As another year draws to a close, Jamaica is once again saddled with the dubious distinction of being one of the most violent places to live on this planet.
We must examine ourselves with clear-eyes and figure out whether the violence may be attributed to Jamaicans having a greater propensity for violence, as against whether people commit crimes because they believe with a high degree of certainty, that there will be no consequences for their actions, even if they are caught?

I think both sce­nar­ios are true; I also believe that the lat­ter con­trols the for­mer, but there is a lack of will to do what is necessary.
Additionally, Jamaican author­i­ties act as though our laws have to pass muster with the American, Canadian, and British Embassy.
Their con­tin­ued feal­ty and docile sub­servience to their old colo­nial mas­ters have great­ly ham­pered the nation’s crime-fight­ing efforts, even as those coun­tries leg­is­late and exe­cute their poli­cies with­out care or con­cern about what any oth­er nation thinks, least of all Jamaica.
The United States State Department is quick to judge how oth­er nations enforce their laws, even as the United States has one of the worse records in law enforce­ment and human rights.
On the one hand, American made guns con­tin­ue to flood the Island unabat­ed, yet on the oth­er, the United States rou­tine­ly issues alarm­ing [trav­el advi­sories] when those guns are used in vio­lent acts.
The United States can­not have it both ways, and the larg­er ques­tion remains, why is Jamaica act­ing as if it is the 51^st state of the United States anyway?

As for Canada and Great Britain, why we care what they think is a mys­tery to me? Please enlight­en me, someone!
The sad real­i­ty, is that Jamaica has become like the man accom­pa­nied by his son, who took his Donkey to sell it.
The hap­less man lis­tened to every com­ment peo­ple passed made; he even end­ed up tieing up the don­key and car­ry­ing it between him and his young son.
Jamaica is either a sov­er­eign nation, or it isn’t. As a nation that has to fend for itself like every oth­er, we have the right to deter­mine autonomous­ly, how we leg­is­late, and effec­tu­ate policies.
We bor­row mon­ey like every­one else; how­ev­er, as a large­ly Black coun­try, Jamaica does not receive the aid that oth­er small­er nations receive from the big pow­ers that like to push their agen­das on us.
The state of Israel rose out of the desert in 1947; Jamaica gained it’s [so-called inde­pen­dence] in 1962; Jamaica has few­er than 3 mil­lion cit­i­zens. Conversely, the state of Israel has a pop­u­la­tion of 8.884 mil­lion as of (2018).
Israel is a nuclear-armed, nation that sets pol­i­cy in the mid­dle east.
It is so because the same pow­ers to whom Jamaica is heav­i­ly indebt­ed, the same pow­ers that like to dic­tate to Jamaica what is right and wrong, have fund­ed Israel’s growth even as they turn a blind eye to its war crimes across the mid­dle east from its inception.

No nation should sur­ren­der its auton­o­my to anoth­er because it bor­rows mon­ey from that oth­er coun­try. However, as the Bible teach­es, the bor­row­er is a slave to the lender, which is what Jamaica has become, a slave to America and oth­ers from which it con­tin­ues to borrow.
The sad truth is that the nations that dic­tate to Jamaica how it may enforce its laws, know full well the con­se­quences of crime to jamaica’s economy.
As I have said repeat­ed­ly, it is up to Jamaica to see through these big pow­ers’ strat­e­gy. A nation engulfed in crime is a nation that can­not ful­fill its poten­tial. A nation that can­not ful­fill it’s poten­tial is a nation that will for­ev­er be a debtor nation.
As a nation, Jamaica must stop being pre­ten­tious; we are not a Scandavanian nation; we must deal with our vio­lent killers in deci­sive ways, and end the pre­ten­tious appease­ment policies.
A nation that nego­ti­ates with, and begs vio­lent mur­der­ers to obey its laws is a nation that has sur­ren­dered to terror.
Some branch­es of the Jamaican Government has all but become lob­by­ing firms for the Island’s most vio­lent crim­i­nals, none more so than the so-called Justice Ministry, and the tax-pay­er paid Minister who heads that Ministry.

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Mike Beckles is a for­mer Police Detective, busi­ness­man, free­lance writer, a black achiev­er hon­oree, and pub­lish­er of the blog mike​beck​les​.com. 
He’s con­tributed to sev­er­al websites.
You may sub­scribe to his blogs, or sub­scribe to his Youtube chan­nel @chatt-a-box, for the lat­est videos.

Paul Solotaroff

Why does the department protect its most dangerous cops while retaliating against officers who tell the truth?

Usually, that kid clomp­ing down his mother’s porch is a trac­tor beam of charm. On the South Side of Chicago, where Gangster Disciples shoot the Black Disciples over slights and side-eyed infrac­tions, nobody seems to has­sle Calvin Cross — he’s too much fun to be around. He does a thou­sand voic­es, and all of them are fun­ny, from 50 Cent impres­sions to Dave Chappelle to the cast of Diff’rent Strokes. Every night, he calls his girl­friend, Tunoka Jett, to tell her he loves and miss­es her — and to some­times sing to her that dopey song from Dirty Dancing. “You can’t nev­er be down when you’re around him,” Tunoka says. “He’ll just keep at you and at you till you laugh.” Tonight, though, Calvin’s high beams are dimmed a bit: It’s the day after Memorial Day, and he’s stuffed on BBQ. He’s on the couch drows­ing through a Mavs-Heat game when his homie wakes him up to go hang out. Calvin doesn’t have friends so much as eager wing­men. “My cra­zi­est times with females hap­pened offa him,” says Myles Gardner, his day-one bestie at Harlan High School. “Once he showed that smile to a girl, it’s a wrap — then I’d swoop in on her home­girl.” Calvin’s got a baby boy due in the next five weeks, and all he talks about is how he’s going to spoil him. But Tunoka is a dean’s‑list stu­dent head­ed for col­lege, and Calvin’s 19 and, frankly, feel­ing him­self. He’s got too much game to set­tle down.

And so now he’s off to kick it with his pal Ryan, a guy he befriend­ed at Job Corps. The two teens walk up to 124^th Street, head­ed around the cor­ner to meet some girls. But about halfway between Parnell and Wallace streets, a police car sud­den­ly screams to a halt beside them. Three cops pour out of it, dressed head to toe in black and point­ing semi-auto­mat­ics at them. Put your hands up, they scream; it’s dark; there’s a street­light on the cor­ner, but it’s bro­ken. Ryan stops and rais­es his hands. Calvin takes off run­ning. No one knows why he does this, though it’s easy enough to guess: He thinks he’s about to be killed.

Read more here; https://​www​.rolling​stone​.com/​c​u​l​t​u​r​e​/​c​u​l​t​u​r​e​-​f​e​a​t​u​r​e​s​/​c​h​i​c​a​g​o​-​p​o​l​i​c​e​-​r​a​c​i​s​m​-​v​i​o​l​e​n​c​e​-​h​i​s​t​o​r​y​-​1​0​8​8​5​59/

The General elections are behind us, both in Jamaica, and the United States. These two events generally consume a lot of our time, energy, and attention. As Jamaicans, wherever we are, we understand that the two countries are inextricably linked. So whether we live in Jamaica or the United States, we have a vested interest in both countries’ outcomes.
One critical issue that seems to have garnered total acceptance in Jamaica is the issue of violent murders.

The heinous killing of young women, old­er adults, and even chil­dren, now take on a qui­et accep­tance, and a gen­er­al sense that we have now reached a point of no return; that noth­ing can be done about it.
For decades mem­bers of the JCF com­plained about the rela­tion­ship between politi­cians and crim­i­nals. This writer has made a case for years, that the lines between politi­cians sit­ting in the peo­ple’s par­lia­ment and the shot­tas are indis­tin­guish­able in many cases.
In all fair­ness to the politi­cians, I believe that polit­i­cal affil­i­a­tions with mur­der­ers may not be at the lev­els they were in times past. Still, the dam­age done to our soci­ety because of those affil­i­a­tions not only remain with us today, they inform the crime statistics.
Notwithstanding, igno­rance, and brava­do on the part of the rul­ing class and the elites have kept Jamaica mired in the quick­sand of vio­lent crime.
The opin­ions that inform and guide new leg­is­la­tion come from for­eign-fund­ed rights groups and a litany of oth­er mis­guid­ed voic­es at the University of the West Indies (UWI).
The point of view of the actu­al first respon­ders, police, and fire is not con­sid­ered. Even if they were to be con­sid­ered, there is a per­cep­tion that many mem­bers of the police depart­ment har­bor view sym­pa­thet­ic to the crim­i­nal class. Their views are fun­da­men­tal­ly dif­fer­ent from that of offi­cers of the past.

I do not wish to impugn the integri­ty of the mem­bers of the JCF, but I believe if we are hon­est, we will admit that the JCF leaves a lot to be desired as it relates to integri­ty and professionalism.
In fact, many past mem­bers who reside abroad com­plain of bad expe­ri­ences with offi­cers on their return to the country.
I usu­al­ly take those com­plaints with a grain of salt, cog­nizant that as for­mer mem­bers, we may some­times expect to be treat­ed differently.
Law enforce­ment can­not be laid at the feet of the police alone. The police enforce statutes; it is up to leg­is­la­tors who are seri­ous about doing some­thing about this scourge, about find­ing courage, and pass­ing leg­is­la­tion that puts an end to the wan­ton killings.
Clearly, the laws that exist are not strong enough to deter the mind­less killers who take human life with reck­less abandon.
On the rare occa­sion that offend­ers are arrest­ed for the mur­ders they com­mit, the lib­er­al sys­tem works assid­u­ous­ly to return those offend­ers to the streets under the guise of human rights and to main­tain the jus­tice sys­tem’s efficacy.

Maintaining cred­i­bil­i­ty and fair­ness in crim­i­nal jus­tice can­not be overem­pha­sized, but it can­not come at the expense of jus­tice for the vic­tims and sur­vivors of inten­tion­al vio­lent crime.
Sadly, Jamaica’s crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem is built on a foun­da­tion that embraces crim­i­nal rights, and sec­ond chances with hard­ly a thought for the rights and suf­fer­ing of crime victims.
Remarkably, the entire coun­try, and the so-called lead­ers that live on the [4411] square miles of Jamaica are social­ized into believ­ing that vio­lent mur­ders that occur two doors down, are no big deal.…… [crime de every weh]sic.
As I point­ed out a few arti­cles ago, the cost of Jamaica’s high mur­der rate is doing incal­cu­la­ble harm to the coun­try’s economy.
Data do not sup­port the mis­guid­ed pre­vail­ing per­cep­tion that vio­lent crime is a by-prod­uct of pover­ty. Conversely, the Jamaican peo­ple’s increas­ing impov­er­ish­ment is large­ly attrib­ut­able to the nation’s high homi­cide rate.
The bla­tant sup­port of ini­tia­tives ben­e­fi­cial to crim­i­nals by Justice Minister Delroy Chuck and oth­ers has embold­ened crim­i­nals and has been a boon to crim­i­nal defense lawyers.
The police stum­ble along as if it is a cred­i­ble law enforce­ment agency, the com­mis­sion­er of police con­tin­ues to receive a pass, and the gov­ern­ment and oppo­si­tion float by unaccountable.
In the mean­time, the bod­ies con­tin­ue to turn up, and the nation con­tin­ues to pre­tend that the car­nage is normal.

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Mike Beckles is a for­mer Police Detective, busi­ness­man, free­lance writer, a black achiev­er hon­oree, and pub­lish­er of the blog mike​beck​les​.com. 
He’s con­tributed to sev­er­al websites.
You may sub­scribe to his blogs, or sub­scribe to his Youtube chan­nel @chatt-a-box, for the lat­est videos.

Donald Trump is poised to set a grim record for over­see­ing the most exe­cu­tions dur­ing a pres­i­den­tial transition.

The Trump admin­is­tra­tion is rush­ing to exe­cute an unprece­dent­ed num­ber of peo­ple before President-elect Joe Biden, an oppo­nent of the death penal­ty, takes office on January 20.
Unless he grants requests for com­mu­ta­tions, President Trump will leave office hav­ing set a grim record for over­see­ing the most exe­cu­tions of fed­er­al pris­on­ers dur­ing a pres­i­den­tial tran­si­tion peri­od in U.S. his­to­ry, accord­ing to the Death Penalty Information Center. The Trump admin­is­tra­tion has already exe­cut­ed eight peo­ple by lethal injec­tion since July, when the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment resumed exe­cu­tions after a 17-year hiatus.

On Friday, one day after car­ry­ing out the first fed­er­al exe­cu­tion under a “lame duck” pres­i­dent in 131 years, the Department of Justice announced its inten­tion to exe­cute three more peo­ple incar­cer­at­ed at the Terre Haute fed­er­al prison in Indiana. This brings the total num­ber of peo­ple sched­uled to be exe­cut­ed before Trump leaves office to five, includ­ing Lisa Montgomery, a sur­vivor of extreme sex­u­al vio­lence who suf­fers from men­tal ill­ness and would be the first woman to be exe­cut­ed on the fed­er­al lev­el in near­ly six decades.
“We’re real­ly in the mid­dle of an unprece­dent­ed exe­cu­tion spree,” said Allison Cohen, a spokesper­son for the anti-death penal­ty group Death Penalty Action, in an interview.
The last time a fed­er­al exe­cu­tion was car­ried out under a “lame duck” pres­i­dent was in 1889, after President Grover Cleveland lost his first bid at reelec­tion, the Death Penalty Information Center reports. The sev­en exe­cu­tions car­ried out by the Trump admin­is­tra­tion in the four-month peri­od lead­ing up to the November elec­tions out­num­ber those car­ried out by any pres­i­den­tial admin­is­tra­tion over the past 78 years. At the same time, states are on pace to per­form the fewest num­ber of exe­cu­tions in near­ly four decades.

Cohen said the fed­er­al exe­cu­tions already car­ried out since July “line up per­fect­ly” with the cam­paign sea­son, allow­ing the Trump cam­paign to boast about the pres­i­den­t’s sup­posed “law and order” cre­den­tials. A reg­u­la­tion pro­posed by the Trump admin­is­tra­tion on Wednesday would allow the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment to exe­cute peo­ple by meth­ods besides lethal injec­tion — includ­ing by fir­ing squad, accord­ing to Death Penalty Action.
“From what we can tell, this has been just anoth­er way for Trump to break a record and have some­thing to email his fol­low­ers,” Cohen said.
While a major­i­ty of Americans pre­fer life sen­tences in prison to the death penal­ty, 58 per­cent of Republicans still sup­port killing incar­cer­at­ed peo­ple, accord­ing to a 2019 Gallup poll. Meanwhile, a grow­ing num­ber of advo­cates are push­ing for an end to both the death penal­ty and life-with­out-parole sen­tences, which they call “death by incarceration.”

Biden has said he oppos­es the death penal­ty and will work to end cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment on the fed­er­al lev­el, as well as pro­vide incen­tives for the 28 states that still allow the death penal­ty to change their laws, accord­ing to Cohen. The Trump admin­is­tra­tion, Cohen said, appears to be push­ing to exe­cute peo­ple before Biden has a chance to reverse deci­sions made by the Department of Justice or grant them com­mu­ta­tions — which would spare the pris­on­ers’ lives, but would not absolve them of guilt or free them from prison.
Of all the cur­rent death row cas­es, Montgomery’s has gained the most atten­tion as she is the first woman to face a fed­er­al exe­cu­tion in decades. Before her incar­cer­a­tion, Montgomery was trau­ma­tized by years of hor­rif­ic sex­u­al vio­lence and abuse and devel­oped severe men­tal ill­ness­es, includ­ing bipo­lar dis­or­der with psy­chot­ic fea­tures and post-trau­mat­ic stress dis­or­der, accord­ing to advo­cates and her sis­ter, Diane Mattingly.

Read the remain­der of the sto­ry here: https://​www​.salon​.com/​2​0​2​0​/​1​1​/​2​7​/​t​r​u​m​p​-​i​s​-​o​n​-​a​-​d​e​a​t​h​-​r​o​w​-​k​i​l​l​i​n​g​-​s​p​r​e​e​-​b​i​l​l​-​b​a​r​r​-​n​o​w​-​w​a​n​t​s​-​t​o​-​b​r​i​n​g​-​b​a​c​k​-​f​i​r​i​n​g​-​s​q​u​a​d​s​_​p​a​r​t​n​er/

Police Commissioner Antony Anderson’s meet­ing with enter­tain­ers and indus­try mem­bers is com­mend­able, even though con­tin­u­al edu­ca­tion­al out­reach has been, and still is long over­due. Nevertheless, bet­ter late than never.
It can­not be overem­pha­sized that crime has some of its roots anchored in a lack of edu­ca­tion. Therefore, the police must con­tin­ue to reach out to the larg­er pop­u­la­tion in its mis­sion to low­er crime, and explain the cost of non-sup­port for their efforts to keep the coun­try safe. This is par­tic­u­lar­ly impor­tant because there is no mean­ing­ful gov­ern­ment edu­ca­tion strat­e­gy aimed at ulti­mate­ly reduc­ing vio­lent crimes.

https://​mike​beck​les​.com/​e​l​i​m​i​n​a​t​i​n​g​-​c​r​i​m​e​-​r​e​q​u​i​r​e​s​-​m​u​c​h​-​m​o​r​e​-​t​h​a​n​-​a​n​-​e​q​u​i​p​p​e​d​-​p​o​l​i​c​e​-​d​e​p​a​r​t​m​e​nt/

The fight against vio­lent crime must be waged with a mul­ti-pronged approach. It must include enforce­ment through intel­li­gence-dri­ven, strate­gic tar­get­ing of crime pro­duc­ers. It must include decap­i­tat­ing crim­i­nal gangs with sur­gi­cal precision.
To get there, the police must also focus on exe­cut­ing the same lev­el of strate­gic tar­get­ing of influ­en­tial mem­bers of inner-city com­mu­ni­ties to bring them into the fold.
For too long, under­served inner-city com­mu­ni­ties have been incu­ba­tors for vio­lence pro­duc­ers; this must come to an end. Policing can­not be all about big guns and raids; inte­gral to crime reduc­tion is the need to have con­fi­dants with­in all com­mu­ni­ties. Even as Jamaica edges ever so slow­ly away from tra­di­tion­al modes of polic­ing and for­mer meth­ods of crime-solv­ing, the need for com­mu­ni­ty engage­ment is invalu­able to the ulti­mate goal of crime reduction.

https://​mike​beck​les​.com/​j​a​m​a​i​c​a​s​-​g​o​v​e​r​n​m​e​n​t​s​-​h​a​v​e​-​r​e​f​u​s​e​d​-​t​o​-​f​a​c​e​-​t​h​e​-​h​a​r​d​-​t​r​u​t​h​s​-​o​n​-​c​r​i​me/

Anderson’s meet­ing must be seen as an indi­ca­tion that he has now real­ized that enter­tain­ers are huge­ly respon­si­ble for shap­ing pop­u­lar cul­ture. As such, get­ting them to act respon­si­bly with their cre­ative-con­tent is cru­cial to reori­ent­ing the next gen­er­a­tion of would-be gang mem­bers and leaders.
Many enter­tain­ers are mind­ful that crime is not nec­es­sar­i­ly a by-prod­uct of pover­ty, as the coun­try’s so-called intel­li­gentsia has sought to con­vince us for decades.
According to a local report­ing from inside the meet­ing, the vibrant dis­cus­sion got in/​tense when vet­er­an enter­tain­ment con­sul­tant Clyde McKenzie sug­gest­ed a strong cor­re­la­tion between crime and poverty.
However, Agent Sasco quick­ly debunked that the­o­ry by point­ing out that “there is a ten­den­cy to mar­ry vio­lence and pover­ty; that’s not true.” He instead indi­cat­ed that the gen­e­sis of vio­lence goes beyond poverty.

I am glad that some­one had the char­ac­ter to debunk that myth; over the years, I have con­sis­tent­ly point­ed out that there are coun­tries with greater pover­ty than Jamaica, that have expo­nen­tial­ly less crime than Jamaica does.
Data shows in real dol­lars and cents, how crime dri­ves Jamaicans deep­er and deep­er into pover­ty year over year. Not pover­ty dri­ving crime as some would have you believe, but crime dri­ving poverty.
In 2013 Professor Anthony Clayton of the University of the West Indies, in a report pre­pared for the Ministry of National Security, called [A New Approach National Security Policy for Jamaica]; said, for exam­ple, that the direct med­ical cost of injuries due to inter­per­son­al vio­lence account­ed for near­ly 12% of Jamaica’s total health expen­di­ture in 2006, while pro­duc­tiv­i­ty loss­es due to inter­per­son­al vio­lence-relat­ed injuries account­ed for approx­i­mate­ly 4% of Jamaica’s GDP. If the lat­ter is added to the esti­mate of secu­ri­ty costs, then the com­bined total is 7.1% of Jamaica’s GDP.”
Commissioner Anderson’s approach may be a hail mary, con­sid­er­ing the crime sta­tis­tics fac­ing the coun­try. Nevertheless, the coun­try must sup­port his ini­tia­tive to engage all sec­tors in this fight to return san­i­ty to a coun­try that uses vio­lence and threats of vio­lence as its only con­flict res­o­lu­tion tool.

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Mike Beckles is a for­mer Police Detective, busi­ness­man, free­lance writer, a black achiev­er hon­oree, and pub­lish­er of the blog mike​beck​les​.com. 
He’s con­tributed to sev­er­al websites.
You may sub­scribe to his blogs, or sub­scribe to his Youtube chan­nel @chatt-a-box, for the lat­est videos.

MESSAGE FROM: THE POLICE FEDERATION

Dear Colleagues,

The Central Committee of the Police Federation express­es our deep­est and most sin­cere con­do­lences to the fam­i­ly, col­leagues, and friends of our broth­er, the late No.1392 Sergeant Prince McDonald, of the St. Catherine South Division (Old Harbour Police Station).
The late Sergeant McDonald passed today, Thursday, November 19, 2020, after hos­pi­tal­ized, suf­fer­ing from a med­ical condition.
It is nev­er easy los­ing a loved one, nei­ther to con­sole those who are hurt­ing and mourn­ing. We can only pro­vide com­fort, sup­port, and prayers in times of bereave­ment. We will con­tin­ue to pray for his rel­a­tives and col­leagues at the Old Habour Police Station and trust that God will give them strength dur­ing this dark­est hour. Once again, we express our sin­cere con­do­lences. May his soul rest in eter­nal peace and light per­pet­u­al­ly shine on him.

Sincerely,
Your Central Committee
Jamaica Police Federation»»»»»

This pub­li­ca­tion wish­es to asso­ciate itself with the sen­ti­ments expressed by the Police Federation; We mourn with the fam­i­ly of Sergeant McDonald, the JCF fam­i­ly, and the entire country.

As vio­lent crimes con­tin­ue to esca­late unabat­ed, some fac­tions of the media elites con­tin­ue to call for greater pres­sure on our police offi­cers and a greater degree of restraint on their abil­i­ty to keep our coun­try safe.
The Jamaica Gleaner Editorial board seems to have a greater vendet­ta against our police than INDECOM’s com­mis­sion­er Terrence Williams did.
Terrence Williams is gone, but his enablers in the Glass Tower on North Street have not giv­en up on their cru­sade against the police. In its November 15^th Editorial, the Board con­tin­ues to call for the Government to give INDECOM the pow­er to arrest and pros­e­cute cops, sol­diers, and cor­rec­tions offi­cers accused of crimes or exces­sive force.

These new pow­ers would mean that in addi­tion to con­duct­ing its own inves­ti­ga­tions as part of its over­sight func­tions, the agency would also have the pow­er of arrest and, just for good mea­sure, would also pros­e­cute its own investigations.
Given that pow­er, INDECOM would be able to go after police offi­cers arbi­trar­i­ly. It would be open sea­son on the police as it was under Terrence Williams.
Terrence Williams went after police offi­cers with the flim­si­est of evi­dence man­u­fac­tured in Jamaica’s super­charged polit­i­cal and crim­i­nal sup­port­ing inner-city communities.
Williams is no longer there, but the ran­cid and cor­ro­sive envi­ron­ment he cre­at­ed is still there.

I do not wish to speak for the police; they are quite capa­ble of speak­ing for them­selves; after all, the police depart­ment is chock-full of lawyers and oth­ers edu­cat­ed in var­i­ous oth­er dis­ci­plines. Nevertheless, with the two polit­i­cal par­ties that con­trol our coun­try, we have zero con­fi­dence that the intel­lec­tu­al fore­sight is there to fore­see the exis­ten­tial harm that is being forced upon Jamaica by the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom.
It is for these very rea­sons that Jamaica must throw out its con­sti­tu­tion that makes it a sup­pli­cant to Great Britain and, for the first time, set a course that is Jamaica for Jamaicans.
Neither of the coun­tries that would lec­ture Jamaica on human rights allows any­one to dic­tate how to uphold their laws.

No one is advo­cat­ing that police be giv­en Carte Balche to vio­late the cit­i­zens’ rights they are sworn to pro­tect. Still, we must be damn cer­tain that when we try to apply pres­sure to the police, we are, to some degree, empow­er­ing criminals.
There are those in their ivory tow­ers that are heav­i­ly invest­ed in the sta­tus quo; they will have found ways to influ­ence policy.…..

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Mike Beckles is a for­mer Police Detective, busi­ness­man, free­lance writer, a black achiev­er hon­oree, and pub­lish­er of the blog mike​beck​les​.com. 
He’s con­tributed to sev­er­al websites.
You may sub­scribe to his blogs, or sub­scribe to his Youtube chan­nel @chatt-a-box, for the lat­est videos.

One of the fatal flaws in Jamaica’s col­lec­tive men­tal­i­ty is the con­tin­ued desire to attach our­selves to the notion that all things for­eign are bet­ter than that which we cre­ate ourselves.
But for a few excep­tions, we know that when Jamaica had vibrant man­u­fac­tur­ing and agri-sec­tors, our prod­ucts were vast­ly supe­ri­or and safer than many for­eign foods and products.
We also have a dis­tort­ed per­cep­tion of Jamaica’s size and impor­tance in the world, not to men­tion the pre­cip­i­tous state of Jamaica’s finan­cial sit­u­a­tion relat­ed to meet­ing its fidu­cia­ry obligations.
Nevertheless, the opin­ion shapers on the media edi­to­r­i­al boards have con­tin­ued to push hifa­lutin demands on the gov­ern­ment, with­out the slight­est con­sid­er­a­tion of the cost and con­se­quences on our tiny Island.

https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=human+rights+agencies+and+their+hypocrisy&ie=UTF‑8&oe=UTF‑8

For decades news­pa­pers, tele­vi­sion, and radio have been will­ing par­tic­i­pants and cheer­lead­ers in the degra­da­tion of our cul­ture. They enable and facil­i­tate the irre­spon­si­ble dance­hall cul­ture that cel­e­brates gun vio­lence and [bad­man­ism].
Murder lyrics are cel­e­brat­ed as art. Misogynistic lyrics are over­looked, even as phys­i­cal and men­tal abuse of women and chil­dren con­tin­ues to grow.
Violent reg­gae artistes are held up as icons and are even invit­ed to the pre­mier insti­tu­tion of high­er learn­ing as a kind of celebri­ty to be emu­lat­ed, rather than a sick sociopath to be ostra­cized and shunned.
Nevertheless, the Observer is now hand-wring­ing as if it had noth­ing to do with this crass­ness that has changed our coun­try expo­nen­tial­ly for the worse. Spare me the croc­o­dile tears, please.
Even as the Prime Minister has launched a [gofund me] account to help to off­set the cost of flood­ing, these same char­la­tans in the edi­to­r­i­al board bub­bles they cre­ate for them­selves, are call­ing for the Government to find resources to expand the scope of (INDECOM), the Independent Commission Of Investigations, that is tasked with inves­ti­gat­ing wrong­do­ing on the part of police offi­cers, sol­diers, and cor­rec­tion­al officers.

It is as if these mis­cre­ants who influ­ence deci­sion-mak­ing in the coun­try are unaware of the Island’s mur­der rate.
On November 15^th, the Gleaner Editorial board demand­ed that the gov­ern­ment speak to Justice Bryan Sykes’s report and INDECOM.
The demand came out of the recent ques­tions posed to the Jamaican con­tin­gent at the United Nations in New York.
The ques­tions posed to the Jamaican con­tin­gent and the response it gave in return, was nau­se­at­ing and insulting.
The ques­tions were pre­sump­tu­ous and pre­pos­ter­ous, and the respons­es were that of a chas­tened child caught with its hand in the Cookie Jar.
I saw the report, and I won­dered aloud whether or not Jamaican was a sov­er­eign nation or a sup­pli­cant syco­phant to out­side bosses?
The idea that American-based Human Rights Agencies would have the temer­i­ty and gall to ques­tion any coun­try about their human rights records is beyond stunning.
American police mur­der and oth­er­wise bru­tal­ize peo­ple, par­tic­u­lar­ly peo­ple of col­or, in ways that no police depart­ment in the west­ern world would dare do.
That local media hous­es would be giv­ing cre­dence to these hyp­ocrites is stun­ning­ly elit­ists and intel­lec­tu­al­ly dishonest.
It is dif­fi­cult for any­one to dis­agree that the police should not lock away the men­tal­ly ill.
It is also impor­tant to rec­on­cile that when the police are called, and an offend­er is a per­son of unsound mind, the police have a duty to arrest, and remove the per­son from the streets for the pub­lic’s safety.
It is not up to the police to find places to house and care for the men­tal­ly ill they are forced to arrest. In a per­fect world, the police should not have any inter­ac­tion with the men­tal­ly disabled.

The most dis­turb­ing thing about the INDECOM act is that despite the harm that the law has done to crime-fight­ing on the Island, the forces that encour­age, cheer-leads, and nur­ture the gun cul­ture, (the media), wants to give more pow­ers to INDECOM, to arrest and charge police offi­cers them­selves, then do its own prosecution.
Throughout its exis­tence INDECOM, the agency has been unable to mount a decent inves­ti­ga­tion much less to pros­e­cute its owns cases.
INDECOM was not autho­rized to pros­e­cute its own inves­ti­ga­tions for good rea­sons and that is how it should remain.
Prosecution of crim­i­nal cas­es is with­in the remit of the Director Of Public Prosecutions and that is where it should remain.
The fact that no inves­tiga­tive agency in the west­ern world does its own pros­e­cu­tion does not mat­ter to these media hous­es that are becom­ing ene­mies of the state.
When an agency inves­ti­gates, arrest, and pros­e­cute, it opens up a can of cor­rupt worms; it does not mat­ter to these ene­mies of the state.
The fact that the first Commissioner of INDECOM, Terrence Williams, used the then neo­phyte agency as a weapon to per­se­cute police offi­cers and, con­se­quent­ly, aid­ed in the mass esca­la­tion of crime as police dropped their hands does not matter.
Terrence Williams was only to inves­ti­gate, yet he craved arrest pow­ers, and more than any­thing else he craved pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al pow­ers. Ask your­selves what is with the rapa­cious desire to arrest and pros­e­cute, if the evi­dence of wrong­do­ing is solid?
Given the Islands’ pre­cip­i­tous perch on the ledge of becom­ing a failed state based on its vio­lent crime sta­tis­tics, the ques­tion aris­es as to whose inter­est is served when our police are fur­ther shack­led. At the same time, dan­ger­ous crim­i­nals run free, killing and ter­ror­iz­ing whomev­er they please?
No American has either legal or moral author­i­ty to lec­ture any nation about human rights, con­sid­er­ing America’ss his­to­ry of police sup­pres­sion of its own cit­i­zens of col­or; nei­ther is Canada nor Britain.
It is time for the lit­tle gods in the peanut gallery to get a clue and stop aid­ing in our coun­try’s destruction.

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Mike Beckles is a for­mer Police Detective, busi­ness­man, free­lance writer, a black achiev­er hon­oree, and pub­lish­er of the blog mike​beck​les​.com. 
He’s con­tributed to sev­er­al websites.
You may sub­scribe to his blogs, or sub­scribe to his Youtube chan­nel @chatt-a-box, for the lat­est videos.

The killing of a police Constable Kirkland Plummer last Saturday night in the parish of Clarendon has left more ques­tions than answers; in the mean­time, the grue­some killing has gen­er­at­ed much gum-flap­ping in the reg­u­lar cir­cles that gen­er­al­ly pro­duces more heat than light, and leaves us with no clear­er pic­ture of what occurred or why they occur.
Obviously, the Police Department is still not clear as to the [why], even though they may have already estab­lished the what, where, when, and how, and have report­ed that there are five sus­pects in custody.
Unfortunately, though com­mend­able, hav­ing five sus­pects in cus­tody means lit­tle if inves­ti­ga­tors can­not find cred­i­ble evi­dence out­side eye­wit­ness account­ing, when the Jamaican court sys­tem’s pos­ture is considered.

Calls to sources have not shed much light on why Constable Plummer was at a par­ty that was for all intents and pur­pos­es sup­posed to be in con­tra­ven­tion of the Disaster Risk Management Act. Neither were we able to estab­lish whether he was mere­ly respond­ing on his own to the sounds of loud explo­sions at the event as the police reported.
At this time, and with­out the ben­e­fit of more detailed infor­ma­tion forth­com­ing from the police, we are left to mere­ly spec­u­late about the sequence of events that led this young offi­cer to lose his life.
As I pre­pared to speak to this killing, I ran across the Jamaica Observer Editorial page’s com­ments on Constable Kirkland Plummer’s killing and was dis­gust­ed at their head­line; [We can’t remain silent in the face of sav­agery].
For decades now, these pub­li­ca­tions have been will­ing and glee­ful par­tic­i­pants and cheer­lead­ers in the break­down of our rule of law and the poi­son­ing of our pop­u­lar culture.

So please spare me the croc­o­dile tears. After decades of plow­ing, fer­til­iz­ing, water­ing, and tend­ing to the seeds you have sown, don’t feign shock at the fruits you are har­vest­ing? The media has been vir­u­lent anti-police agi­ta­tors in all its forms; it has shaped and fos­tered a cul­ture that glo­ri­fies gang­ster­ism with no respect for the rule of law, or those who enforce the laws.
For its part, the JCF has con­sis­tent­ly failed to live up to its oath of office, essen­tial­ly giv­ing its ene­mies ammu­ni­tion with which to defeat it.
Like every­one else, [this observ­er] watch­es and waits, to hear a full and com­pre­hen­sive account­ing from the Police pro­fes­sion­al­ly, as to the cir­cum­stances that caused a young offi­cer to get sav­age­ly cut down in such a das­tard­ly manner.

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Mike Beckles is a for­mer Police Detective, busi­ness­man, free­lance writer, a black achiev­er hon­oree, and pub­lish­er of the blog mike​beck​les​.com. 
He’s con­tributed to sev­er­al websites.
You may sub­scribe to his blogs, or sub­scribe to his Youtube chan­nel @chatt-a-box, for the lat­est videos.

Meet James A. Samuel, Jr., founder, and CEO of a new app called ANJEL Tech, allows users to begin live stream­ing imme­di­ate­ly and trans­mit­ting footage to their fam­i­ly mem­bers when they are in any dan­ger­ous sit­u­a­tion. The app, devel­oped by a DC-based Black-owned com­pa­ny, appeals to the African American com­mu­ni­ty because of what has been hap­pen­ing across the nation regard­ing police bru­tal­i­ty. However, the app can also be used to alert loved ones of oth­er per­son­al safe­ty issues such as domes­tic abuse, elder­ly abuse, etc.

James has over 30 years of fed­er­al expe­ri­ence work­ing for the U.S. Department of Defense. He has worked as an engi­neer, an F‑15 fight­er pilot, and an Intelligence Analyst. He says that he came up with the idea to devel­op the app to help pre­vent and min­i­mize per­son­al and com­mu­ni­ty secu­ri­ty issues that often plague urban communities.
The ANJEL Tech app is cloud-based and geospa­tial­ly-enabled. James com­ments, “My team and I ulti­mate­ly cre­at­ed this app to help Black moms pro­tect and save their kids’ lives, and help more Black chil­dren live and grow into adult­hood and meet those expect­ed life mile­stones such as school grad­u­a­tion, mar­riage, family/​chil­dren, career, home­own­er­ship, etc.”

James says that the app was cre­at­ed in response to the May 2020 killing of George Floyd, and what makes the app so unique is that users can eas­i­ly live-stream what’s hap­pen­ing, imme­di­ate­ly noti­fy fam­i­ly mem­bers and friends of their loca­tion on a map (via text and email), and cre­ate a secure record of the inci­dent for future account­abil­i­ty pur­pos­es. All of this occurs in real-time via the app.

The ANJEL Tech app can be down­loaded now in the iOS App Store and soon avail­able in the Google Play store.

This sto­ry first appeared @bn.co.m

We all saw and heard Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron announce to the world that there would be no charges against the cops who went to the Home of 26-year-old Breonna Taylor to serve a no-knock war­rant and end­ed up putting eight (8) bul­lets in her.
The only offi­cer to face any charge in the case has been an endan­ger­ment charge against Detective Brett Hankison for­mer­ly of the Louisville Police Department.
Hankison was fired as protest erupt­ed sur­round­ing the case.

Here is the skin-folk Attorney General detail­ing the sequence of events as the Police report­ed to him, not as an inde­pen­dent inves­ti­ga­tor whose duty is to get to the truth, to do due dili­gence on behalf of the public.
Attorney-General Cameron’s state­ments imme­di­ate­ly drew crit­i­cism, con­dem­na­tion, and ridicule at the time.
Without assum­ing too much from the sequence of events, Attorney-General Cameron appears to be act­ing on behalf of the cops who killed Ms. Taylor rather than in the inter­est of justice.
Judge for your­selves from the video below whether Attorney General Daniel Cameron appeared to be an inde­pen­dent inves­ti­ga­tor or whether he is a bought and paid-tool for the Louisville police.

According to fresh Reporting from NBC, A grand juror who heard evi­dence in the Breonna Taylor probe said Tuesday that the grand jury didn’t agree that her death was jus­ti­fied, a dis­clo­sure that came after a Kentucky judge ordered records in the pro­ceed­ings released to show if “pub­licly elect­ed offi­cials are being honest.”
In a state­ment, “Grand Juror #1,” as lawyer Kevin Glogower has iden­ti­fied the per­son, said that the only charge pre­sent­ed dur­ing the pro­ceed­ings was wan­ton endan­ger­ment.
Daniel Cameron want­ed no charges against the offi­cers, so he pre­sent­ed no indictable evi­dence to the grand jury.
In essence, Daniel Cameron used up the time, pur­port­ing to be run­ning an inves­ti­ga­tion, sup­pos­ed­ly hop­ing for ten­sions to die down, then pre­sent­ed a bogus case for indict­ment on minor endan­ger­ment charges against Hankinson.

The report­ing detailed that In a state­ment, the grand juror said that homi­cide laws were not explained dur­ing the pro­ceed­ings, even though the pan­el asked about them.
“Questions were asked about the addi­tion­al charges„ and the grand jury was told there would be none because the pros­e­cu­tors didn’t feel they could make them stick,” the state­ment said. “The grand jury didn’t agree that cer­tain actions were jus­ti­fied, nor did it decide the indict­ment should be the only charges in the Breonna Taylor case.”
The grand juror added that self-defense and jus­ti­fi­ca­tion laws were not explained either.
Cameron has said that he dis­agrees with the Judge’s rul­ing but will not appeal it. Grand juries are closed events; they act on what­ev­er infor­ma­tion pros­e­cu­tors give to them to consider.
African-Americans have always com­plained that pros­e­cu­tors use the grand jury process to pro­tect killer cops from being brought to justice.
We saw that on full dis­play after NYPD thugs mur­dered Erica Garner in broad day­light on camera.

Cameron argues that as a spe­cial pros­e­cu­tor, he decid­ed to ask for an indict­ment on charges that could be proven under Kentucky law. Adding that„ he remained con­fi­dent in the pre­sen­ta­tion made to the grand jury.
The fact is that Cameron’s argu­ments sound plau­si­ble enough; nev­er­the­less, much of what he told the pub­lic in the video above is at odds with what the grand juror has been saying.
Whether or not Daniel Cameron’s state­ments are true that he could not prove a sin­gle charge against the offi­cers who killed Ms. Taylor is open to spec­u­la­tion and may even be true.
However, at the same time„ all across America„ peo­ple of col­or con­tin­ue to suf­fer at the hands of cor­rupt police, pros­e­cu­tors„ judges, and an entire sys­tem that con­tin­ues to coa­lesce in per­pet­u­at­ing the can­cer of injus­tice, rob­bing the peo­ple of their rights, dig­ni­ty, and their very existence.

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Mike Beckles is a for­mer Police Detective, busi­ness­man, free­lance writer, black achiev­er hon­oree, and cre­ator of the blog mike​beck​les​.com.

The mur­der rate in Jamaica has not sub­sided and I would like to take this oppor­tu­ni­ty to point to the lack of yap­ping by the self-styled elites on our Island on this subject.
Can you imag­ine if the Commissioner of police was from the Rank and file?
So what has changed.…. We have at the head of the police force, a man who comes from the lit­tle defense force, and Lord knows they know it all, so they are used to plug every hole in the leak­ing dyke.
As I have said before, and even as far back as when I served in the JCF, (a) you can have the best-inten­tioned indi­vid­u­als work­ing at a problem,(b) who are will­ing to give their very lives for the cause, as so many have, with­out the right train­ing and equip­ment the job will not get done.
That has been the plight of the Jamaican police depart­ment, as it has been for all of the oth­er arms of the government.
Lack of pri­or­i­ty fund­ing and train­ing cost lives, when it hap­pens in the med­ical field peo­ple who should not die, end up dead in hos­pi­tals. When the police are starved of the train­ing and resources they need, peo­ple die from ele­vat­ed lev­els of crim­i­nal activity.

My quar­rel is not with the Commissioner of Police, nev­er­the­less, there has seen zero pres­sure to bring the mur­der rate down, or calls for Commissioner Anderson to be fired.
Remarkably, when I left the force in 1991 as a very young man, police offi­cers did­n’t even have bal­lis­tic vests. Today the JCF has some beau­ti­ful new Police sta­tions with com­put­er sys­tems, that should aid in the har­vest­ing of data mak­ing infor­ma­tion avail­able to police offi­cers in a quick time.
And oh wait, they are far more edu­cat­ed we are told.….…. large­ly at the.…… you guessed it, the intel­lec­tu­al ghet­to. But where is the data to sup­port the idea that the police of today are bet­ter than yesteryear?
Don’t get me wrong I am 100% for high­er edu­ca­tion, but police work is a lot more than just earn­ing a lib­er­al arts degree that has noth­ing to do with police work.
The soon­er we divorce our­selves from the non­sen­si­cal notion that hav­ing a degree makes one an expert on every­thing else the bet­ter off we will be as a country.
Conceptually, it means under­stand­ing and appre­ci­at­ing the val­ue that every cat­e­go­ry of work­er brings to the table. I thank the guys who get out of bed real­ly ear­ly to pick up my garbage.

Ironically, crime has grown con­sis­tent­ly year over year, includ­ing vio­lent mur­ders, because the inves­tiga­tive capac­i­ty of the JCF though tout­ed when there is a bust, demon­stra­bly lack the nec­es­sary con­nec­tiv­i­ty to hold cas­es togeth­er when they face cer­tain lib­er­al judges.
Now I do under­stand that Jamaica’s Judges are some of the worst any­where in the world when it comes to empa­thy for crim­i­nals, some of my for­mer col­leagues are up in arms about the recent­ly con­clud­ed Uchence Wilson tri­al which result­ed in sev­er­al of the co-defen­dants being released by Chief Justice Brian Sykes.
I share that pas­sion, but I also urge the police to use these obsta­cles to do bet­ter inves­ti­ga­tions, go the extra mile to gath­er that one last bit of evi­dence to fur­ther cement the case you work hard on.
Do what you must to reach and over­come that high bar of “beyond a rea­son­able doubt.”

One of the rea­sons that as a for­mer mem­ber of the JCF I have been dia­met­ri­cal­ly opposed to Police Officers hav­ing any­thing to do with the University of the West Indies, (UWI), let alone receive any form of train­ing from that insti­tu­tion, is the far left stance of that University.
The world­view that comes from the UWI defies com­mon sense or rea­son and they damn sure do not play well in the real world. It should come as no sur­prise that our coun­try still strug­gles might­i­ly in lit­er­al­ly every area of devel­op­ment because most of the so-called edu­cat­ed who run the coun­try has been brain­washed with the same left­ist dogma.
Brian Sykes is no dif­fer­ent, and as I have said in pre­vi­ous arti­cles, even though the Prime Minister, Andrew Holness, heads the Conservative Party in our coun­try, Andrew Holness would not know Conservatism if it hits him in the face.

The Minister of National Security and the Police Commissioner was report­ed in one of the dai­ly papers call­ing for more States of Emergencies(SOE). Commissioner Anderson argued: “So it is impor­tant that we get it. We can see every time since we’ve imple­ment­ed it and it has been removed, we start to see the spike again.”
The sad real­i­ty for the Jamaican peo­ple, is that they should not expect any decrease in the vio­lence any­time soon, and if there is a lull in the killings, it cer­tain­ly will not be com­ing from this team.
It has become repet­i­tive to sug­gest that imple­ment­ing states of emer­gen­cies will only scat­ter crim­i­nals to oth­er areas, it does not reduce crime, it just low­ers crim­i­nal­i­ty in the areas where there are large amounts of bod­ies of secu­ri­ty personnel.

As a for­mer street cop, it is rather dis­heart­en­ing for me that 29 years after I left the JCF it appears that the depart­ment has not grown beyond the strate­gies it was stuck using all those years ago.….…

Mike Beckles is a for­mer police Detective cor­po­ral, busi­ness­man, free­lance writer, he is a black achiev­er hon­oree, and pub­lish­er of the blog mike​beck​les​.com. 
He’s also a con­trib­u­tor to sev­er­al websites.
You may sub­scribe to his blogs free of charge, or sub­scribe to his Youtube chan­nel @chatt-a-box, for the lat­est pod­cast all free to you of course.

There are reports uncon­firmed by us that sug­gest there was a shootout between a group of sol­diers and police offi­cers in Vineyard District the Parish of Saint Elizabeth.
According to the ini­tial report­ing that is still murky, Police received reports that Soldiers were trav­el­ing in Service Vehicle 9 JDF 49 with quan­ti­ties of veg­etable like sub­stance resem­bling marijuana.
They were inter­cept­ed by mem­bers of the (JCF), the sol­diers, are report­ed to have opened fire at the police officers.

The cops returned fire, which dam­aged the JDF vehi­cle, accord­ing to the report­ing there were no casu­al­ties or facil­i­ties. The sol­diers involved have report­ed­ly been arrested.

More to come…

https://www.facebook.com/messenger_media/?thread_id=1222502781&attachment_id=771500486731426&message_id=mid.%24cAAAAAEjd6X17Vm9mlV1JRhy_e6l3

Many years ago I was with a for­mer col­league at the home of his dad in the Bronx hav­ing a dis­cus­sion about our for­mer life as police offi­cers. Dillo as we affec­tion­ate­ly referred to my friend turned to me and asked, “how come you speak out so much against the police and you were such a no-non­sense police officer”?
I was not put off by the ques­tion because we were what could be described as cops-cops, I sim­ply asked my friend, ” bro can you seri­ous­ly say that what these cops are doing to peo­ple of col­or is good polic­ing”?
Dillo looked stead­fast­ly at me for a good thir­ty sec­onds before low­er­ing his head and reply­ing, “Nah bro”.

After a decade of ser­vice in the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF) in which I saw ser­vice at the Beat & Foot Patrol, Mobile Reserves & CIB branch­es, being shot in the line of duty, and hav­ing mil­i­tat­ed for more and more pow­er for the police, I find it remark­able that I have now made a 180 degree turn away from much of those pow­ers be giv­en to police.
Now grant­ed that Jamaica and the United States are two sep­a­rate coun­tries with dif­fer­ent struc­tures, the cries in both nations for social jus­tice and the need to end police abuse is the same.

The prob­lem of police-relat­ed killings in the United States is not a prob­lem that is new. It is not a prob­lem for which the author­i­ties have cor­rect data, the author­i­ties do not have cor­rect data because the sys­tem is work­ing exact­ly the way they want it to work.
Without relit­i­gat­ing the his­to­ry of America’s entrenched racist poli­cies and how they influ­ence every­thing, includ­ing polic­ing, the shock­ing can­cer of police abuse in America should be aired out for the world to see.
It is so sys­temic that it goes far beyond just the killings, it has to do with evi­dence plant­i­ng, fal­si­fi­ca­tion of evi­dence, col­lu­sion by pros­e­cu­tors and police in the sys­temic cul­ture of oppres­sion of minori­ties, col­lu­sion between police, pros­e­cu­tors, and judges in the oppres­sion of minor­i­ty com­mu­ni­ties, and more so the African-American community.
Judges are just as guilty as pros­e­cu­tors and cops, the dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly harsh sen­tences African-Americans receive at their hands for the same offens­es com­mit­ted by whites, is both shame­ful and embar­rass­ing to them.

After George Floyd was mur­dered by Derek Chauvin and two oth­er cops in Minneapolis, there have been renewed calls for reimag­in­ing what polic­ing ought to look like. For the white pow­er struc­ture, Black peo­ple have no such right to self ‑deter­mi­na­tion, which includes no right to deter­mine how their tax dol­lars are spent by state and local governments.
Part of the strat­e­gy toward reimag­in­ing how Black com­mu­ni­ties ought to be policed, par­tic­u­lar­ly by white police is to elect pro­gres­sive pros­e­cu­tors that share the val­ues of the African-American community.
That does not mean [not] pun­ish­ing crim­i­nals, it means see­ing the dis­pro­por­tion­al­i­ty of how the sys­tem is skewed against Blacks, and make deci­sions when to pros­e­cute or not to prosecute.
It is a tall order in a coun­try with such sys­temic and entrenched racism built-in, which ensures the abuse of minori­ties. Worse yet, Donald Trump and his lack­ey Bill Barr who heads the jus­tice depart­ment, are pulling out all of the stops to ensure that the sta­tus quo is not only retained but solidified.

However, in Florida, State Attorney Aramis Ayala has launched a pro­gram to reduce the num­ber of peo­ple pros­e­cut­ed for non-vio­lent­ly resist­ing arrest.
Said Ms. Ayala, “We have con­sis­tent­ly heard that some mem­bers of law enforce­ment use this charge as a weapon when peo­ple don’t imme­di­ate­ly respond to their com­mands, or if they ask too many ques­tions before com­ply­ing, or sim­ply if they make an encounter more dif­fi­cult for the offi­cer.” In many cas­es, these peace­ful pro­test­ers have been met by efforts to silence them and to crush their First Amendment rights to get them off the streets and out of the pub­lic view.”
Unfortunately for African-Americans with­in Ms. Ayala’s sphere of influ­ence, she will not be seek­ing re-elec­tion come November.

In this elec­tion all things are on the bal­lot, it’s not just about get­ting rid of Donald Trump along with as many as pos­si­ble of the House and Senate Republicans who have enabled Trump’s crim­i­nal­i­ty, it is about remov­ing and replac­ing local Republicans that move around and pass around us like they are good peo­ple, they enjoy bi-par­ti­san sup­port and they gen­er­al­ly get elect­ed by pass­ing them­selves off as one of us.
Here in Dutchess County in New York’s Hudson Valley, Democrats con­tin­ue to vote Republicans like Sue Serino, Marc Molinaro, and oth­ers into office.
Despite a large­ly black com­mu­ni­ty in the city and town of Poughkeepsie and all around the coun­ty the Poughkeepsie com­mon coun­cil is con­trolled by Republicans, the coun­ty exec­u­tive is Republican, and all around the coun­ty, Republicans con­trol vir­tu­al­ly all of the local com­mon councils.

During the George Floyd protest in the city of Poughkeepsie, I rubbed shoul­ders with a few of those politi­cians, Republicans all, with the excep­tion of our Democratic Congressman Sean Patrick Maloney.
There was State Senator Sue Serino, County Executive Marc Molinaro, Mayor of the city of Poughkeepsie Rob Rollinson.
Like typ­i­cal politi­cians, they all had their canned answers, when I asked them why they found it nec­es­sary to be there? Nothing in their answers was worth my time, or worth writ­ing about.
Today there are protests still going on right here in New York State, in Minnesota, in Oregon, In Kentucky, and oth­er states, all across the coun­try peo­ple are call­ing out for changes in polic­ing prac­tices. Personally I believe that those calls do not go near­ly far enough.
But what I thought was a real affront was a social media post from Sue Serino days ago. I could not help myself so I had this to say in response to her gloat­ing about this endorsement.

Me:

She DM-ed me

Thirteen men includ­ing 7 from a right-wing mili­tia group known as the wolver­ines over two alleged plots to kid­nap Michigan’s Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer and incite a civ­il war.

Six of the men were tak­en into cus­tody in a raid on a house in sub­ur­ban Detroit on Thursday morn­ing. They have been named as Adam Fox, Barry Croft, Kaleb Franks, Daniel Harris, Brandon Caserta, and 24-year-old Ty Garbin. The FBI says they con­spired to kid­nap Whitmer at her fam­i­ly’s vaca­tion home in Michigan. Another sev­en men have been charged by Attorney General Dana Nessel for alleged­ly plot­ting to over­throw gov­ern­ments, attack the Michigan State Capitol, and incite a ‘civ­il war’.

White Supremacists groups have long tar­get­ed the Michigan Governor over her COVID policy.

Those sev­en men are mem­bers of a mili­tia known as Wolverine Watchmen, one of the mul­ti­ple known mili­tia groups in Michigan. They are; Paul Bellar, 21, Shawn Fix, 38, Eric Molitor, 36, Michael Null, 38, William Null, 38, Pete Musico, 42, and Joseph Morrison, 42.

I was some­what sur­prised at the recent news that a police offi­cer hand­ing over a semi-auto­mat­ic weapon at the Castleton Police Station, acci­den­tal­ly shot and injured a colleague.
My dis­be­lief was not about the fail­ure to observe safe­ty stan­dards alone, I have repeat­ed­ly con­tend­ed that the lack of prop­er ongo­ing train­ing and the lack of train­ing facil­i­ties, con­tin­ues to put offi­cers and the pub­lic at risk.
What alarmed me was that in a coun­try that is in the top (five)most vio­lent coun­tries in the world, offi­cers are still required to hand over sidearms after con­clud­ing their tours.
We can no longer argue that offi­cers can­not be trust­ed with firearms off duty if they are untrust­ed with them on duty. When we make those argu­ments we inex­orably ques­tion whole­sale, (a)the char­ac­ter of every­one in the JCF,(b) the abil­i­ty of the agency to select peo­ple who are not crim­i­nals, and © the char­ac­ter of every Jamaican cit­i­zen even.
If we are say­ing that we can­not trust the gate­keep­ers of our soci­ety, who then can we trust.
If we throw out all of the fore­gone, the obvi­ous default must be, that the lives of police offi­cers are still under­val­ued by their civil­ian bosses.

No police offi­cer should be required to go out and pro­tect oth­ers, after which he/​she is stripped of the means to pro­tect his/​her own life, and that of his/​her fam­i­ly, after the tour of duty is com­plete. On this issue, the Police Federation must be unre­lent­ing. On the oth­er hand, it is imper­a­tive that the Federation also uses what­ev­er clout it has to ensure that only the best can­di­dates are select­ed for ser­vice in the depart­ment, and that the screen­ing process is con­stant­ly evolv­ing to ensure only the best and bright­est are allowed in.
Sergent Patrae Rowe, though still con­strained by the rules that gov­ern all mem­bers, has been a vocif­er­ous and fear­less voice for the men and women of the rank and file.
I share Rowe’s dis­gust that the (FLA). would con­jure up rea­sons to deny mem­bers of the nation’s pre­mier law enforce­ment agency the right to a firearm license.
It is impor­tant at this junc­ture to rec­og­nize that the issuance of Passports and firearm licens­es was once a func­tion of the JCF.
There is a legit­i­mate con­ver­sa­tion to be had as to (a) whether police cor­rup­tion caused those two func­tions to be removed from their port­fo­lio, or (b) those func­tions would have been removed regard­less, based on polit­i­cal calculations?

Power cor­rupts, absolute pow­er cor­rupts absolute­ly. When pow­er is placed into the hands of immoral peo­ple they gen­er­al­ly abuse it. The solu­tions are to have con­tin­ued vig­i­lance, and a sys­tem that holds those who would abuse their pow­er accountable.
The actions of the FLA must be viewed with­in that lens, at the same time shout­ing in the wind will do lit­tle to influ­ence change, par­tic­u­lar­ly with an admin­is­tra­tion that has been tone-deaf to the needs of the police.
The efforts of the Federation must be cen­tered on using the tools it has at its dis­pos­al to make the Government sit up and take notice of its demands.

The (FLA), like theJCF, are both arms of the very same gov­ern­ment, it requires tough and sus­tained lob­by­ing pres­sure to get the Parliament to make changes to parts of itself that are not work­ing cohesively.
On the oth­er hand, the inci­dents of attacks on police offi­cers and sol­diers must be cause for alarm, not just to mem­bers of the secu­ri­ty forces and their fam­i­lies, but to all law-abid­ing Jamaicans whom they serve.
The call by Sergeant Rowe for the death penal­ty to be acti­vat­ed for offend­ers who try to kill cops, not just for those who actu­al­ly do so, is under­stand­able, nev­er­the­less, it came off as shrill.

I do not want to see a Jamaica in which the death penal­ty is on the table for any­one who is accused of attack­ing police.
There is more than enough evi­dence that when dra­con­ian mea­sures like what the Federation boss is propos­ing becomes law, it becomes a slid­ing scale for police to manip­u­late and abuse.
The JCF, for its own sur­vival and legit­i­ma­cy, must rad­i­cal­ly trans­form its intel­li­gence and inves­tiga­tive capabilities.
Officer’s safe­ty and secu­ri­ty are with­in their own remit, they must decide how they pro­tect them­selves. It is for those rea­sons I sup­port the Federation’s posi­tion as it relates to the FLA.

Nonetheless, mem­bers of the JCF must con­tin­ue to demon­strate that they are equal to the task of pro­tect­ing them­selves, even if oth­er arms of the gov­ern­ment are work­ing against them. The JCF can­not pur­port to be up to the task of pro­tect­ing the nation if it is demon­stra­bly unable to pro­tect itself.
This would be a good time for mem­bers of the Police Officers Association,(POA) the group that rep­re­sents gazetted mem­bers of the force, to throw its sup­port behind the Federation on this issue.
Together we are stronger, over to Senior Superintendent Wayne Cameron and the POA.

Mike Beckles is a for­mer police Detective cor­po­ral, busi­ness­man, free­lance writer, he is a black achiev­er hon­oree, and pub­lish­er of the blog mike​beck​les​.com. 
He’s also a con­trib­u­tor to sev­er­al websites.
You may sub­scribe to his blogs free of charge, or sub­scribe to his Youtube chan­nel @chatt-a-box, for the lat­est pod­cast all free to you of course.

AHMAUD ARBERY REDUX?

A Mississippi father and son were arrest­ed after chas­ing two Black teens rid­ing ATVs and shoot­ing at them over the week­end. Two white men, 48-year-old Wade Oscar Twiner and his 22-year-old son Lane Twiner have been charged with aggra­vat­ed assault after they pur­sued two Black teenagers rid­ing ATVs in Yazoo County, Mississippi, on Sunday, Sept. 27.
The father and son, “pur­sued them and tried to stop them and to shoot them and bump them with the four-wheel­er,” said Yazoo County Sheriff Jacob Sheriff told WBLT news. Authorities are inves­ti­gat­ing the inci­dent as a pos­si­ble hate crime. The teens were the only Black peo­ple on the road who were assault­ed, although it is a com­mon des­ti­na­tion for joyrides on ATVs, hors­es, and buggies.
“We’re still look­ing at some things on that to see if we can estab­lish a hate crime or not. We’ve got to get with the DA and look at the statutes to say whether that would be a hate crime or not,” Sheriff said.

ONE VICTIM’S MOHER SPOKE ABOUT HER SON’S ORDEAL

“Not only did they shoot at him, but they also ran into the back of his four-wheel­er, and that could also have been mur­der right then and there,” she said. Both teens’ iden­ti­ties remain undisclosed.
One of the teens report­ed that he can still hear the sound of the gun­shots when he clos­es his eyes. He said he had trou­ble sleep­ing the night of the inci­dent and could see both men shoot­ing at him at one point, one aim­ing from the driver’s side win­dow, and the oth­er reach­ing over the roof from the passenger’s side.
“It was kind of dif­fi­cult last night since it was the first night it hap­pened, so we just have to take it step by step, day by day to see how it plays out,” the victim’s moth­er said.
He also not­ed that he had not been tres­pass­ing on the Twiner’s prop­er­ty. The Twiners said that because they pay tax­es and own prop­er­ty on both sides of the road they should not have to deal with peo­ple rid­ing ATVs on the road.
The Twiners were booked at the Yazoo Regional Correctional Facility, with bonds set at $70,000. They were due to appear in court on Tuesday.