“I under­stand there’s dis­be­lief among some friends and fam­i­ly that she would do this to her­self. That’s why it’s very impor­tant that the Texas Rangers be allowed to con­duct a thor­ough investigation.”

That was the state­ment from Waller County District Attorney Elton Mathis regard­ing the alleged sui­cide of Chicago native 28-year-old Sandra Bland. 
Bland was arrest­ed Friday in Waller County, north­west of Houston, by Texas state troop­er Brian Encinia and lat­er charged with “assault of a pub­lic ser­vant,” accord­ing to Waller County Sheriff Glenn Smith. The police account of what hap­pens is the usu­al cop speak which is that she was “argu­men­ta­tive and combative”.
I will be def­er­en­tial to peo­ple liv­ing in Texas or hav­ing knowl­edge whether being argu­men­ta­tive is a crime. Police said Miss Bland a African-American College grad­u­ate had been pulled over for fail­ing to sig­nal before a lane change. From the Video evi­dence pre­sent­ed from Texas Authorities , Miss Bland in her own words told Encinia she was hur­ry­ing to get out of his way. They made no alle­ga­tion that she refused to pro­duce Identification which would neces­si­tate the Trooper demand­ing she exit her car.
What they did say is that the offi­cer wrote a tick­et and returned to miss Bland’s car gave her the tick­et and asked whether she was okay , upon which she said “you were fol­low­ing me and I got out of your way, and what you did is write me a tick­et for nothing”. 

Brian Encinia then demand­ed that miss Bland put out the cig­a­rette she was smok­ing . Upon which she cor­rect­ly told him she did not have to put out her cig­a­rette in her own car. This obvi­ous­ly enraged the cop, upon which she was forced from her car thrown to the ground with anoth­er cop arriv­ing on scene and pil­ing on.. The end result was they end­ed up on top of miss Bland with their knees on her and her com­plain­ing that she can­not feel her hand and that she is unable to hear any­thing after they slammed her head onto the ground.
This appear to be anoth­er inci­dent of the dis­re­spect which is preva­lent in too many of America’s cops who clear­ly have a God com­plex. What they do is to esca­late the most minor and incon­se­quen­tial infrac­tion into an arrestable offense then they jus­ti­fy phys­i­cal­ly abus­ing their vic­tims by claim­ing assault on law enforce­ment. Under no cir­cum­stances should a lane change vio­la­tion end up in an arrest much less what appears to be pil­ing on of charges in order to jus­ti­fy arrest­ing and keep­ing her in Jail in order to show her who is boss. Clearly this seem to be what occurred here.

The troop­er who pulled over Sandra Bland on a traf­fic stop last Friday has been put on desk duty for vio­lat­ing pro­ce­dures. The DPS said the uniden­ti­fied troop­er “vio­lat­ed the depart­men­t’s pro­ce­dures regard­ing traf­fic stops and the depart­men­t’s cour­tesy policy.”

This con­firms that Brian Encinia was clear­ly on an ego trip which esca­lat­ed a sim­ple traf­fic stop into some­thing total­ly unnec­es­sary cul­mi­nat­ing in the death of Miss Bland. There are now alle­ga­tions that the video released by the Texas DPS was edit­ed to cov­er up the cops behavior.
I watched the video sev­er­al times, I am not qual­i­fied to say whether or not the video was altered, how­ev­er what I did see was a cop total­ly out of con­trol. He was dis­re­spect­ful, rude and abra­sive. Everything which occurred is attrib­ut­able to his ego-mani­a­cal aggres­sion toward Miss Bland.
In one sec­tion of the video Miss Bland could be heard ask­ing the cop whether he felt like a real man hav­ing slammed her head into the ground he respond­ed “Good, good” in dis­dain then threat­ened her with more violence.

Let us be clear on this case of police violence. 
♦ There was no need for him to pull her over, she said you were fol­low­ing and I got out of your way.
♦ She was ready to take the tick­et and be on her way.
♦ He made no attempt to give her a ticket,or warning.
♦ She had every right to smoke in her car with­out being told to put out her cigarette.
♦ He had absolute­ly no right to arrest her.
♦ He had no right to put his hands on her.
♦ He had no right to threat­en her with force.
♦ There was no evi­dence that she assault­ed him he assault­ed her in plain sight.

The Family of Sandra Bland should be mind­ful that noth­ing mat­ters beyond this point and they should not allow the Texas DPS , the FBI or the Media to con­vince them that her state­ments of depres­sion or any oth­er issue they throw up , jus­ti­fies the death of their loved one.
They should not allow the con­ver­sa­tion to be moved beyond the ille­gal­i­ty of the stop and arrest.
That and only that is impor­tant. Even if some­how irrefutable evi­dence sur­faces that she did kill her­self the police caused her death and that’s what’s at the heart of this matter.
Murder is a felony . It is com­mit­ted when a per­son kills anoth­er with mal­ice afore­thought. I believe it can clear­ly be con­strued that the cop who ele­vat­ed and insti­gat­ed this inci­dent did not care whether Sandra Bland lived or died.
Sandra Bland moved from Chicago to Texas to start a new job. It is incon­ceiv­able and it defies log­ic that she would then take her own life after arriv­ing to start a new job. 

Yesterday my wife embarked on a road-trip with my son which saw her dri­ving through sev­er­al States. I though about it long and hard, was it a sound deci­sion for her to dri­ve when she could have eas­i­ly hopped on a flight?
My con­cern cen­tered sole­ly on the dan­gers African-American peo­ple face at the hands of Police. 
It is a tragedy of cri­sis pro­por­tion when one’s con­cern for the safe­ty of their loved ones and them­selves are not from reg­u­lar crim­i­nals but the state spon­sored crim­i­nals in uni­form who con­tin­ue to abuse and kill at will with­out consequence.

On Monday gun­fire erupt­ed down­town Kingston. Though a nor­mal occur­rence this shoot­ing once again drove home the point that Jamaica is slow­ly creep­ing toward a point of no return.
Initial report­ing indi­cat­ed that shoot­ing broke out near an Armored Police Vehicle, of course the very same report stat­ed that offi­cers who were strate­gi­cal­ly placed in the area were on patrol when gun­men crept upon them and opened fire.
Later the very same Publication report­ed that none of the offi­cers were hurt but then updat­ed the report­ing that indeed one offi­cer was injured. We are left to won­der what kind of injury the Officer sustained.
In the mean­time new Information from the West Kingston Police sug­gest that the offi­cers were caught between two rival gangs from Tivoli Gardens and Denham Town respectively.

One of the mea­sures I have per­son­al­ly advo­cat­ed for is the removal of offi­cers from police sta­tion hous­es and plac­ing them instead in vehi­cles strate­gi­cal­ly around volatile com­mu­ni­ties. I am par­tic­u­lar­ly com­fort­able with the poten­tial con­ver­gence effect where Officers around a par­tic­u­lar zone would sim­ply col­lapse the zone when shoot­ings occur. Technically this would not elim­i­nate the prospect of shoot­ings occur­ring. It would how­ev­er cut off escape routes in the event there are shoot­ings, which would have the long-term cumu­la­tive effect of reduc­ing Gun offences.
This strat­e­gy can­not be effec­tive with­out the resources to do the job. Neither can it be effec­tive if the offi­cers are not well trained and crit­i­cal­ly aware of what they need to do.

In order to effec­tive­ly deal with Criminals par­tic­u­lar­ly in the Kingston Metropolitan area the topog­ra­phy must be con­sid­ered. All of the Young crim­i­nals know the escape routes which includes gul­lies , drains, cul­verts and oth­er arter­ies. This places law-enforce­ment at a strate­gic disadvantage.
So when we ask the legit­i­mate ques­tion why are the Police unable to catch the peo­ple who are com­mit­ting crimes even when they are in the imme­di­ate area dur­ing the com­mis­sion of some of these crimes we must bear those facts in mind.

Most of the Nations infra­struc­ture was not cre­at­ed with the future in mind, they sim­ply built for the moment. To date the same failed strate­gies are being employed despite input from inter­est­ed par­ties and oth­er Analysts. Additionally ‚unplanned shanties and ille­gal dwellings add to the list of wor­ries Law enforce­ment faces in Cities and Towns across the Island.
Evidence of the plan­ning myopia may be found in the Portmore com­mu­ni­ties. These com­mu­ni­ties are cre­at­ed with res­i­dents hav­ing to park their cars in pre­scribed areas then walk along alley­ways to get to their homes. Those Alley-ways gen­er­al­ly have walls on either sides cre­at­ing a vir­tu­al death trap for res­i­dents in the event crim­i­nals decide to tar­get them.
Guess what not only have crim­i­nals tar­get­ed res­i­dents of these com­mu­ni­ties, they have actu­al­ly tak­en up res­i­dence in many Portmore com­mu­ni­ties cre­at­ing a polic­ing night­mare for Authorities.
Opportunities for com­mit­ting crimes are nev­er lost on Jamaican crim­i­nals. They con­tin­ue to exploit every oppor­tu­ni­ty they are giv­en to expand their net­work of crim­i­nal activities.
Most crimes are crimes of oppor­tu­ni­ty. Criminals are basi­cal­ly low life preda­tors who pounce on avail­able oppor­tu­ni­ties. Countries and Individuals can­not be in the busi­ness of cre­at­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties for crim­i­nals. Yet the same failed strate­gies are being employed across the board with­out thought for effec­tive law enforcement.

Notwithstanding all of the fore­gone, if the ele­ments I allud­ed to were imme­di­ate­ly reversed the Police would still do a shit­ty job with their hands tied behind their backs and (inde­com) breath­ing down their necks.
The Nation made a tac­ti­cal deci­sion to cre­ate anoth­er police agency sole­ly to police the police. This agency have no respon­si­bil­i­ty to reduce crime, none at all. This agency faces none of the risks the police face. Yet the Agency received wide rang­ing pow­ers and sup­port to go after those who have to face the bullets .

I am not par­tic­u­lar­ly inter­est­ed in the noisy chat­ter that there must be account­abil­i­ty for police actions. There is no doubt about that. No one is more incensed than I when Police betray their sacred oath by break­ing the trust placed in them.
What I am not pre­pared to do is to have a con­ver­sa­tion with any­one who dim-wit­ted­ly argue that the way to have police account­abil­i­ty is cre­ate the envi­ron­ment where police offi­cers have their brains blown out of their heads or their leg sev­ered, lying in bushy-fields by some mag­gots on a Bus or a piece of garbage on a motor­cy­cle. The lives of Police Officers must mat­ter in Jamaica.

For years Administrations of both polit­i­cal par­ties stood by and watched as crime metas­ta­sized yet they did noth­ing to stop it. What they did was to make it more and more dif­fi­cult for police to do their jobs. The result is police apa­thy and dis­in­ter­est. This con­tin­ued as good police offi­cers exit­ed the stage and cor­rup­tion took over the force. The politi­cians were incred­i­bly hap­py for that out­come , it was the out­come they desired and (inde­com) was born. This is not to say there are not great police offi­cers in the depart­ment. On the con­trary these heroes con­tin­ue to fight the good fight dai­ly with­out sup­port from their supe­ri­ors or the Government.
Those on the out­side are free to spew garbage out of hatred and igno­rance. Those of us who served saw the strate­gic dis­man­tling of the depart­ment, leav­ing in it’s place an inef­fec­tive paper tiger.
Between pub­lic cries of mur­der aid­ed by politi­cians. Criminal Dons who pay pro­fes­sion­al mourn­ers to tes­ti­fy that they saw shoot-out which occured at 3:am. A Media which glee­ful­ly pro­vid­ed the plat­form and those who active­ly par­tic­i­pat­ed in remov­ing guns from shoot­ing scenes as police defend their lives under sus­tained gun­fire. The stage was set for what we see today.

For years there was strate­gic plan to paint the police as mur­der­ers this was effec­tive­ly done by remov­ing weapons from shoot­ing scenes . After the shoot­ing end­ed police were left with dead bod­ies and no guns. This in and of itself forced offi­cers to take mea­sures to pro­tect them­selves from going to prison. What police offi­cers do not need are croc­o­dile tears from Politicians or (inde­com) when offi­cers are killed. What they need are laws to pro­tect them, a removal of the cuffs from their wrists and a peo­ple deserv­ing of their sacrifice.

One of the ques­tions we hear these days is “how does Jamaica fix it’s crime problem ?
Of course many Jamaicans have vary­ing ideas on how to arrive at a place where crime is at a tol­er­a­ble lev­el. At the same time oth­ers will argue that any lev­el of crime is intol­er­a­ble. Pragmatically speak­ing I am of the opin­ion that as a mod­ern soci­ety we will have to grap­ple with a cer­tain degree of crim­i­nal behav­ior be it blue or white col­lar , or both.

What is obvi­ous from many Jamaicans par­tic­u­lar­ly those liv­ing abroad who are no longer sub­ject­ed to the dai­ly killings around the cor­ner or next door, is their lev­el of frus­tra­tion at what appears to be the Government’s inabil­i­ty to do some­thing about the prob­lem. Many demand an end to the killings and oth­er acts of crim­i­nal­i­ty though they have no idea how that goal is to be achieved.
Many are call­ing for a return to the days of the death penal­ty. Of course those emo­tion­al calls does not take into con­sid­er­a­tion the social and legal hur­dles which pre­vents Jamaica a small depen­dent state from using the death penal­ty as a puni­tive tool.

One thing is cer­tain how­ev­er, is that Jamaica’s over five decades of sup­port and roman­ti­ciz­ing of crime and crim­i­nals and the sub­se­quent result the coun­try is expe­ri­enc­ing now will not change overnight.
We absolute­ly need relief from the blood-let­ting. But we need to be clear-eyed that .
(1) Wishing away the prob­lem is not a solution.
(2) Asking for Divine Intervention (though laud­able) will not fix the prob­lem> God help those who help themselves.
(3) Applying quick-fix­es and dra­con­ian mea­sures does not fix the prob­lem , it rather exac­er­bates them.
So what are some of the solu­tions I would offer in order to start the process of rolling back this out of con­trol crime you ask ?
Here is where I believe the Nation must start.

(1) A Government that is itself not a crim­i­nal orga­ni­za­tion.
(2) A Government that drafts and pass­es seri­ous anti-crime laws.
(3) A revamp­ing of the failed crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem.
(4) Judges who respect the laws.
(5) Truth in sen­tenc­ing.
(6) Create eco­nom­ic oppor­tu­ni­ties.
(7) Training and equip­ping the CIB branch of the police depart­ment.
(8) Repealing, re-word­ing, and reau­tho­riz­ing the INDECOM Act.
(9) Creation of a mind­set con­ducive to respect for the rule of law.
(10) Strong sup­port for Police Officers.
(11) Most impor­tant­ly chang­ing our coun­try to one where all are equal under the laws. Politicians and the well con­nect­ed can­not be above the Nation’s Laws.

This is a road map which will see a grad­ual south­ward trend in crime. Failing which crime will con­tin­ue to trend upward and blood will con­tin­ue to run unabated.

• This will require (1) a dif­fer­ent mind­set from that which exists in the Political Directorate. Or (2) Using the bal­lot box sim­ply send the present Government/​Party to Political Oblivion and keep it there.
  ♦ Whomever forms the next Administration must then embark on a sys­tem­at­ic and strate­gic path aimed at root­ing out crime.
  ♦That must begin with a total and unequiv­o­cal denounce­ment of crim­i­nals and crim­i­nal-gangs by the new admin­is­tra­tion, mak­ing it abun­dant­ly clear that no act of crim­i­nal­i­ty will be tol­er­at­ed or shield­ed by the Government.
  ♦That means remov­ing the sanc­tu­ary of pro­tec­tion Jamaica’s crim­i­nals are accus­tomed to from Politicians.
  ♦Then begin the process of effect­ing change.
  This process will be extreme­ly dif­fi­cult due to the decades of law­less­ness which has char­ac­ter­ized Jamaica’s last four decades .…
  Some observers have argued that the process of return­ing Jamaica to peace and sta­bil­i­ty would require that pow­er be tak­en from the peo­ple and placed into the hands of a Dictator who would begin the process of elim­i­nat­ing crime from the coun­try then return the pow­er to the peo­ple after a decade
  I can­not sup­port any such plan even though I under­stand the path I out­lined would be dif­fi­cult due to the law­less­ness and indis­ci­pline of the Jamaican masses.
  The alter­na­tive would be to move swift­ly to remove polit­i­cal hacks from posi­tions of pow­er through­out the pub­lic sec­tor and tak­ing con­trol of the mes­sage from day one, explain­ing to the broad cross sec­tion of the peo­ple in the rur­al areas just how the plans being put in place will improve their lives in the long run.
  Even then the posi­tion of the new Administration would be ten­u­ous, Jamaicans are addict­ed to the sweet noth­ing­ness of the cot­ton-can­dy pol­i­tics of the present Administration from Independence.
  Weaning them off the dis­as­trous effects of those poli­cies onto the long term pos­i­tive effects of veg­gies and juice will be a chal­lenge Jamaicans are inca­pable of assimilating.
  But it’s worth a try. 

After more than five decades of frozen rela­tion­ship between the United States and the People’s Republic of Cuba the Cuban Flag went up at the State Department in Washington DC Monday.
This is a major step for­ward and a endur­ing lega­cy accom­plish­ment for Barack Obama who at this moment seem intent on run­ning up the score on his accomplishments.
Obama promised to be a trans­for­ma­tion­al President and he is being just that whether one agrees with his poli­cies or not.
Passing Universal Health Care. Having Marriage Equality become the Law of the land. Beginning the nor­mal­iz­ing rela­tions with Cuba. Completing the recent deal with Iran. Being the first President ever to vis­it a Prison, the list of out­side the box accom­plish­ments is long.
Obama’s lists of firsts con­tin­ue to pile up despite endur­ing the most obstruc­tion­ist Congress any pre­vi­ous American President had to deal with.
Agree or not Obama who seemed timid , ten­ta­tive and uncer­tain of his pow­ers at times is now dis­play­ing a new sense of assertive­ness in this the fourth quar­ter of his Presidency.

Obama argued that the 54-year-old American Policy is regres­sive and that a change is war­rant­ed. The change in pol­i­cy will mean that both Nations will have Embassies in each oth­er’s Capital . However the Embargo can only be lift­ed by Congress.
By Law there are stip­u­la­tions which makes removal of the Embargo con­tin­gent on Cuba com­pen­sat­ing American indi­vid­u­als and com­pa­nies to the tune of bil­lions of dol­lars for prop­er­ty the Cuban Government con­fis­cat­ed after the Revolution.

If the intran­si­gent Republican Congress’ pre­vi­ous behav­ior is any­thing to go by the Embargo will be in place long after President Obama has left office. Many Cuban Americans par­tic­u­lar­ly in Miami Florida who large­ly vote Republican sees this is a bad deci­sion by the President.

The Cuban-American Community mono­lith­ic posi­tion may be encap­su­lat­ed in the views of Congresswoman Ilena Ros Lehtinen, Senators Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, and a host of oth­er Cuban-American elect­ed offi­cials who believe if the strat­e­gy does not work you sim­ply admin­is­ter more of the same and expect some­thing different.
That is the def­i­n­i­tion of stu­pid . The President thank­ful­ly rec­og­nizes that stu­pid­i­ty is not a strat­e­gy which will bring peo­ple around to his way of think­ing . The strat­e­gy of Republicans to show force to all around the Globe with whom they dis­agree has yield­ed America a bunch of headaches and much ene­mies. Unfortunately they are blind­ed by American’s Military strength believ­ing that that is a panacea to all of America’s problems.
President Obama may not be able to see a full nor­mal­iz­ing of rela­tions with Cuba dur­ing his Presidency but he must be com­mend­ed for hav­ing the wis­dom and com­mon sense to under­stand that if some­thing does not work for fifty four years , it prob­a­bly will not work ever.

♦Sen. Ted Cruz (R‑Texas), a prospec­tive 2016 GOP pres­i­den­tial can­di­date, argued that Cuba will retain long stand­ing ties with “hos­tile nations, notably Russia, Iran, North Korea and Venezuela.“They will con­tin­ue their sup­port for ter­ror­ist orga­ni­za­tions from FARC to Hezbollah and Hamas,”.
♦Former Florida gov­er­nor and prospec­tive pres­i­den­tial can­di­date Jeb Bush: react­ed to news of President Obama’s plans to soft­en the U.S. stance on Cuba on Wednesday after­noon, call­ing it a “dra­mat­ic over­reach” of pres­i­den­tial authority.

♦Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham (R‑S.C.) Blast­ed the Obama admin­is­tra­tion over the announce­ment, call­ing it a “bad idea at a bad time.” He also promised to do “all in my pow­er” to block fund­ing for the reopen­ing of a U.S. embassy in Cuba.
♦Rep. Matt Salmon (R‑Ariz.) said the pol­i­cy announced by the Obama admin­is­tra­tion Wednesday “sends a mes­sage to every rogue gov­ern­ment and ter­ror­ist orga­ni­za­tion that this admin­is­tra­tion is will­ing to nego­ti­ate with them, even if it under­cuts U.S. inter­ests and values.”

Just a few of the com­ments com­ing from Republican offi­cials on the Administration’s pol­i­cy shift toward Cuba. The sin­gle thread which binds the com­ments may be char­ac­ter­ized as the stu­pid thread. Confrontational, machis­mo poli­cies which have not worked are what Republicans are advo­cat­ing even as more threats emerge in the world and at a time when America should be seek­ing allies not cre­at­ing enemies.
For years Cubans defect­ing to America has had spe­cial priv­i­leges in a pol­i­cy dubbed wet-foot/dry-foot which allows Cuban defec­tors to stay in the United States and nor­mal­ize their sta­tus to full cit­i­zen­ship while Haitians and oth­ers are uncer­e­mo­ni­ous­ly sent back home nev­er elicit­ed any objec­tions from the sin­gle-mind­ed Cuban com­mu­ni­ty in the Country.
Now that the pol­i­cy has shift­ed which is a decid­ed step in the right direc­tion every­one is up in arms.
The rhetoric of Cubans like Cruz, Rubio and oth­ers have had an amaz­ing­ly self­ish slant. They sim­ply kicked the lad­der away as soon as they climbed to the top.

Neither Cruz, Rubio,Lehtinen or any of the oth­ers care about Cubans liv­ing in Cuba. In fact they do not care about the like of  American con­trac­tor Alan Gross, who was returned to his fam­i­ly after been incar­cer­at­ed in Cuba for five years, as a pre­cur­sor to the pol­i­cy shift.
What they care about are their own grand ambi­tions after them­selves hav­ing ben­e­fit­ed from the American experiment.
This is a good day for both Countries, President Obama should be com­mend­ed for his vision. Cuban-Americans can either embrace change or head back home if they do not like the new pol­i­cy. They are in America and that’s all that mat­ters to them.
A myopic,selfish, and vision-less bunch if you ask me.

Killings con­tin­ue unabat­ed in Jamaica with the Parish of Saint James tak­ing over as the Murder Parish from St Catherine, St. Andrew and Clarendon which usu­al­ly jock­ey for that dubi­ous distinction.
Within a 24 hour-peri­od 6 peo­ple met their demise in the parish . The Mayor of Montego Bay Glendon Harris opined that even if a police offi­cer was placed in every yard it would prob­a­bly not make a difference..
That’s sur­ren­der­ing to Criminals.
Yet that state­ment is reveal­ing as well, for years this writer have said there are actu­al­ly no strate­gies in place geared at effec­tive­ly cur­tail­ing the flood of killings and oth­er seri­ous crimes.

The Minister of National Security Peter Bunting toured the Parish after the seri­ous blood-let­ting final­ly woke him from his slum­ber. Bunting promised res­i­dents of affect­ed com­mu­ni­ties that more Police Officers would be forth­com­ing to plug the Dyke.
Now I know you did not miss the dis­con­nect between the two offi­cials on the issue.
The Mayor said even if a police offi­cer was placed in every yard it prob­a­bly would not stop the bleed­ing. I agree with him. I agree because the very premise of a strat­e­gy which places an offi­cer in every yard would indeed be a strat­e­gy of sur­ren­der and weak­ness. I will how­ev­er come back to this point in the inter­est of clar​i​ty​.At the same time the Minister was promis­ing more offi­cers as one of the solu­tions to the prob­lem. Now some­where in all of this con­fu­sion is a deficit of com­mu­ni­ca­tion and under­stand­ing . Will more police help or wont it?

Additionally the Minister is sched­uled to head to Washington DC to meet with State Department Officials on the issue of the Lotto scam­ming his Ministry points to as a rea­son for the violence.
Can any­one say out of ideas?

I want­ed to come back to the non-strat­e­gy which the Mayor stat­ed prob­a­bly would not make a dif­fer­ence. That would be the strat­e­gy of plac­ing an offi­cer in every yard.
Yes I know he was speak­ing hypo­thet­i­cal­ly, but his com­ments reveals a deep­er sense of hope­less­ness which is cer­tain­ly not lost on the crim­i­nal underworld.
Additionally, the Minister’s Statements that he would be seek­ing US State Department help goes to the heart of my con­tin­ued argu­ments that the Administration has no strat­e­gy of it’s own to com­bat crime.
Subsequently Crime has gal­loped out of con­trol. The noise you hear from the Minister and the Mayor is one of exas­per­a­tion and fright.
The fecal mat­ter is begin­ning to hit the fan.

Many years ago as a young Constable sta­tioned at the Mobile Reserve they would send us to pro­vide pro­tec­tion to a woman and her fam­i­ly. The woman lived some­where in Eastern Kingston and was a PNP func­tionary. The woman was an ordi­nary per­son against whom death threats were alleged­ly made by polit­i­cal rivals. Apart from the fact that I absolute­ly resent­ed being her per­son­al body­guard on the occa­sions I was sent to guard her per­son and home. I resent­ed even more the regres­sive strat­e­gy of stand­ing or sit­ting at some­one’s home to pro­tect their life and prop­er­ty as against what ought to rea­son­ably be done ..
I felt like a sit­ting duck when I was there. I nev­er knew the nature of the threat the oth­er offi­cer and I faced while we were there . And I cer­tain­ly did not believe sit­ting around wait­ing to be attacked was a work­able strategy.
So what is a young Constable to do?
I told them if you have me down to go back there I will not go and you can do what you want to do.
My stance had noth­ing to do with the lady’s pol­i­tics. She was a very ami­able woman.
It had noth­ing to do with whether I believe she was enti­tled to police pro­tec­tion. As a tax­pay­ing cit­i­zen of Jamaica she absolute­ly was enti­tled to protection.
She was­n’t enti­tled to have me as a per­son­al body­guard, and on that basis I refused to be a sit­ting duck wait­ing to be attacked. It was­n’t the wom­an’s fault that the police hier­ar­chy saw that approach as a work­able strat­e­gy, young cops lives be damned. The issue was that the police hier­ar­chy saw that as a work­able strat­e­gy at the expense of police offi­cer’s lives.
I was not about to be a casu­al­ty in a war I did not start, want­ed no part of and cer­tain­ly did not understand.

Fighting crime has many sim­i­lar­i­ties with fight­ing a war. What is hap­pen­ing in Jamaica is a war. In 2010 the World saw up close what

Jamaica’s mer­ce­nar­ies looked like when it took the Nation’s Defense Force to top­ple a sin­gle drug kingpin.
This is no jok­ing matter.
Throughout History many Nations built walls and great for­ti­fi­ca­tions to pro­tect them­selves. Ironically ‚regard­less of the strength of those for­ti­fi­ca­tions smarter more deter­mined ene­mies need­ed only be patient to starve out res­i­dents of those for­ti­fied cities.
Historically speak­ing, the Armies which craft­ed great Empires were the Armies which pushed the bound­aries of Conventionalism.
Those his­tor­i­cal­ly great Armies were not con­tent to sit behind high walls wait­ing to be attacked, they sought out their ene­mies and destroyed them on their turf.
A sim­i­lar break with con­ven­tion­al wis­dom is ful­ly applic­a­ble to Jamaica’s crime prob­lem. Under the lead­er­ship of the Rt. Honorable Hugh Lawson Shearer crim­i­nals knew where they stood.
They stood on slip­pery slopes pre­cip­i­tous­ly doing their bal­anc­ing acts. Other Jamaicans like Dudley Thompson came and went they talked tough on crime but at the same time they were per­fect­ing the craft of polit­i­cal thug­gery. None had the cred­i­bil­i­ty of Shearer.
No, not Edward Seaga.
Tivoli Gardens. Seaga’s attempt at social engi­neer­ing became a love-child which blind­ed his eyes and took down a Prime Minister.

The con­tin­ued killings in Jamaica is not just a police issue it is a polit­i­cal issue. For decades Jamaicans have been allowed to treat the Nation’s laws with impuni­ty. So too have law enforce­ment offi­cers been treat­ed with­out prop­er regard. The Legislative process failed to pro­tect the pop­u­la­tion with appro­pri­ate laws. The Liberal Court System took advan­tage of the lax­i­ty, using it’s perch as a plat­form for it’s own agenda.
The Police fol­lowed suit, when the hier­ar­chy could muster the strength to pull it’s head from the rear-end of the Political class the remain­der of it’s time was spent per­se­cut­ing it’s subordinates.
Apathy and dis­re­spect drove good cops away in droves. The rest con­tin­ued on becom­ing a force mul­ti­pli­er, cre­at­ing more of it’s use­less self.
That mul­ti­pli­ca­tion of use­less­ness cre­at­ed mas­sive cor­rup­tion among all ranks. Which cre­at­ed INDECOM.
The new INDECOM fresh-faced and bushy-tail is hav­ing to face none of the dan­gers yet it receives all of the praise . For those famil­iar with Jamaicans. the ene­my of the police is auto­mat­i­cal­ly my friend.
INDECOM is exu­ber­ant and relent­less with it’s new found pow­er, as it posi­tions itself as defend­er of the defense­less it demands more and more pow­er to go after those killer cops[sic].

The Nation is delight­ed , what’s not to like?
Finally the likkle police bway dem anda mannaz.
Of course none of this miss­es the crim­i­nal under­world. Yet the know it all pompous lit­tle jack­ass­es from the Intellectual ghet­to prances around offer­ing opin­ions on stuff they know noth­ing about as they cow­er in fear behind lay­ers and lay­ers of grill fortifications.
How long before the for­ti­fi­ca­tions become a death trap ?
Time will tell.

On behalf of the United States Mission to Jamaica, I wish to extend our deep and sin­cere con­do­lences to the fam­i­ly and col­leagues of Constable Crystal Thomas, who lost her life in the line of duty on July 14^th. Constable Thomas’ brav­ery and quick action saved many lives and demon­strat­ed her ded­i­ca­tion to her coun­try and to pro­tect­ing her fel­low cit­i­zens. At twen­ty-four years old, she exem­pli­fied the code of the Jamaica Constabulary Force: Serve, Protect and Reassure. Everyday law enforce­ment offi­cers across Jamaica step into the line of duty. I com­mend these offi­cers and know they will con­tin­ue to car­ry their duties pro­fes­sion­al­ly and just­ly. Tragically, all too many offi­cers as well as every­day Jamaicans have lost their lives to this sense­less vio­lence. The United States Embassy stands with the peo­ple and Government of Jamaica against these law­less criminals.

That state­ment was released from the American Embassy in Kingston Jamaica to the fam­i­ly of con­sta­ble Crystal Thomas who was assas­si­nat­ed on July 14 for the sole rea­son that she was a police officer.
To the best of my Knowledge Jamaica’s mild­ly lit­er­ate Prime Minister has not issued a for­mal con­dem­na­tion of the assas­si­na­tion of con­sta­ble Thomas. Neither has her office made any state­ment con­demn­ing the crim­i­nal under­world and vow­ing sup­port for the forces of the rule of law.
Police Officers go out every day know­ing the dan­gers they face. They also go out under­stand­ing the risks they take in plac­ing their lives on the line for an ungrate­ful Nation full of crim­i­nals ‚crim­i­nal-sup­port­ers, crim­i­nal col­lab­o­ra­tors, and vil­lage lawyers.
The smart ones also under­stand that the Government and indeed the Opposition Party have deep roots in crime and sup­port for the Criminal under­world. They under­stand also that their Union is a tooth­less dog and their exec­u­tive lead­er­ship like neutered Mongrels in a colony of bitch­es ready to mate.

The vast major­i­ty of offi­cers are from the work­ing-class blue col­lar rur­al parts of Jamaica. The sac­ri­fice many who don the uni­form make is one of eco­nom­ics. Yet most make the fate­ful deci­sion to serve because of the good old fash­ioned chris­t­ian val­ues of good over evil taught them by their chris­t­ian folks. These val­ues are not nec­es­sar­i­ly to be found in the upper ech­e­lons of upper Saint Andrew where mas­sive man­sions dec­o­rate the moun­tain-side. Neither are those val­ues evi­dent in the Godless halls of Academia at the University of the West Indies.

It is impor­tant that those who look on from the out­side under­stand this dichoto­my, in order to under­stand the apa­thy of the Government at the killing of Police Officers.
Yes there were canned response from the clue­less Minister of National Security, the Leader of the Opposition and the Criminal enhance­ment agency INDECOM.
Boo hoo, cry me a riv­er for their absolute Bulls**t.
Where is the National anger and resolve to hunt down these gut­less pieces of excre­ment and deal jus­tice to them,?
Where is the clue­less leader of our country?
The fact is that our coun­try has been with­out a leader since the elec­tion of the PNP Administration which placed Portia Simpson Miller a total­ly unpre­pared , ill-equipped polit­i­cal hus­tler to hold the high­est elect­ed office in our country.

Jamaican Police face a sys­tem incon­gru­ent to the norm. At the head of the polit­i­cal food chain there is sys­temic sup­port and involve­ment in seri­ous crimes . Not just embez­zle­ment of pub­lic funds through the award­ing of pub­lic con­tracts as some seem to think but in actu­al­i­ty much more hands on hard core crimes includ­ing col­lab­o­ra­tion with Criminal Gangs whose mem­bers mur­der rape and com­mit extor­tion daily.
That cre­ates an envi­ron­ment which is anti­thet­i­cal to low­er crimes and secu­ri­ty for ordi­nary Jamaicans. There can­not be low­er crime when the peo­ple who make the laws are the peo­ple who are affil­i­at­ed with and ben­e­fit­ing from crime.
The International com­mu­ni­ty must be aware also that mur­der is a busi­ness in Jamaica. Funeral Homes are rumored to have paid killers on their pay­rolls as a busi­ness model.
There are a host of oth­er busi­ness­es which are owned and oper­at­ed by peo­ple with immense pow­er in our coun­try which ben­e­fit direct­ly from the mur­der may­hem which is occurring.
While we grieve the slaugh­ter of Constable Crystal Thomas it is impor­tant that we do not lose sight of the fact that 21-year-old Constable Curtis Lewis died from injuries he sus­tained when he was mowed down by a motor­cy­clist who decid­ed not to stop when sig­naled to do so.
This was no acci­dent the dri­ver of the motor­cy­cle made a con­scious deci­sion not to heed the law­ful order of con­sta­ble Lewis and his col­league, the end result is that Constable Lewis’ leg was sev­ered from his body and he lat­er died in hospital.

This is a murder .…
The motor­cy­cle was the weapon.
The offi­cer is dead..
Intent inferred when the dri­ver decid­ed to ride through the author­i­ty of the law killing this young police Officer.
This is a time for the Director of Public Prosecution to quit the hye­na grin­ning and charge this killer with cap­i­tal mur­der of this police officer.
That mur­der­er who drove through that law­ful order to stop did so because he under­stood there are no real laws with teeth to pun­ish him for doing so.
He under­stands that no one stand with Jamaica’s police officers.
The Police heirach reac­tionary as is it’s (Modus operan­di) , react­ed by now seiz­ing ille­gal­ly oper­at­ed motorcycles.
Why was­n’t this being done before?
The death of con­sta­bles Lewis and Thomas was aid­ed and enabled by the cor­rupt sys­tem which feeds on the illit­er­a­cy and trib­al nature of the people.
As the American Ambassador shares his Embassy and Nations sor­row at the death of our offi­cers he must be painful­ly aware that the state­ment, The United States Embassy stands with the peo­ple and Government of Jamaica against these law­less crim­i­nals is only par­tial­ly true.
The Jamaican Government and peo­ple do not stand against criminals.
The Jamaican Government is the criminal.

Don’t Judge me !!!
How many times have you heard that state­ment com­ing from some­one in a rather defen­sive yet deter­mined tone?
How many times have you said the very same thing to some­one else ?
What exact­ly are oth­ers say­ing to you when they say those words to you?
More impor­tant­ly what are you say­ing to oth­ers when you tell them “Do not judge me” !
Are you refer­ring to Biblical charge ?
Matthew 7:1 ‑2 :“Do not judge so that you will not be judged.2“For in the way you judge, you will be judged; and by your stan­dard of mea­sure, it will be mea­sured to you.…
Luke 6:41
“Why do you look at the speck of saw­dust in your broth­er’s eye and pay no atten­tion to the plank in your own eye?
John 8:7
When they kept on ques­tion­ing him, he straight­ened up and said to them, “Let any one of you who is with­out sin be the first to throw a stone at her.”
Romans 2:1
You, there­fore, have no excuse, you who pass judg­ment on some­one else, for at what­ev­er point you judge anoth­er, you are con­demn­ing your­self, because you who pass judg­ment do the same things.
What exact­ly does the Bible intend to con­vey when it speaks on the issue of Judging? Does it mean we should not be held to account for anything?
Does it mean any­thing goes , regard­less of what I’m doing it’s none of your busi­ness leave me alone?
Before we delve into the sub­ject let’s first exam­ine the def­i­n­i­tion of the term ” to judge”.
Merriam” : To form an opin­ion about (some­thing or some­one) after care­ful thought : to regard (some­one) as either good or bad.
When we break earth­ly laws States holds us account­able and yes we are judged. We com­ment on Prison breaks when they occur. We won­der how in the name of all that’s right two mur­der­ers could be allowed to escape from a max­i­mum secu­ri­ty prison? We see a woman who is alleged to have assist­ed in their escape and right away we form opin­ions about her inno­cence /​guilt. But are we wrong in doing so? After all every­one around the area had secu­ri­ty con­cerns while the two con­vict­ed mur­der­ers were run­ning around. Was it not their right to expect and demand account­abil­i­ty from those whose jobs it is to keep them in Jail?

When some­one speak on the issue of unwed moth­er­hood and the con­se­quences it has on the Black com­mu­ni­ty is that Judging, or is it grab­bing hold of an issue that needs arresting?
When some­one advances the argu­ment that those who speak on this issue are guilty of “judg­ing”, on what basis is judg­ing wrong? When we ignore data which shows these glar­ing truths, are oth­ers judg­ing or are we being Ostriches with our heads in the sand because it’s con­ve­nient to do so?
♦ Seventy one 71% of all kids born in the Black com­mu­ni­ty are born out of wedlock.
♦ Children raised in sin­gle par­ent house­holds are more like­ly to have prob­lems learning.
♦ Children raised in sin­gle par­ent house­holds are more like­ly to drop out of School.
♦ Children raised in sin­gle par­ent house­holds are more like­ly to have dis­ci­pline prob­lems in School.
♦ Children raised in sin­gle par­ent house­holds are more like­ly to end up in prison.
♦ Children raised in sin­gle par­ent house­holds are more like­ly to con­tin­ue the cycle of poverty.

My ques­tion to you then is this. When you say “don’t judge me”, are you speak­ing from Biblical perspective ?
Merriam says to judge is to form an opin­ion about some­thing or some­one after care­ful thought, hmm.
If you some­how man­age to allow delu­sion to rob you of objec­tiv­i­ty and com­mon sense to the degree you ignore researched Data. If you are able to sus­pend real­i­ty and buy into the con­vo­lut­ed the­o­ry that Data can­not be the guid­ing tem­plate which deter­mines how we mea­sure events. And if you some­how divorce your­self total­ly from cause and effect , you still do not get to tell me it’s not my busi­ness when I get to foot the Bill for the tru­an­cy cen­ters, the police offi­cers and more impor­tant­ly keep­ing your son incar­cer­at­ed for years.
Yes it’s my busi­ness and yes, I do get the right to hold you accountable.

Taking per­son­al respon­si­bil­i­ty has noth­ing to do with what the Bible ref­er­ences when it speaks on the issue of not judg­ing. Judging in the Biblical sense speaks to the sen­tence met­ed out not lov­ing­ly point­ing some­one to the right path
God is the ulti­mate Judge he wants us to leave all judge­ment, all vengeance to him. The Bible seeks to teach us for­give­ness . In our finite wis­dom we are extreme­ly prone to mak­ing bad judge­ment, mak­ing bad judge­ment is not as bad as our vengeance. Many inno­cent peo­ple have been killed and impris­oned on false accu­sa­tions and.
John 8 Vs 1.
So to pass judge­ment in this con­text would be to not only accuse but con­demn to be punished.
Which is com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent than hold­ing our­selves and each oth­er accountable.

The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adul­tery, and plac­ing her in the midst they said to him, “Teacher, this woman has been caught in the act of adul­tery. Now in the Law Moses com­mand­ed us to stone such women. So what do you say?”

Although the scribes and Pharisees were not wrong­ly accus­ing this adul­ter­ous woman, their pur­pose was not to jus­ti­fy the law, if so they would have also brought the man. He had bro­ken the law just as much she had. The law required that both be stoned to death, (Lev. 20:10). They were sim­ply using the woman as a trap, hop­ing to trick Jesus. The Romans did­n’t per­mit the Jews to car­ry out their own exe­cu­tions, so:
If He had ordered her stoned they would have report­ed Him to the Romans. If He had said she should not be stoned they would accuse Him of break­ing Moses’ law.
VERSE 7: “And as they con­tin­ued to ask him, he stood up and said to them, “Let him who is with­out sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.”
Jesus in every­thing want­ed to teach com­pas­sion to us at the same time he nev­er shunned away from the ques­tion of per­son­al responsibility.

VERSES 10 – 11: Jesus stood up and said to her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one con­demned you?” She said, “No one, Lord.” Jesus told her “nei­ther do I con­demn you; go, and from now on sin no more.”

This is an exam­ple of how Jesus for­gives all sin. He did not con­demned the adul­ter­ous woman to death; nor did he say that since He had come her adul­ter­ous deed was no longer a sin. Jesus held her account­able for what she did even though he did not con­demn her to damna­tion for her mistakes.

Time after time Jesus sent peo­ple on their way with the words “go thy way and sin no more lest a worse thing befall you” . Whether he had just healed some­one or as was the case of the adul­ter­ous woman the charge was the same.
“Go thy way and sin no more lest a worse thing come upon you”
Actions have Consequences.
How then do we behave reck­less­ly yet take offence when oth­ers point out those offences to us? Did the woman Jesus spared take offense when Jesus gave her that charge? There are no scrip­tur­al ref­er­ence of her doing so. I would haz­ard a guess that she went on her way thank­ful she was alive.

Data pro­vides us a guide, it gives us direc­tion. If we can­not mea­sure “it” we can­not fix “it”. If we can­not fix “it” we are doomed to the con­se­quences of “it”.
Yes you may be the best woman/​mother in the world but a child is expo­nen­tial­ly bet­ter off with a moth­er and father in the home. The same is true for men, you may be a ter­rif­ic father but you can­not be a moth­er to a child.

No fem­i­nist Hog-wash that you can come up with will negate those facts. No new age teach­ing can sup­plant the legit­i­ma­cy of what God cre­at­ed and made per­fect. I don’t care how darn smart you are, God cre­at­ed you, which makes him smarter than you, his ideas are Sovereign, so sit down and shut up.
Before you open your mouth let me remind you of this one fact.
I am talk­ing ide­al­ly about a good Father and a good Mother.
I don’t want to hear about how you had to res­cue your kid from his drug deal­ing dad­dy, so you are bet­ter for him. Truth be told you should have know he was drug deal­er before you laid down , should­n’t you?
Don’t tell me about your baby father who does not take care of his kids so you are bet­ter off with­out him. The same prin­ci­ple apply.
For the sur­vival of each specie most female ani­mals only mate with the dom­i­nant male, instinc­tive­ly she under­stands that she needs strong genes for her babies . The pride needs pro­tec­tion the dom­i­nant male alone guar­an­tees it.

If Lionesses mat­ed with the weak­est Lion giv­en enough time Foxes and Cayotes would be hunt­ing Lions as prey. Lions remain dom­i­nant because Lionesses do what they are sup­posed to, in order to con­tin­ue the strength and dom­i­nance of Lions she mates with the Alfa-male.
Are you women mat­ing with the best men?
Are the birds smarter than you?
Are you mat­ing with the first guy which comes along know­ing full well he will be absen­tee father?
When you make deci­sions that birds would not make please do not talk about peo­ple judg­ing you.
We pejo­ra­tive­ly refer to oth­ers as bird-brained, yet the birds insists on the best mate as an insur­ance to the con­tin­u­ance of their specie.
Can many of you women say the same ?
“Don’t judge me”

It’s a cliché which means you made bad choic­es but want none of the con­se­quences which comes with those choic­es. We all make mis­takes in life. None of us is per­fect , we all sin and come short of the Glory of God. Taking an atti­tude that your mis­take was a choice you are proud of con­demns you to repeat­ing them.
When you con­tin­ue on that path it becomes my busi­ness, because we all pay for your bad deci­sions , one way or anoth­er. That gives me the right to com­ment, it gives me the right to point out the error of your ways, it goes both ways.
No the next time some­one points out your mis­take do not say “don’t judge me” take respon­si­bil­i­ty and thank the person.
Stop pretending.

Why Police can’t trav­el pan pub­lic trans­port like ebery bady else? If she neva hav nu gun dem wouldn kill har.
There are no short­age of sopho­moric com­ments com­ing out of the killing of 24 year-old Police Constable Crystal Thomas who became the lat­est police offi­cer to die at the hands of Jamaican criminals.
Constable Thomas’ death comes just a day after anoth­er Police Officer 22-year-old Constable Curtis Lewis lost his life trag­i­cal­ly in the line of duty. From all accounts Constable Lewis was engaged in spot checks when a motor­cy­clists he sig­naled to stop dis­obeyed his order and end­ed up killing him, after rip­ping his leg off.
This motor­cy­clists did what he did because they are encour­aged not to obey the Police.
The Question is real­ly this , “will the Director of Public Prosecution have the guts and the balls to pros­e­cute this piece of human waste for murder?
The vil­lage Lawyers, trained and untrained can argue about intent all they want. When you dis­obey a law­ful order and the con­se­quence is the death of this offi­cer your intent must rea­son­ably be con­strued to be malicious.
Intent inferred.
This prob­a­bly won’t hap­pen, this is Jamaica a coun­try which has become a crim­i­nal par­adise. Touch a Criminal and you have a prob­lem. Kill a Cop no problem.

Constable Crystal Thomas had just left work at the Denham Town Police Station and board­ed a pub­lic pas­sen­ger bus that was pass­ing by the sta­tion when she stum­bled upon a rob­bery in progress and chal­lenged the men she would sac­ri­fice her life for her decision.
This Officer did not won­der whether she would be harassed by INDECOM. She did not won­der whether she would be killed in defense of others.
She did what she did because that’s what Police Officers do.
They do not have the ben­e­fit of hind­sight. They do not have the lux­u­ry of Monday-morn­ing quar­ter­back­ing. They take action and if they fail to get it right their sen­tence is death.

In Jamaica if they do get it right, the sen­tence is a lengthy witch-hunt which leaves them pen­ni­less. In the end the result is Prison for doing their jobs or in the event there is no wrong­do­ing proven their careers are over, tough luck you are on your own.
In the Jamaican Police Department the peo­ple who progress are those who do noth­ing , see noth­ing , hear nothing.
Today many of them are walk­ing around, dumb as a door-nail as a friend of mine char­ac­ter­ized them (baosy slaves), in their kha­ki out­fits with absolute­ly no knowl­edge of police work.
What they know is how to kiss-ass , cur­ry favor and be yard-boys to the coun­try’s filthy cor­rupt politicians.

As I pre­pare this Article there is new Information that two of Officer Thomas’ mur­der­ers are in cus­tody. I salute the quick work of those offi­cers who tracked them down. In a real Democracy these two would nev­er see the light of day again. In Jamaica if they ever see a court room the case will drag on and on until one of the lib­er­al crim­i­nal lov­ing tools on the court set them free.
This is what Jamaica has become .
A par­adise for Criminals. Under a Government of Criminals and morons.

“There is no real rise in crime just murders”. 
Those were the words of the half baked idiot who holds the National Security port­fo­lio. Peter Bunting sought to assure and assuage pub­lic dis­qui­et that there was real­ly no need for alarm regard­ing the 22% increase in mur­ders over the cor­re­spond­ing peri­od last year. In his brain-dead attempt to deflect atten­tion from the seri­ous, unre­strained loss of life ‚the Minister cites sta­tis­tics show­ing that Robberies and oth­er crimes are down.
In oth­er words ‚“see crime is not a prob­lem, less rapes, less rob­beries, less break-ins, so don’t wor­ry about the spike in murders”.
You can’t make that stuff up. I guess if you are dead noth­ing else mat­ters. What lunacy …

The prob­lem with our Country is that there are no short­age of wise-ass-know-it-all. Everyone has an opin­ion on every­thing, Social media is now abuzz with vary­ing com­ments about crime and what ought to be done.
They talk about what Police can and can­not do in a democ­ra­cy. Maybe they ought to wake up to the fact that Jamaica is real­ly no Democracy. The Country is a Kleptocracy , run by a bunch of thieves and crooks. They are account­able to no one. Even with abun­dant evi­dence the Courts which are stacked with their lack­eys sub­vert the process and allow them to walk free. Whether it’s mil­lions in the theft of light-bulbs or the Trafigura scan­dal, scan­dal after scan­dal they are above the laws, no one gets pros­e­cut­ed or held accountable
Is there any won­der crim­i­nals are run­ning the streets?
The answer is no , crim­i­nals are run­ning Gordon House, why not the streets

The Police are not total­ly blame­less, hav­ing served I have seen some of them in action, licky-licky, lit­tle yard boys run­ning behind their mas­ters like lit­tle Chihuahua dogs. Is there any won­der that the police was nev­er respect­ed or appreciated?
From the Chief Constable to the District Constable they have a his­to­ry of def­er­ence to politi­cians no mat­ter how cor­rupt they are.
Today the Agency mourn two of it’s own, the silence from Jamaica House is deafening.
The rea­son it’s deaf­en­ing is sim­ple, the occu­pant of Jamaica House has no clue that this is a big deal. The occu­pant of Jamaica House is total­ly clue­less about any­thing but the next oppor­tu­ni­ty to board a flight to the next for­eign event.
This is a clas­sic horse and pony show.

As of yes­ter­day July 13^th 629 mur­ders were report­ed to Police in Jamaica.

This num­ber rep­re­sents a 22% increase over the 515 mur­ders report­ed over the cor­re­spond­ing peri­od last year.
In real terms the aver­age Jamaican has a one in forty two thou­sand chance of being killed, not just on the streets but in their own homes.
Several fac­tors are adverse­ly impact­ing crime not the least of which are pover­ty and high unemployment.
Jamaica is heav­i­ly indebt­ed to for­eign lenders this places the Nation in a pre­car­i­ous posi­tion, ser­vic­ing those loans eats up a huge chunk of the Nation’s gross domes­tic product(GDP)

The Country is present­ly on a path stip­u­lat­ed by the International Monetary Fund , much the way Greece is. The Nation of 2.8 mil­lion peo­ple – has one of the worst debt bur­dens in the world, with a gross pub­lic debt of 123% of GDP. At first glance this looks bet­ter than Greece (166% of GDP) but the more impor­tant num­ber is the inter­est bur­den of the debt: for Jamaica it has aver­aged 13% of GDP over the last five years. This is twice the bur­den of Greece (6.7% of GDP), which is in turn the high­est in the euro zone. (It is worth keep­ing in mind that the bur­den of the debt can vary wide­ly depend­ing on inter­est rates, and on how much is bor­rowed from the coun­try’s cen­tral bank.Reports the Guardian​.com.

The Administration in Kingston is grap­pling with meet­ing IMF tar­gets while fend­ing off pub­lic sec­tor demands for high­er wages after hav­ing endured frozen wages for years to sat­is­fy IMF demands. Juxtapose frozen wages with bal­loon­ing infla­tion and con­di­tions are rife for mass civ­il unrest.
Hold that though however.….

There are oth­er fac­tors affect­ing the mur­der rate in Jamaica, not all of which are the fault of Government. For exam­ple the thou­sands of Jamaicans deport­ed back to the Island each year from the United States, Canada, England and oth­er coun­tries pos­es a seri­ous prob­lem for the Country’s poor­ly trained, poor­ly equipped , poor­ly paid, unmo­ti­vat­ed law enforce­ment offi­cials. This pos­es an exis­ten­tial threat to the Nation . One which should sound alarm bells to the Government that if solu­tions are not forth­com­ing it faces expul­sion with dev­as­tat­ing con­se­quences for the Nation. Well I did ask you to hold your thoughts on the pos­si­bil­i­ty of civ­il unrest as a result of the aus­tere mea­sures dic­tat­ed by the IMF , so I will address those pos­si­bil­i­ties here and now.
Jamaica is like no oth­er place on earth, as such the foun­da­tion of our pol­i­tics dic­tates win­ners and losers.

The Nation’s pol­i­tics is incred­i­bly trib­al . This means that gen­er­al­ly peo­ple aligned to the two major polit­i­cal par­ties sees noth­ing wrong with the poli­cies of their party.
Garrisonization has made it incred­i­bly dif­fi­cult to force the Government from pow­er through the bal­lot box of late. This process which is called (Gerrymandering) In the United States is a can­cer eat­ing away at the Democratic process. It lit­er­al­ly destroys the con­cept of one man one vote and cre­ates apa­thy in less polar­ized vot­ers.. Because the rul­ing PNP has con­trolled state pow­er for over 28 of the last 40 years it has con­sol­i­dat­ed pow­er using tax-pay­ers resources to cre­ate polit­i­cal­ly homo­ge­neous com­mu­ni­ties loy­al to the party.
Incredibly before Elections are held the rul­ing par­ty is already guar­an­teed a cer­tain amount of seats out the nation’s 63 seat Parliament. Many Jamaicans have reigned them­selves to their fate and con­cen­trates on mere­ly surviving.

Loop-holes in the Constitution allows the rul­ing Prime Minister the lat­i­tude to deter­mine when he/​she deter­mines elec­tions are held. Even though tech­ni­cal­ly they have to be held with­in a five year span. Both polit­i­cal par­ties have used this to their advan­tage . The most recent exam­ple being Local Government Elections which were due last month. The Government inex­plic­a­bly delayed the elec­tions for over a year using spu­ri­ous and insult­ing rea­sons for doing so because some polls report­ed­ly have them down significantly.

The Country once a thriv­ing exam­ple of sports , edu­ca­tion , and cul­ture in the Caribbean is now strug­gling des­per­ate­ly to main­tain an out­ward façade of well­ness , while under­neath the putrid smell of decay is becom­ing overwhelming.
Jamaica now rates at the bot­tom of the devel­op­ment lad­der , rival­ing Haiti a peren­ni­al low­er-rung performer.
All of this is impor­tant con­tex­tu­al­ly in under­stand­ing why there are no civ­il unrest in Towns and Cities across the Island. It is impor­tant to under­stand that allow­ing crime to go unchecked is part and par­cel of the Governing struc­ture of the PNP Administration in Kingston.
It is com­mon knowl­edge that when the PNP forms the Government there is a feel­ing on the streets that crim­i­nals have a free hand , any­thing goes. And most impor­tant­ly the Police is de-fanged
That pre­vail­ing mind­set cre­ates the per­fect brew which cul­mi­nates into the present sit­u­a­tion in the Country. There is sta­tis­ti­cal Data which proves that under PNP Administrations crime increas­es exponentially.
Wink, wink, nod, nod.…..
However that is not all the Government does , many of it’s mem­bers are active­ly engaged in seri­ous crim­i­nal con­duct. Just recent­ly one of it’s mem­bers inti­mat­ed he would be leav­ing the Party because his par­ty is corrupt.

This strat­e­gy of allow­ing crime to flour­ish emanat­ed under the Michael Manley Administration after he swept to pow­er in 1972, a mis­take the Island nev­er recov­ered from.
Today there are fun­da­men­tal efforts afoot at re-writ­ing Jamaica’s polit­i­cal History , re-align­ing our con­scious­ness with a san­i­tized ver­sion of what Michael Manley’s mis­guid­ed poli­cies meant and wrought on the beau­ti­ful Island every­one once want­ed a piece of. The idea though not writ­ten as far as this writer knows, was to do the bare min­i­mum as far as enforc­ing the Nation’s laws are con­cerned. This includ­ed starv­ing police of resources. Demoralizing the Police while empow­er­ing crim­i­nal ele­ments through the cre­ation, imple­men­ta­tion, and fos­ter­ing of what is now under­stood as the con­tem­po­rary Don Culture,.
During Manley’s failed attempt at social engi­neer­ing crim­i­nals walked into police sta­tions and freed mur­der­ers aligned to the PNP.

In oth­er cas­es cop-killers like Anthony Brown and George Flash were ush­ered out of the Country by the PNP Government after they mur­dered Police offi­cers. These two

promi­nent Cop-Killers though well know, were not the only two Cop-killers whom the PNP Administration shield­ed and pro­tect­ed from the local Police.
The strate­gies used by the Manley Régime of the Seventies were right out of the play­book of oth­er left-wing Goon-squads which parad­ed as legit­i­mate Governments in places like Nicaragua and oth­er parts of Latin and South America at the time.
This is not to sug­gest that the Labor Party, (JLP) is guilt­less in all this. Most peo­ple famil­iar with Jamaica’s tur­bu­lent pol­i­tics know quite well what hap­pened in 2010 under the lead­er­ship of Bruce Golding with the Christopher Coke saga.

So there will be no mass demon­stra­tions in the streets of Kingston, Montego Bay or oth­er met­ro­pol­i­tan cen­ters around the Island. Most of the peo­ple opposed to the cor­rup­tion and incom­pe­tence have long sought refuge in oth­er Countries. Others who could not afford to leave are not large enough in num­bers to force change through the bal­lot box. This means that for change to come to Jamaica there will have to be mon­u­men­tal change in the think­ing of PNP sup­port­ers. Enough to cre­ate a par­a­digm shift in expec­ta­tions of what Government’s respon­si­bil­i­ties are.
Unfortunately as life becomes more and more unbear­able under the yoke of aus­ter­i­ty and polit­i­cal cor­rup­tion, the peo­ple tight­en their belts to the point of suffocation.
They bow to the pres­sure, uncon­cerned that they have the pow­er to remove the thieves who lord over them instead of serv­ing them.
In the mean­time crime con­tin­ue to rise and the Police are the ones left hold­ing the bag.

As Jamaicans con­tin­ue to be slaugh­tered in unprece­dent­ed num­bers the Country’s National Security Minister fresh from over­seas took imme­di­ate action.
Unfortunately the actions Peter Bunting took was not hud­dling with heads of the Island’s Security Agencies to fig­ure out a way forward.
Bunting instead unleashed a ven­omous attack against the Opposition Party for dar­ing to crit­i­cize the Government on what is clear­ly it’s fail­ure in all areas includ­ing keep­ing the Jamaican peo­ple safe.
Bunting claimed that he has tried to keep National Security out of the polit­i­cal fray but he lament­ed that approach can only work when you have an enlight­ened Opposition,”
Ironically, even as Bunting made those spu­ri­ous claim he was engaged in address­ing Party Loyalists of the Eastern St Andrew con­fer­ence at the University of the West Indies in St Andrew, the “Intellectual ghet­to” (accord­ing to the late Wilmott Perkins) and a hot-bed of failed left wing ide­o­log­i­cal-pol­i­cy-thought long dis­card­ed by the rest of the world.

Score one for Peter Bunting and his abil­i­ty to keep his min­istry apolitical.

In a scathing attack one expects to see on the eve of elec­tions on a plat­form some­where in the three miles area, Bunting blast­ed the polit­i­cal oppo­si­tion’s con­cern, for the demise of over three Jamaicans per day at the hands of crim­i­nal. Bunting charged: “Some in the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) lead­er­ship have been behav­ing like a set of John Crows, like vul­tures, glee­ful­ly react­ing to every loss of life as an oppor­tu­ni­ty to gain polit­i­cal mileage.”

One would have thought that after that parochial out­burst the Minister would have sobered up and real­ized that even though he is act­ing as a piece of car­cass for the polit­i­cal Vultures , he ought to rep­re­sent the Ministry and the men and women who are answer­able to him in a more dig­ni­fied man­ner. This was not to be, not want­i­ng to be out­done by AJ Nicholson’s ine­bri­at­ed out­burst last week , Bunting dived even deeper.

“Like the cow­ards that they are, they wait until my back is turned, until I’m out of the coun­try, to launch their most recent attacks,” he said. “That man is Derrick Smith, the peren­ni­al oppo­si­tion spokesman on nation­al secu­ri­ty, I believe the longest-serv­ing oppo­si­tion spokesman on nation­al secu­ri­ty in the his­to­ry of Jamaica,” declared Bunting. “The way he speaks, you would think that if only he became min­is­ter of nation­al secu­ri­ty Jamaica’s crime prob­lem would be solved.” 

Buntings com­ments should have been enough to cause offense to rea­son­able Jamaicans regard­less of their polit­i­cal stripe.
If not for the Political snip­ing, but at the fact that the Minister hav­ing no answer to the crime sit­u­a­tion chose to attack his polit­i­cal rival with­out lay­ing out a sin­gle pol­i­cy solu­tion for the spi­ral­ing crime wave.
Instead the brain-dead igno­ra­mus­es in atten­dance broke into rau­cous applause.

At a time when the mild­ly aware Prime Minister and oth­ers with­ing the delu­sion­al People’s National Party Administration in Kingston are trum­pet­ing pass­ing IMF tests, Jamaicans are being slaugh­tered in groups of threes and fours while sur­vivors can­not afford to pur­chase basic food necessities.
Reasonable observers already knew Bunting was over his head as far as solu­tions are con­cerned on stop­ping the bleed­ing. However, Bunting’s infan­tile response to crit­i­cisms are a tell-tale sign this cor­rupt Administration is run­ning on fumes.

From the retard­ed insis­tence of the clue­less Prime Minister in not speak­ing to the Media , to AJ Nicholson’s ine­bri­at­ed response about a Jamaican National incar­cer­at­ed abroad , to Bunting’s mouth-full of cow-feces tirade, it is abun­dant­ly clear this Government needs to be retired to obscurity.
These respons­es are symp­to­matic of a tired, clue­less, bunch of low-lev­el trib­al­ists who have had respon­si­bil­i­ty thrust upon them they can­not handle.
When will the peo­ple real­ize this bunch of self-serv­ing mis­cre­ants are only there to fat­ten their own pockets?

Whether one is par­tic­u­lar­ly fond of Holness or Smith has no bear­ing on the seri­ous crime prob­lem fac­ing the nation.
Blowing smoke up peo­ple’s behinds is a not a solu­tion. Bunting can­not be that stu­pid he must know this horse and pony show will come to an end soon.
It is indeed a sad tes­ta­ment of the depths to which our Country has sunken, when these are the peo­ple tasked with it’s care.

Contributor: Errol Mc Leish :

Since the United States, Supreme Court’s dec­la­ra­tion on the sta­tus of same sex mar­riage, there has been inter­est and con­cern, from some nations. Naturally, giv­en the US’ influ­ence on the geopo­lit­i­cal land­scape, the spot­light and focus has been inten­si­fied on coun­tries like Jamaica, where there is open dis­agree­ment with the con­cept. But should the Jamaican peo­ple and its gov­ern­ment be con­cerned at all about the impli­ca­tions of this turn of event? To answer this ques­tion, we look briefly on a num­ber of relat­ed issues to estab­lish a basis for the discussion.

The Jamaican soci­ety and cul­ture was ini­tial­ly, offi­cial­ly struc­tural­ly framed by its colo­nial mas­ters, Great Britain. It’s out of this cul­tur­al adap­ta­tion that laws against cer­tain acts which were deemed anti­so­cial were enact­ed. Among these, was the offence against the per­son act? This stat­u­ary pro­vi­sion is very wide, and includes, inter alia, the bug­gery act. Interestingly, this sec­tion is list­ed and cap­tioned in the pre­am­ble as an unnat­ur­al act. Given the influ­ence the church had on the cul­ture of Great Britain, one should not be sur­prised that the act of bug­gery would be includ­ed in the pro­vi­sions. Perhaps Leviticus 18: 22 might shed some light on this. “Thou salt not lie with mankind as with wom­ankind, it is abom­i­na­tion.” You got the picture?

If we under­stand how laws are cre­at­ed, we would appre­ci­ate that soci­etal norms and reli­gious prac­tices con­tribute immense­ly to its cre­ation. The bug­gery act remains on the Jamaican law books to this day because of adapt­ed soci­etal norms and the lack of inter­est on the part of any polit­i­cal par­ty, on either side of the polit­i­cal fence, be it the Jamaica Labor Party (JLP) or the Peoples National Party (PNP), to ini­ti­ate any changes to the law.

Of inter­est too, is the fact that, although these laws have been on the books for years, there has not been any sig­nif­i­cant arrest of any­one who has engaged in Homosexual activ­i­ty, at least not dur­ing my life time. This has been the case, despite the fact that prac­ti­tion­ers are known, even at the high­est ech­e­lon of our soci­ety. Many have only been open to the real­iza­tion of their exis­tence when they are killed, which in most instances were at the hands of oth­er per­sons who engaged in sim­i­lar activ­i­ty, these are the facts. Although empir­i­cal data is avail­able to demon­strate this, human rights and gay rights advo­ca­cy groups, in Jamaica, have engaged in a smear cam­paign against the state and its peo­ple, on the basis, that homo­sex­u­als are being ostra­cized, mar­gin­al­ized and tar­get­ed, because they are “dif­fer­ent”. This tru­ly is unfor­tu­nate, giv­en the facts avail­able, which obvi­ous­ly indi­cate the contrary.

One needs not to look too far, to con­clude why objec­tiv­i­ty is lack­ing from these groups. Well for one, their major spon­sors or either based in the US or in Europe. Jamaica gets grant or aid from these region, which have immense influ­ence on invest­ment and trade in the island. The heav­i­ly indebt­ed Jamaica, have to trod lines care­ful­ly and not be too crit­i­cal of poli­cies to which they are in dis­agree­ment. Given that this is the sit­u­a­tion it would come as no sur­prise that the US and Great Britain has been crit­i­cal of the bug­gery laws.

Great Britton’s PM had declared in their Parliament, that they would go as far as with­draw­ing aid to coun­tries who demon­strate anti homo­sex­u­al sen­ti­ments. The US has in recent times sent envoys to Jamaica in an effort to influ­ence changes in its bug­gery laws, and there will be more pres­sure, giv­en the par­a­digm shift on the issue.

A nation like Jamaica which has wast­ed its resources and have to rely on grants and loans from orga­ni­za­tion such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and oth­er multi­na­tion­al orga­ni­za­tions , have very lit­tle wig­gle room to make uni­lat­er­al deci­sions with­out con­sid­er­ing how the US and the UK would per­ceive it . The real­i­ty is, our deter­mined eco­nom­ic path is reliant on these eco­nom­ic pow­ers, and that places us in a rather pre­car­i­ous position.

While same sex Marriage might not be a real­i­ty in the near future in Jamaica, relax­ation of our bug­gery laws is tru­ly a like­ly pos­si­bil­i­ty. It is not a ques­tion of if it will hap­pen but when it will happen.

Over the years in these pages I have spo­ken out against the Liberal slant of Jamaica’s courts which in many cas­es caus­es even those with­out legal train­ing to gasp at the out­landish results which come out of them.
One of the rea­sons for the high crime rate in the coun­try and the break-down of social order may exact­ly be laid at the feet of the coun­try’s activists Judges, some of whom have been corrupted.
In instance after instance there evi­dence emerges of galling dis­par­i­ties in the dis­pen­sa­tion of jus­tice, depend­ing on who one knows or is affil­i­at­ed with.
Most shock­ing­ly how­ev­er , is the bla­tant con­tempt many of the coun­try’s judges have for the peo­ple’s cause.
I have argued stri­dent­ly that the vast major­i­ty of the Nation’s Judges who grad­u­ate from the Norman Manley law school are indoc­tri­nat­ed, left­ist ideologues.
They are heavy on crim­i­nal rights and light on per­son­al respon­si­bil­i­ty and adher­ence to the rule of law.
Many use the Courts as a plat­form as a medi­um to pro­mote their own agendas

As Major crimes con­tin­ue to rise, judges con­tin­ue to use their office to sub­vert the process of law and empow­er those who would cre­ate may­hem and chaos in our country
It is time they are held accountable.

Evan Brown a Justice on the High Court recent­ly award­ed Forty Five Thousand dol­lars for one hour and $100,000 for four and a half hours – this was part of the $225,000 award­ed to a for­mer deliv­ery man for false impris­on­ment after a high court judge found last month that he was held in police cus­tody for more than five hours on a charge that was lat­er dis­missed by a low­er court. Winston Hemans was also award­ed $80,000 for mali­cious pros­e­cu­tion in a civ­il suit he filed against the State aris­ing from an inci­dent at the Norman Manley International Airport (NMIA) in Kingston in July 2005.

Brown, how­ev­er, dis­missed Hemans’ claim for aggra­vat­ed or exem­plary dam­ages against the arrest­ing offi­cer, iden­ti­fied as Constable Andrew Anderson. “There was … noth­ing in the cir­cum­stances of the arrest of the claimant [Hemans], whether at the arrival area [at NMIA] or at the police sta­tion, that sug­gest­ed that the first defen­dant [Anderson] behaved in a high­hand­ed, insult­ing, mali­cious or oppres­sive man­ner,” Brown wrote in his rul­ing. Hemans claimed, in court doc­u­ments, that he parked his motor car at the NMIA on July 19, 2005, and was head­ing to the arrival area to deliv­er a pack­age when he was approached from behind by Anderson and asked to go with him to the police sta­tion locat­ed at the air­port. The for­mer deliv­ery man said when he got there, he was arrest­ed and charged with the offence of fail­ing to leave the air­port. Hemans said he was placed in cus­tody and remained there until he was grant­ed bail some time after 6 o’clock that evening. After three court appear­ances between July and August that year, pros­e­cu­tors decid­ed to drop the charge against him in September. But Anderson, in his wit­ness state­ment, said he saw Hemans at the arrival west ter­mi­nal area – clad in blue jeans and a white shirt – ille­gal­ly solic­it­ing pas­sen­gers and col­lect­ing mon­ey. Anderson tes­ti­fied that he told the deliv­ery man that he was com­mit­ting an offence and ordered him to leave the air­port. “Upon being so ordered, the claimant walked away,” the cop said.

HELD FOR FAILING TO LEAVE AIRPORT

However, he said that lat­er that day, he again saw Hemans solic­it­ing pas­sen­gers at the air­port, and it was at that time that he decid­ed to arrest him for fail­ing to leave the air­port. Anderson said a search of the deliv­ery man after the arrest revealed “mon­ey the claimant told him was col­lect­ed from solic­it­ing pas­sen­gers”. Brown, after hear­ing both sides, said the ques­tion became whether Hemans was the per­son Anderson spoke to ear­li­er that day.

“Did he [Anderson] make a mis­take? In his wit­ness state­ment, the first defen­dant [Anderson] described the per­son he told to leave the air­port as a man dressed in blue jeans and a shirt. However, in the entry made … in [the] sta­tion diary, the first defen­dant described the claimant [Hemans] as a man dressed in black pants and a blue shirt,” Brown not­ed. “The first defen­dant did not say any­thing to the claimant aside from ask­ing the claimant to accom­pa­ny him to the police sta­tion, although the claimant required of him a rea­son. He, there­by, robbed him­self of the oppor­tu­ni­ty to con­firm his ear­li­er obser­va­tions and ground his action in law,” the judge con­tin­ued. Brown also raised ques­tions about the constable’s claim in his wit­ness state­ment that the per­son he warned about solic­it­ing pas­sen­gers at the air­port walked away. He said an entry in the sta­tion diary revealed that “that per­son was escort­ed to the bus stop”. “This is the incon­gruity … nei­ther account made any ref­er­ence to the claimant’s [Hemans] car, which he, admit­ted­ly, had at the air­port. It strains the lim­its of the imag­i­na­tion to accept that the claimant would have walked with the first defen­dant to the bus stop with­out once men­tion­ing that he had his own mode of trans­porta­tion to leave the air­port,” Brown underscored.
See sto­ry here:Costly Lock-Up — Court Awards $225,000 For Wrongful Detention .

Here’s the Issue: Brown, dis­missed Hemans’ claim for aggra­vat­ed or exem­plary dam­ages against the arrest­ing offi­cer, iden­ti­fied as Constable Andrew Anderson. “There was … noth­ing in the cir­cum­stances of the arrest of the claimant [Hemans], whether at the arrival area [at NMIA] or at the police sta­tion, that sug­gest­ed that the first defen­dant [Anderson] behaved in a high­hand­ed, insult­ing, mali­cious or oppres­sive manner,”.
In oth­er words the Officer did absolute­ly noth­ing wrong beyond what he is tasked with doing, which is enforc­ing the laws. Police are placed at Airports to do specif­i­cal­ly what this Officer did, keep ter­mi­nals clear. All across the World in Nations which does not prac­tice back-water jus­tice as Jamaica does, Police offi­cers are very keen about keep­ing Airport ter­mi­nals clear for var­i­ous reasons >

Jamaica is no exception.
like oth­er Nations Jamaica has a respon­si­bil­i­ty to adhere to International stan­dards which Govern International Airports,.
Those stan­dards include but are not con­fined to ‚ensur­ing that ter­mi­nals are kept as clear as pos­si­ble so that rapid access may be avail­able to emer­gency vehi­cles and first responders.
Officers also have to be mind­ful of Terrorism in all forms when they are tasked with being vig­i­lant at International Airports.
What is abun­dant­ly clear is that this offi­cer was vig­i­lant and did his job.
What is also clear is that even if there was an error in the per­cep­tion of the Officer as far as the iden­ti­ty of the offend­er is con­cerned, there was no mali­cious intent.
If the Officer act­ed with­out mal­ice and made a gen­uine error in the iden­ti­fi­ca­tion process, where are the grounds for an award.
It was­n’t even clear that the offend­er had­n’t sim­ply changed his clothes.

This young police offi­cer may have made the sim­ple mis­take of using clothes to iden­ti­fy a sus­pect. But that mis­take ‚not a mali­cious­ly act, did not war­rant a dis­missal of the case and cer­tain­ly did not jus­ti­fy a civ­il award.
Clearly the court in this mat­ter bent back­ward , con­tort­ing itself into a pret­zel , in an attempt to find a way to award this offender.
What the ding-bat left­ist judge said was that basi­cal­ly the offi­cer act­ed appro­pri­ate­ly with no mal­ice, his own words.
Quote;“There was … noth­ing in the cir­cum­stances of the arrest of the claimant ‚whether at the arrival area [at NMIA] or at the police sta­tion, that sug­gest­ed that offi­cer Anderson behaved in a high­hand­ed, insult­ing, mali­cious or oppres­sive manner,”.

Yet he award­ed this offend­er money.
This guy was there doing exact­ly what Constable Anderson observed him doing .
It is a grave mis­car­riage of Justice that this back-water oper­a­tive act­ing as a legit­i­mate tri­er of facts can arbi­trar­i­ly sub­vert the course of jus­tice and get away with it.
For our part we will con­tin­ue to high­light these instances where these Judges whom are sworn to uphold the law , usurp their author­i­ty in order to inject their per­son­al beliefs and bias­es into the process.

In yet anoth­er response to the con­fus­ing saga regard­ing the incar­cer­a­tion of a 40 year-old Jamaican pilot jailed in Qatar, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs released a state­ment say­ing that Paul Stephens is still in prison.
This more sober response came only a day after Minister with Portfolio for Foreign Affairs AJ Nicholson gave what appeared to be an ine­bri­at­ed and dis­re­spect­ful response to the Media Interest in Stephens incar­cer­a­tion quote:
“Who is this man by the way, Is he king, Who is he, What is all this inter­est about?” “I am say­ing noth­ing fur­ther about this man or about this case”.!!
SEE STORY HERE: Jamaica’s Minister Of Foreign Affairs Regarding A Jamaican Citizen: “Who Is This Man By The Way, Is He King, Who Is He, What Is All This Interest About?” “I Am Saying Nothing Further About This Man Or About This Case.”!!!
Social media back­lash against Nicholson’s cave­man’s response was swift and bru­tal, no doubt prompt­ing a more respect­ful yet mun­dane response from the Ministry.

“Whenever Jamaican nation­als are arrest­ed and/​or held in cus­tody over­seas, the pol­i­cy of the Government of Jamaica is to allow the legal process­es to run their due course. It is not the pol­i­cy of the min­istry to inter­vene in the judi­cial process­es of oth­er coun­tries or to pub­licly impugn the integri­ty of these process­es with­out author­i­ta­tive jus­ti­fi­ca­tion,” the min­istry said.
In oth­er words the Ministry is doing noth­ing toward secur­ing the release of this Jamaican nation­al inno­cent or not.
This state­ment though rea­son­able sound­ing, masks a seri­ous flaw in the way the Jamaican Government sees it’s cit­i­zens. Though dif­fer­ent than Nicholson’s out­landish response a day ear­li­er, both respons­es shows a fun­da­men­tal lack of respect for their own citizens.

It is remark­able that the Ministry would release this response regard­ing a cit­i­zen of our Country par­tic­u­lar­ly against the back-drop of crim­i­nal Justice sys­tems in places like Qatar where their con­cept of the rule of law dif­fers sig­nif­i­cant­ly from ours and the rest of the civ­i­lized world.
If Mister Stephens is guilty of molest­ing a minor-child he deserves what­ev­er jus­tice that juris­dic­tion met­ed out. Conversely , we must ask our­selves whether we are com­fort­able with the notion of one of our coun­try­men being held in a Qatari prison for a crime he poten­tial­ly did not com­mit, yet receiv­ing no help from his own Government?

As in many cas­es where crimes are alleged, sup­port­ers line up on both sides. Nevertheless we can ill-afford to allow the bar­bar­i­ty of crim­i­nals to cre­ate a sense of apa­thy with­in us which numbs us to Injustice and robs us of our humanity.
That is why it is impor­tant that our Government do all it can to assist our Nationals when­ev­er they are incar­cer­at­ed abroad . It Is impor­tant that we allow the sys­tem of Justice to take it’s course in Sovereign Nations. But we must nev­er lose sight of the fact that in many places some are more equal than others.
That includes our very own pre­cious Island Home>

Lost in this con­fu­sion is the announce­ment from Shadow Minister on Foreign Affairs Edmund Bartlett that mis­ter Stephens was released from Prison accord­ing to his Qatari sources in the United States.
If indeed Mister Stephens is still in Prison, Mister Bartlett may want to recon­sid­er his sources as well as the degree with which he makes announce­ments with­out prop­er verification.

Commissioner of Police Dr. Carl Williams is lob­by­ing to again change the laws allow­ing police to arrest peo­ple they sus­pect of com­mit­ting crimes even with­out enough evidence.
Williams report­ed­ly said “We want to, hope­ful­ly, get an amend­ment to the Bail Act, so that even per­sons who are not charged for crim­i­nal offences can be arrest­ed and bailed pri­or to charge,”

What does that even mean?
So the Commissioner is seek­ing an amend­ment to the Bail Act. So that per­sons not charged with an offense may be arrest­ed and Bailed pri­or to being charged?
Simply put, the Commissioner seeks a return to the days of the Suppression of Crimes Act which allowed Police to just gath­er up huge groups of young men from cer­tain deprived areas and throw them in Jail some­times for weeks on end.
I must con­fess that the dura­tion of my 10 years of ser­vice was under those spe­cial pow­ers and yes crime was low­er across the board. However it can­not be said that lock­ing up dozens and dozens of young men from a par­tic­u­lar area is the way to go strate­gi­cal­ly if the goal is to have crime trend down on a continuüm.

The Gleaner reports that; In 2011, the Supreme Court struck down amend­ments made to the Bail Act which were made by Parliament the year before. Among oth­er things, the amend­ments pro­vid­ed for the deten­tion of a sus­pect on gun and mur­der offences for 60 days with­out bail. Additionally, accused were being required to sat­is­fy the court as to why they should be released on bail, a pro­vi­sion which runs counter to the Constitution. They could be held for up to 72 hours before being charged, instead of the 24-hour pro­vid­ed for by the Constitution.

I am tempt­ed to blast the Liberal Supreme Court for stand­ing in the way of any­thing which would alle­vi­ate the crime prob­lem and I would be on the mark . Nevertheless the Supreme Court has a duty to fol­low the Constitution.
This brings us to the ques­tion of con­sti­tu­tion­al reform. Jamaica needs a new Constitution. I believe the time is right for either a new Constitution or major over­haul to the present one geared at pro­tect­ing the cit­i­zens of our Country.
The Commissioner is seem­ing­ly at a loss as to the way for­ward ‚. Recently I saw some­thing in the papers about old retired Detectives will­ing to offer their exper­tise toward solv­ing the Nation’s crime prob­lem. The com­mis­sion­er should take them up on their offer.
The JCF must extri­cate itself from the ancient think­ing of bru­tal­i­ty and mass incar­cer­a­tion with­out charge, as a way of address­ing crime.There are no sub­sti­tutes for…
♦ Good Detective work.
♦ Scientific evi­dence. Improvements in Forensics.
♦ Bringing com­mu­ni­ties along on strategies.
♦ Community Policing.
♦ Developing and exe­cut­ing effec­tive crime strategies.

Commissioner Williams is a PhD.
We were told that what we need­ed to ade­quate­ly fix our crime prob­lem were no more big ‑foot-fool-fool-police bway.
The Force has under­gone much sup­posed improve­ments since my depar­ture over two decades ago,still the nation is yet to real­ize much in the way of returns on investments.
Sorry Commissioner this is not the way for­ward, whether you were jok­ing about your per­for­mance being 10 out of 10 or not , this lat­est strat­e­gy has you bat­ting 0 – 2 .
Will you strike out?
Time will tell.…..

“Who is this man by the way, Is he king, Who is he, What is all this interest about?” “I am saying nothing further about this man or about this case.”!!!

These were the words of Jamaica’s Foreign Minister Senator A J Nicholson, when Journalists ques­tioned him about the release of a Jamaican National Paul Stephens,who was locked up in Qatar for over three years. Stephens a 40 year-old Pilot have been incar­cer­at­ed on a charge of sex­u­al molesta­tion of a minor.
Opposition spokesman on Foreign Affairs Edmund Bartlett revealed days ago that through his efforts Stephens was released.
At the time the Information came to light regard­ing Stephens release from Prison, Nicholson admit­ted he had no knowl­edge of it , cit­ing the dif­fer­ence in time zones between Jamaica and Qatar as the rea­son he could not ver­i­fy the report.

Conversely Bartlett stat­ed that his liai­son with Qatari offi­cials in the United States con­firmed the release of Stephens. Other enti­ties have also been lob­by­ing for the release of Mister Stephens whom they claimed was unjust­ly incarcerated.
Bartlett also acknowl­edged that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was indeed involved in try­ing to secure the release of mis­ter Stephens. So what then is the rea­son for this caus­tic and dis­re­spect­ful response from AJ Nicholson?

Is it that Nicholson is pissed that Bartlett pre­empt­ed him by com­ing out and announc­ing the release of Stephens?
It may very well be juve­nile polit­i­cal malice.
In fact when pre­vi­ous­ly told that Bartlett had announced the release , Nicholson alleged­ly said ” who wan tek cred­it can go ahead and tek cred­it”.

Juvenile tantrum aside regard­ing who should be cred­it­ed, Nicholson’s tirade on this issue involv­ing a Jamaican cit­i­zen shows the deep dis­re­spect these Politicians have for Jamaicans.
Nicholson’s salary and perks are paid by Jamaican tax-pay­ers. Yet the lev­el of dis­re­spect com­ing from his mouth regard­ing exact­ly what he should be look­ing about is rather illuminating.
Shocking as this tirade is it is the norm of PNP politi­cians to show dis­dain for Jamaicans. Robert Pickersgill once asked a male audi­ence mem­ber whether he was “hav­ing his peri­od” because the mem­ber dared ques­tion him.
In oth­er some places Nicholson would have been asked to resign . However when we look at who holds the top spot in the ech­e­lons of elect­ed pow­er that thought dis­si­pates rather quickly.

AJ Nicholson has always been a self-serv­ing Arrogant piece of filth when he prac­ticed as a Defense Lawyer. In many cas­es his impres­sions of him­self as a crim­i­nal defense lawyer was not borne out at the dis­po­si­tion of cas­es in which he was involved. As the Nation’s top Diplomat there is no place for that type of arro­gance and disrespect.
Then I’m remind­ed it’s only Jamaica , any­thing goes. These ass-wipes are only there to fat­ten their pockets.

Former head of the National Solid Waste Management Authority and Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) mem­ber, Joan Gordon-Webley, has con­firmed that she has joined the rul­ing People’s National Party (PNP), say­ing that she is will­ing to face what­ev­er crit­i­cism that may come as a result of the move.

Just last year Webley resigned as the JLP’s care­tak­er for St Andrew East Rural. At the time there were spec­u­la­tions that she would be join­ing the People’s National Party. As a result the Jamaica Labor Labor Party must have seen this com­ing. Generally if you hear some­thing in Jamaica if it’s not the truth it’s usu­al­ly close to the truth.

On that basis I believe the hier­ar­chy of the Jamaica Labor Party (JLP) to which Webley belonged must have expect­ed this from the time she resigned last year. In fact there were rum­blings that there were dis­agree­ments which pre­cip­i­tat­ed her res­ig­na­tion as care­tak­er of the St Andrew East Rural Constituency.

Without spec­u­lat­ing on the details sur­round­ing Webley’s exit from the JLP and her sub­se­quent align­ment with the failed PNP , it is fair to say her depar­ture is no great loss for the Labor Party. It may also be fair to say that the PNP is a bet­ter fit for her.
Webley comes from a dif­fer­ent time in Jamaican politics .
A time of Garrisons and guns.
It is unclear whether Webley eschewed those old style Politics as the younger less trib­al Andrew Holness has.
Whatever the rea­sons for her depar­ture, they are imma­te­r­i­al at this time.
For any­one steeped in Jamaica’s polit­i­cal his­to­ry, it must amaze that in light of the less con­fronta­tion­al style and direc­tion of Holness , that Gordon Webley would seek to join the PNP.

This is no loss for the Labor Party despite the immi­nent noise which will emanate as a result of the optics. Holness must stead­fast­ly con­tin­ue to rebuild the Labor Party on the mar­ket style prin­ci­ples of Bustamante.
Bustamante was a Business-Owner and a Trade Union Leader, those dis­ci­plines unique­ly pre­pared him to launch the Labor Party on the prin­ci­ples of Education, love of Country and hard work .
Those are the bedrock prin­ci­ples which lead indi­vid­u­als and Nations out of pover­ty. Much unlike the Government-depen­den­cy mantra of the oth­er par­ty cre­at­ed by his more glib cousin Norman Manley.

The Labor Party should not bad-mouth Joan Gordon-Webley, mem­bers should sim­ply thank her for her ser­vice and wish her well while con­tin­u­ing the work of devel­op­ing strate­gies and poli­cies which will res­cue Jamaica and return it to a path of growth and prosperity.
Adiós Joan.….…

The Jamaican Government said it is work­ing to secure more con­vic­tions in Human Trafficking in the Courts. Chairperson for the National Task Force Against Trafficking in Persons (NATFATIP), Carol Palmer, who made the dis­clo­sure to JIS News, said the Government intends to deal harsh­ly with per­sons engaged in human trafficking.
Palmer made the com­ments against the back­drop of Jamaica gain­ing it’s very first con­vic­tion in the Courts for Human Trafficking.
Palmer laud­ed all the enti­ties , includ­ing the Police and Prosecutor for their work in secur­ing the Conviction of Indian busi­ness­man, Rajesh Gurunani, who oper­at­ed gar­ment stores in down­town Kingston and in St Catherine, was found guilty of traf­fick­ing in per­sons, facil­i­tat­ing traf­fick­ing in per­sons, and with­hold­ing trav­el doc­u­ments between May 2008 and March 2011.

As a lit­tle boy we used to go bird shoot­ing using cat­a­pults (sling-shot), I was a hor­ren­dous shot. Any Bird I fired at was sure to escape I was that bad a shot with a sling-shot. Usually I end­ed up shoot­ing parts of my own hand rather than hit­ting the bird.
I was such a hor­ri­ble shot that on the one occa­sion I actu­al­ly did shoot a bird my entire fam­i­ly laughed at me so bad­ly I was embar­rassed. Everyone said that the Bird must have been sick, on it’s way home from the Hospital in order for me to actu­al­ly shoot it. I was so embar­rassed that I believed that maybe the Bird was indeed sick, I did not eat it despite my love for Bird-meat.

With the Incompetence of the Criminal Justice System in Jamaica it is incom­pre­hen­si­ble that they would actu­al­ly show their faces to cel­e­brate the Nation’s first con­vic­tion in the Courts for some­thing which has been going on for years.
Mister Rajesh Gurunani was the prover­bial sick bird. His lev­el of care­less­ness, incom­pe­tence and maybe arro­gance must have been mon­u­men­tal for the Jamaican sys­tem to fig­ure out his transgressions.
All of these peo­ple Jamaicans or oth­ers, regard­less of where they come from under­stand the inher­ent weak­ness and utter incom­pe­tence of the Jamaican Security and crim­i­nal appre­hen­sion apparatus.
Chairperson Carol Palmer was quick to point out that the Government will be seek­ing to secure more con­vic­tions. This prompts me to ask,“Why does the coun­try need a Task-Force Against Trafficking in Persons”?
Aren’t these Police Responsibilities?
Palmer brags that the Government intends to deal harsh­ly with per­sons engaged in Human traf­fick­ing. How exact­ly will the Government do this?
Will there be an edict from Jamaica House with the Queen declar­ing (“off with their heads”) ? Or are there clear, deci­sive and unam­bigu­ous laws which sends offend­ers to prison?
This is real­ly much to do about noth­ing. It real­ly is not that com­pli­cat­ed to inves­ti­gate these mat­ters. The Ministry of National Security’s Website states that For the peri­od April 2012 to March 2013, two hun­dred and thir­teen (213) police raids were con­duct­ed and 23 human traf­fick­ing vic­tims were res­cued. Over 100 per­sons have also been inter­viewed by the JCF Trafficking in Persons Unit in rela­tion to human traf­fick­ing, 90 of those being since January 2013.

If you thought I was being unrea­son­able in my crit­i­cism of the sin­gle con­vic­tion this alone ought to give you pause.
In one year 213 raids were con­duct­ed by Police.
Twenty three (23) vic­tims released.
One hun­dred per­sons interviewed.

Yet the Government cel­e­brates a sin­gle con­vic­tion in the courts. Many of my for­mer col­leagues in law-enforce­ment crit­i­cize me for being too hard on the JCF with my criticisms.
Those with whom I worked under­stand full well what I am talk­ing about. If crim­i­nals broke the laws we went after them.
When we went after them ‚we got them.
When we got them, rest assured they were convicted.
What the Courts did with them was not our business.
Jamaica’s hopes for a reduc­tion in crime is not based on any real­is­tic , or rea­son­ably-attain­able met­ric beyond Divine Intervention. As a Christian I can tell you, God helps those who help themselves.
The Jamaican Government and it’s lack­eys in the Police Department chased effec­tive police offi­cers from the Force and replaced them with pen­cil-push­ing desk-warm­ing wannabes, main­ly their cronies from the University of the West Indies (UWI) who need­ed work.
Platitudes, Promises and Pronouncements are the order of the day as the Crime wave rages.
As one per­son puts it Nero twid­dles his thumb as Rome burns.

Youth Unemployment is rough­ly twice the National Average in Jamaica . Youth Unemployment Rate in Jamaica decreased to 5.70 per­cent in May of 2015 from 5.90 per­cent in April of 2015. accord­ing to the Ministry of Internal Affairs & Communications. According to the same report­ing the very same Ministry reports that Youth Unemployment in 2015, reached an all time high of 13.20 per­cent in March of 2003.
To Jamaicans famil­iar with the num­ber of young peo­ple with absolute­ly noth­ing to do these num­bers are beyond laughable.
Despite this, I am not talk­ing specif­i­cal­ly about youth unem­ploy­ment in the abstract but as one of the rea­sons for the Country’s high mur­der rate.
Youth Unemployment. Deportation. Lack of ade­quate Laws. Lack of laws with teeth. Police Incompetence. Lack of sup­port for the Rule of Law. Lack of sup­port from the Political Directorate to Law Enforcement, are only some of the issues fuel­ing the Nation’s bur­geon­ing crime wave.

WHAT IS COMMISSIONER OF POLICE CARL WILLIAMS SMOKING ?
Commissioner of Police Dr Carl Williams yes­ter­day gave him­self a per­fect rat­ing of 10 out of 10 as he launched what he said were a num­ber of new and tweaked ini­tia­tives to go after crim­i­nals who are respon­si­ble for almost 90 per cent of the 602 mur­ders record­ed in the island over the first six months of this year , accord­ing to the Jamaica Observer. SEE STORY HERE Perfect 10.

According to the report­ing , that fig­ure rep­re­sents a 19 per cent jump (98 more) in the num­ber of mur­ders com­mit­ted over the cor­re­spond­ing peri­od last year. The Article the­o­rized that Williams is seek­ing to allay the fears of Jamaicans.

I am unsure to what extent anoth­er pro­nounce­ment from the Police High Command offer­ing grand plat­i­tudes and mak­ing promis­es it can­not and has no capac­i­ty to ful­fill will do that.
Williams argues that at the top of the list of ini­tia­tives to stem the tide of dead­ly crimes was a new pro­gram called ‘Get the Guns Campaign’, which will offer mon­e­tary incen­tives to cit­i­zens who pro­vide infor­ma­tion that lead to the con­fis­ca­tion of dead­ly weapons. “In light of this and the increased use of guns in mur­ders, I am here intro­duc­ing the ‘Get the Guns Campaign’,” the com­mis­sion­er told jour­nal­ists at a news con­fer­ence at his office in Kingston. “This cam­paign is designed to one, inter­cept ille­gal guns com­ing into the coun­try; two, seize ille­gal guns in the hands of the crim­i­nals; and three, ulti­mate­ly reduce the num­ber of gun mur­ders in the coun­try,” Williams said.!!!
Call me unin­formed and sil­ly but I have to ask this of Commissioner Williams.
If the pro­gram is to quote : Offer mon­e­tary incen­tives to cit­i­zens who pro­vide infor­ma­tion that lead to the con­fis­ca­tion of dead­ly weapons.!
How will the very same pro­gram quote: Intercept ille­gal guns com­ing into the coun­try; two, seize ille­gal guns in the hands of the crim­i­nals; and three, ulti­mate­ly reduce the num­ber of gun mur­ders in the country,”?
Hence my ques­tion to the good­ly Dr. What are you smoking?

Essentially this is just anoth­er Gun Amnesty which gen­er­al­ly does pre­cious lit­tle to reduce Crime but pro­vides a stream of income to those already immersed in crim­i­nal con­duct and more specif­i­cal­ly those engaged in the gun trade.
Generally, Criminals do not give up their guns, they will turn over unused or unus­able old weapons to the police while hold­ing onto their stash of real weapons.
Probably more con­se­quen­tial, a gun amnesty opens up new oppor­tu­ni­ties for gun traders to source weapons ille­gal­ly then sim­ply sell them to the Police/​Government at a profit.

As a for­mer front line street cop I was nev­er par­tic­u­lar­ly enthused about gun amnesty. They nev­er real­ize the intend­ed results. In the end they offer pay-offs to cit­i­zens who should have called police about their knowl­edge of ille­gal weapons for their own good to begin with.
Good cit­i­zens call police about crim­i­nal activ­i­ty, includ­ing the where­abouts of ille­gal weapons. Jamaicans must under­stand the lives they save may be their very own.
As a sup­port­er of the Rule of Law, and a Jamaican who yearn for the Police Department to be an effi­cient enti­ty which pro­duces results, I am pained at the Commissioner’s statements.
This state­ment is a clear indi­ca­tion that on the mer­its the Police has no real strat­e­gy to push back against seri­ous crimes in Jamaica.

I am aware that the Government has not sup­plied near­ly enough resources to do the Job. We are also aware that to some extent The Administration is heav­i­ly invest­ed in Criminal con­duct through sur­ro­gates who are well placed in crit­i­cal areas of the society.
I am also aware that the Administration has a net­work of Garrisons through­out the Country in which Criminal behav­ior is nur­tured and encouraged .
Despite this, it is impor­tant that the Police employ more stri­dent and work­able strate­gies geared at pro­vid­ing returns on Investments for the Jamaican Nation.
I ful­ly under­stand that the Force is large­ly demor­al­ized as a result of the fore­gone and oth­er issues, how­ev­er the Commissioner must use the tools he has at his dis­pos­al more effectively.
A gun Amnesty is not the answer real and tan­gi­ble strate­gies are ..

(1)Training Detectives to Investigate Crimes.
(2) Using your Office to push the Administration to pass Laws putting crim­i­nals behind bars and keep­ing them there.
(3) Use Officers more effi­cient­ly by hav­ing very vis­i­ble , coör­di­nat­ed pres­ence in high risk communities .
(4) Having your­self and the rest of the Gazetted Ranks stand firm­ly and unequiv­o­cal­ly behind Officers until they are proven to have bro­ken the laws. Over the decades Commissioners and the Gazetted Ranks have been noth­ing but boot lick­ing lack­eys when it comes to sup­port­ing police who do the real work.
(5) Be pro­fes­sion­al take no bull­shit from nei­ther the Administration nor the Opposition. In order to effect change the Police must become an equal oppor­tu­ni­ty offend­er in sup­port of the Nation’s Laws.
(6) Stop being sub­servient and def­er­en­tial to Politicians.

Over the years this pub­li­ca­tion has made real and sub­stan­tive sug­ges­tions which if adopt­ed would have seri­ous­ly placed seri­ous crimes in remission.
Many years ago while I was a young Constable sta­tioned at the Mobile Reserve crim­i­nals would ter­ror­ize Brook Avenue and oth­er parts of the com­mu­ni­ty of Duhaney Park.
Armed with high-pow­ered weapons they used the high ground at the back of Brook avenue as a stag­ing ground from which to launch assaults on the Community.
A sin­gle Police Unit with four offi­cers, appro­pri­ate­ly armed, strate­gi­cal­ly placed brought those attacks to a halt.
These are not new strate­gies. They worked in the Eastern St Andrew com­mu­ni­ties of Nannyville, at the foot of Wareika Hills, and in oth­er loca­tions all across the cor­po­rate area.
As a young offi­cer I was part of sim­i­lar strate­gies all across the Country as we were air­lift­ed into com­mu­ni­ties like Hayes and adjoin­ing com­mu­ni­ties in the Parish of Clarendon. Flankers in St. James and oth­er com­mu­ni­ties all across our country.
The place­ment of well trained , well equipped offi­cers who are unafraid to take action is the best way to tamp down on seri­ous crimes.
Placing band-aid on gun­shot wounds is a fool’s errand.
Commissioner Williams may have spent too much time behind desks to ful­ly under­stand­ing crime fight­ing techniques.
Empty out the Police sta­tions, flood the com­mu­ni­ties with uni­formed cops .
The best deter­rent against crim­i­nals is catch­ing them when they com­mit crimes.
If offi­cers are placed and their place­ment strate­gi­cal­ly coör­di­nat­ed with appro­pri­ate rein­force­ments crime trends down dramatically.
As I have said before there are struc­tur­al and geo­graph­i­cal chal­lenges to effi­cient polic­ing in Jamaica, despite those chal­lenges, sus­tained ‚coör­di­nat­ed intel­li­gence-based polic­ing is possible.
It’s time the Commissioner and his cohorts above Cross Roads real­ize that PhD’s are good but they do pre­cious lit­tle to impact crime . Flowery goobly-gook sounds good but real polic­ing from real cops has no substitute.
That is the job of real ded­i­cat­ed crime fight­ers who know what the hell they are about.