, alive and bleed­ing. It was when they took him to the hos­pi­tal (Kingston Public) that he was pro­nounced dead,” Powell said, empha­sis­ing that law enforcers were con­tin­u­ing their search for the three men.

Barrett’s fam­i­ly and oth­er mem­bers of the con­stab­u­lary force were com­fort­ed by the Acting Minister of National Security Phillip Paulwell and Member of Parliament for Western Kingston Desmond McKenzie, as they gath­ered last Wednesday at the Denham Town Police Station fol­low­ing the incident.

The death of Constable Barrett fol­lowed that of anoth­er Constable, Crystal Thomas, who, like Barrett was based at the Denham Town Police Station.

She was mur­dered a week before after she was tak­en from a Toyota Coaster minibus by gun­men, who hijacked the vehi­cle and shot her sev­er­al times. Members of the police force joined hands in prayer at the sta­tion last week fol­low­ing the dou­ble tragedy. The sta­tion has over the years lost sev­er­al mem­bers of its staff to vio­lent action by gun­men. It is in the police record books that the sta­tion has been shot up by gun­men on many occa­sions, even while then Commissioner of Police Trevor MacMillan, now deceased, went on a tour there in 1994. Police sources said at the time that Macmillan was forced to hide under a desk for sev­er­al hours, as men with high-pow­ered weapons, believed to be from the near­by Tivoli Gardens, pelt­ed the build­ing with bul­lets. Read more here:Police Constable Lynden Barrett shot dead by gun­man wear­ing mask — eye­wit­ness says

COLORADO SPRINGS — It was an hour before mid­night on July 22 when a cop knocked on the door of local Black Lives Matter activist Patricia Cameron. She was asleep at home with her 8‑year-old son. The offi­cer called out her name and asked her to come out­side. Cameron was­n’t dressed, so the cop told her to put on some clothes— he had some­thing for her to sign.

For the past four years Cameron has lived in the small, hip­py-dip­py moun­tain town of Manitou Springs just out­side Colorado’s sec­ond largest city. She’s a vocal pres­ence in the local media and runs a blog and a Twitter feed where she dis­cuss­es top­ics she feels get ignored in Colorado Springs, a very white, heav­i­ly Republican Christian-con­ser­v­a­tive mil­i­tary city. As a young black woman, she says her encoun­ters with police in the area haven’t always gone well. She’s filed at least one com­plaint against offi­cers here.

“I was pet­ri­fied,” she says when she found a uni­formed cop at her door at 11:00 at night. The name of Sandra Bland, a young black woman who was found dead July 13, hang­ing from a trash bag noose in a Texas jail cell days after a traf­fic stop, flashed through her mind. In the hall­way of Cameron’s apart­ment build­ing, the offi­cer told her he was there to serve her with some­thing, and hand­ed her what looked like a tick­et. He asked her to sign it, say­ing it had to do with an inci­dent on July 4. The doc­u­ment was an arrest sum­mons accus­ing her of fourth degree arson.

“I def­i­nite­ly think they were try­ing to intim­i­date me.”
Two weeks pri­or, the sin­gle mom, local polit­i­cal activist and EMT had orga­nized an Independence Day pub­lic burn­ing of a Confederate flag in a local park as a form of peace­ful protest. Online, pho­tos had been spread­ing of accused killer Dylan Roof pos­ing with Confederate flags before police say he car­ried out his attack on nine black parish­ioners in a Charleston, SC church. In announc­ing her plans days before the event, Cameron told a local alt-week­ly reporter the demon­stra­tion was “sim­ply us get­ting togeth­er and reit­er­at­ing the fact that black lives in fact mat­ter.” She’d alert­ed the local police depart­ment about what she’d planned to do, tag­ging them in a post on Facebook, though a police spokesper­son says the depart­ment nev­er saw it. The police chief had also got­ten an anony­mous e‑mail about the event. (Weeks pri­or, the coun­ty sher­if­f’s office had been on alert when a local bik­er club held a pig roast to protest the Islamic hol­i­day of Ramadan.)

Not many peo­ple showed up on the day Cameron and a hand­ful of oth­ers held their flag burn­ing under a park pavil­ion that does­n’t allow bar­be­cu­ing. There, she squirt­ed lighter flu­id on a large Confederate flag, some­one else lit it, and a third man held the pole as the flag burned on a char­coal grill. With an American flag ban­dana cov­er­ing her nose and mouth, Cameron clapped as oth­ers waved signs read­ing “Black Lives Matter” and “Who is burn­ing black church­es?” The local paper dis­patched a sum­mer intern to the scene. A video went up on YouTube. Some local TV sta­tions car­ried the news.

Now, near­ly three weeks lat­er, an offi­cer was stand­ing in Cameron’s hall­way ask­ing her to sign an arrest sum­mons that accused her of arson. She was not for­mal­ly arrest­ed and tak­en to jail. “I was con­fused,” she says about how it all went down, espe­cial­ly so late at night— and so long after the very pub­lic incident.
Manitou Springs Police spokes­woman Odette Saglimbeni says an offi­cer show­ing up late at night to issue an arrest sum­mons isn’t com­mon for the department.

“It sort of hap­pened to be that time of night when it hap­pened,” she told The Daily Beast about Cameron’s late-night wake-up call. Officers, she said, might have been pre­oc­cu­pied dur­ing the rest of the day with oth­er duties. “They were just not able to get out there until that time.”

As for why it took near­ly 20 days for the cops to con­tact Cameron, Saglimbeni said the police had con­duct­ed a “pret­ty exten­sive inves­ti­ga­tion” after see­ing video of the flag burn­ing. While offi­cers might have known the demon­stra­tion was hap­pen­ing that day, a large struc­ture fire near­by attract­ed their atten­tion, and no police were at the park when the flag went up in flames. Trying to iden­ti­fy all the peo­ple involved also took time, she said, and the police want­ed to make sure they had every­thing in order.

Under state law, fourth degree arson in Colorado is when “a per­son who know­ing­ly or reck­less­ly starts or main­tains a fire or caus­es an explo­sion, on his own prop­er­ty or that of anoth­er, and by so doing places anoth­er in dan­ger of death or seri­ous bod­i­ly injury or places any build­ing or occu­pied struc­ture of anoth­er in dan­ger of damage.”

The charge can be a felony or a mis­de­meanor; Cameron was charged with the later.

“The sit­u­a­tion posed a risk of dan­ger to the prop­er­ty and cit­i­zens of Manitou Springs, as there were mul­ti­ple peo­ple in the area,” reads a July 22 news release from the Manitou Springs Police Department. The release states the depart­ment “strong­ly sup­ports cit­i­zens who wish to employ their first amend­ment rights,” but “would urge those who employ those rights, to do so in a safe manner.”

Cameron’s arrest “has noth­ing to do with what what­ev­er it was she was try­ing to get across,” Saglimbeni said. “We’re just look­ing at the safe­ty of any­one around there, and city prop­er­ty as well. Those flames got pret­ty big pret­ty quick.”

For her part, Cameron has left town for a stint after what she called “neg­a­tive atten­tion” fol­low­ing her arrest. She isn’t com­ment­ing on her involve­ment with the flag burn­ing, but she spoke with The Daily Beast about the way her local police con­duct­ed her late-night arrest.

“It freaks me out that they can show up late at night out­side my house,” she says. “I kind of felt like … in this day in age, and the atten­tion on all cops, you might want to mind your Ps and Qs when it comes to your inter­ac­tions with the public.”

“I def­i­nite­ly think they were try­ing to intim­i­date me,” she said. Read more here: Colorado Cops Arrest Mom for Confederate Flag Arson

“All Lives Matter” is a mantra used by those who say Bland should have kept her mouth shut, like she held the power

DARLENE KRIESEL

Sandra Bland, a young, black woman on her way from Chicago to a new job in Prairie View Texas is dead by hang­ing, and we believe it was mur­der. If not mur­der in her jail cell, a mur­der that began at the site of her ques­tion­able arrest by a cop who pulled her over on a long stretch of Texas high­way. Sandra Bland is dead, yet again, I see the mantra “All Lives Matter” as a retort to the new civ­il rights’ move­ment hash­tag, “Black Lives Matter.” It is a mantra of those who Ta-Nehisi Coates dubs in his book Between the World and Me, the “dream­ers.” These dream­ers hold fast to the false per­cep­tion in America that all peo­ple are viewed and treat­ed with the same human­i­ty. It’s the mantra of those who sit com­fort­ably with dreamy notions that the state and its watch­men, because they are hired to pro­tect, do so fair­ly and with the utmost integri­ty. It is to believe in a God that only demands acqui­es­cence to His author­i­ty, and by exten­sion, the author­i­ty of the state, despite read­ing in the holy text that we are all cre­at­ed in his image, an image that through both his word and his wrath cre­ates and destroys. It is a mantra used by the mis­sion­ary who loves to give char­i­ty abroad to the poor brown and black natives, vic­tims of their own states’ abus­es, while she simul­ta­ne­ous­ly con­demns her own black and brown coun­try­men and women. She blames Rekia Boyd, Trayvon Martin, Megan Hockaday and Eric Garner for their own deaths. In her imag­i­na­tion, Blacks are the scourge of America.

Those who say “All Lives Matter” say that police offi­cers put their lives on the line every­day, and are heroes. They fail to acknowl­edge that bad polic­ing, exces­sive force, police bru­tal­i­ty, the plant­i­ng of evi­dence, is not mutu­al­ly exclu­sive to their point. In pro­tect­ing their dream, they per­mit the con­tin­ued per­se­cu­tion of black lives. “All Lives Matter” is the mantra used by those who say Sandra Bland should have kept her mouth shut, like her words were a gun against the officer’s head, ignor­ing it was the offi­cer who held the lethal trig­gers. They say she should have done as she was told by the police, as if her body belonged to him, reliev­ing him from any respon­si­bil­i­ty to treat her with human dig­ni­ty – a priv­i­lege the police bestowed upon three white men in Abilene Texas, who protest­ed for the right to open and car­ry and demand­ed, screamed at the police to “stand down” while the men were strapped with machine guns.

Sandra Bland is dead and it is time to erase the “All Lives Matter” mantra. Sandra Bland is dead, and Black lives mat­ter must not be imag­ined as a toddler’s cry of a vic­tim obsessed minor­i­ty, but a protest of a move­ment that says Black lives, both men and women, are full cit­i­zens, full human beings in America, who deserve equal treat­ment under the laws of this coun­try, and need to stop being killed by the police state, leav­ing fam­i­lies and our com­mu­ni­ties to mourn, while too many per­pe­tra­tors walk away with impuni­ty. Sandra Bland is dead, and it is time for all of us to become more alive than we ever have in stand­ing up for jus­tice for Black women’s lives.

JAMAICANS have not react­ed with the kind of sense of pur­pose or stri­den­cy required to show the bru­tal gun­men run­ning ram­pant in our land that the entire coun­try is pre­pared to stand against them. The killing of three cops in just over a week would have trig­gered nation­al out­rage in any coun­try seri­ous about let­ting crim­i­nals know that their vicious activ­i­ties would not be accept­ed or be allowed to go unpunished.

The usu­al argu­ment is that the coun­try has been numbed by the large num­bers of mur­ders — aver­ag­ing over 1,000 a year — or that the pop­u­lace does not think the police have the cred­i­bil­i­ty to moti­vate them to work with cops to solve the crime prob­lem. There is also the view that our ‘informer fi dead’ cul­ture is all per­va­sive in crime-infest­ed areas. We think the time has come to put an end to all these excus­es and for the coun­try to unite against crim­i­nal­i­ty and these wan­ton killers who spare none, not even babies or old ladies. You know things are bad when INDECOM, the Independent Commission of Investigation, has joined the two major polit­i­cal par­ties and the Ministry of National Security in con­demn­ing the recent activ­i­ties of gunmen.

INDECOM has been hard on the police to reduce extra­ju­di­cial killings, with some suc­cess to show for their efforts. In a per­vert­ed sense, this is the iron­ic reward that the Commission gets for its human rights approach to crime. Imperfect as the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF) is, it is what stands between the gun­men and anar­chy in our soci­ety. If gun­men feel they can kill police­men and women with impuni­ty, that would embold­en them in their crim­i­nal activ­i­ties gen­er­al­ly. We are heart­ened to see the improve­ment in the tone of press state­ments com­ing from the Opposition Jamaica Labour Party (JLP), which we have tak­en as a sign that the JLP wants to see an end to this wan­ton law­less­ness that is crip­pling our coun­try. It would go a far way in set­ting the exam­ple for the rest of the coun­try, we believe, if both major polit­i­cal par­ties agreed to de-trib­alise their approach to crime-fight­ing, includ­ing cut­ting their links to crim­i­nal sup­port­ers. Crime-fight­ing needs the full sup­port of the pop­u­lace to suc­ceed. People have to tell the police what they know and where the crim­i­nals are hid­ing. The ques­tion asked by Police Commissioner Dr Carl Williams, who will be brave enough to stand up and declare that they will not yield their sov­er­eign­ty and free­dom of con­science to gun­men, must not go unanswered.

Jamaica must respond in a resound­ing and deci­sive way. All of us!
STORY ORIGINATED HERE: Resounding response nec­es­sary to police com­mis­sion­er’s question!

KINGSTON, Jamaica — One police offi­cer has been con­firmed dead by the Corporate Communications Unit.

Reports reach­ing OBSERVER ONLINE are that the police offi­cer was injured in an attack by gun­men on Wellington Street in down­town Kingston, a short while ago. The police offi­cer was report­ed­ly among a team of law­men patrolling the area when they were attacked. He was pro­nounced dead at hos­pi­tal. This offi­cer’s death comes days after a woman con­sta­ble was killed while trav­el­ling on a bus along Spanish Town Road.

Kimmo Matthews Story orig­i­nat­ed here :Another cop murdered

MEANWHILE

KINGSTON, Jamaica – Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller will take vaca­tion leave between Tuesday and Friday, and will return to office on Saturday. While the prime min­is­ter is out of office, Robert Pickersgill, min­is­ter of Water, Land, Environment and Climate Change will over­see the Government. Meanwhile, National Security Minister Peter Bunting is cur­rent­ly in Washington DC in the United States for a series of meet­ings at the Department of Homeland Security. Phillip Paulwell, min­is­ter of Science, Technology, Energy and Mining is over­see­ing the National Security port­fo­lio while Bunting is away on Government business.