At about 8:pm on Tuesday December 22^nd 2015 Corporal Kenneth Davis of the Protective Services Division and Constable Craig Palmer both had their lives snuffed out by criminals as they engaged in a friendly game of dominoes in the community of Poor-Man’s-Corner..
Constable Palmer who hails from the community only days earlier had gathered with friends and well-wishers to honor the life of his sister who had passed a mere year before he was taken away in a hail of bullets.

At the time of the assas­si­na­tion of the two offi­cers res­i­dents of the com­mu­ni­ty report­ed that mem­bers of the St Thomas Police were receiv­ing threats against their lives .
The sto­ry on the streets is that crim­i­nals in the com­mu­ni­ty want­ed revenge against the 35 year-old Palmer because he was involved in the death of one of two gun­men in the com­mu­ni­ty, whom he dis­armed dur­ing an attempt­ed rob­bery a few years ago. The oth­er man alleged­ly escaped on that occasion.

Member of Parliament for Western St Thomas James Robertson con­firmed that Palmer had been receiv­ing death threats. There is much to be mad about in this sto­ry. It is incon­ceiv­able that mem­bers of a police depart­ment could have been receiv­ing death threats and are unable to ter­mi­nate the source/​s of those threats. I say that with the great­est of humil­i­ty. I say that against the back­ground of the job the police is asked to do. If the Police can­not pro­tect it’s own how can the police be trust­ed with any­one else’s security.
I am not par­tic­u­lar­ly mind­ful of the paper-cops who are pre­dis­posed to push­ing back against my com­ments. I frankly don’t give a rat’s ass about them . When crim­i­nals threat­en the lives of law-enforce­ment offi­cers they are to be hunt­ed down and brought to jus­tice. If they chose to fight then jus­tice must be deliv­ered to them, it’s that simple.
MISTER COMMISH MY SOURCES CAN’T RECALL SEEING THE POLICE LOOKING UNDER ANY ROCK……….

At the time the two offi­cers were bru­tal­ly assas­si­nat­ed Commissioner of Police Dr. Carl Williams promised the fam­i­lies of the slain offi­cers that no stones would be left un-turned in bring­ing those respon­si­ble to jus­tice. The police depart­ment simul­ta­ne­ous­ly announced the name of Marlon Perry, oth­er­wise called ‘Duppy Film’, as a per­son of inter­est in the shoot­ing. They encour­aged Perry to turn him­self in to the Police.
Being the skep­tic I did not place any weight on the state­ment of the police then. I did not believe they had the clout to demand this alleged accused turn him­self in and if he did I did not believe they had evi­dence to sub­stan­ti­ate a charge of cap­i­tal murder.
I believed then as I do now that the state­ments were made to appear tough and to make them­selves look like they knew what they were doing. I believed the police hoped time would pass, things would get back to nor­mal as the offi­cers deaths fade into obliv­ion as that of count­less oth­er Jamaicans.

Let me state cat­e­gor­i­cal­ly that I sup­port the Police whole­heart­ed­ly . As a for­mer mem­ber myself I know all too well the chal­lenges the police face in doing their jobs.
Many of my for­mer col­leagues believe and con­tend I am too harsh in my crit­i­cism of police inep­ti­tude. I take their crit­i­cisms in stride even as I take into account the neg­a­tive impact the (inde­com) Act is hav­ing on the abil­i­ty of the police to do their jobs. I also under­stand the depart­men­tal chal­lenges they face in get­ting the job done. Many of the junior offi­cers want to work but they are sad­dled with com­mand­ing offi­cers who know lit­tle or absolute­ly noth­ing about crime fight­ing. To bor­row a term from these rank and file offi­cers their com­man­ders are (mod­dlers) . The term mod­dler is a col­lo­qui­al term for peo­ple who have form but no sub­stance. I refer to them as win­dow dressing.

I have pre­cious lit­tle sym­pa­thy for non-per­form­ers, the police depart­ment is not exempt from that in my view , it is rather easy to blame one’s lack of per­for­mance on what one does­n’t have. I much rather doing what I must exploit­ing what I have to the max .
I have repeat­ed­ly point­ed to the fact that if the Police depart­ment was a busi­ness it would have failed long ago. I say this against the back­gound of the data pro­vid­ed by the police depart­ment itself. You can­not clear up 30% of homi­cides and remain rel­e­vant. There is a dis­con­nect between the per­for­mance of the Police depart­ment , despite it’s best efforts and sol­ven­cy in a real sense.

To date there is no word on the where­abouts of Marlon Perry despite the fact that Jamaica is a small coun­try 4411 square miles and does not offer much in the way of where some­one can sus­tain him­self with­out being noticed.
Lets be clear , this is exact­ly how the Police Department has oper­at­ed for decades. On this prin­ci­ple crim­i­nals are allowed to remain on the lam and con­tin­ue com­mit­ting seri­ous crimes while the police is sup­pos­ed­ly look­ing for them>.
I addressed this non­sen­si­cal notion in a pre­vi­ous arti­cle in which I detailed a sce­nario in which I arrest­ed a sup­posed want­ed crim­i­nal and took a loaded weapon from him on my very first day at the CIB .

Nowadays police depart­ments use a cor­nu­copia of dif­fer­ent method­olo­gies to brink pres­sure to bear on want­ed sus­pects. These meth­ods includes but are not con­fined to sweeps, drag­nets, apply­ing pres­sure to fam­i­ly mem­bers and friends, main­tain­ing pres­sure on places where shady char­ac­ters con­vene along with the tra­di­tion­al mon­ey offer­ing for information.
These are some of the means by which the police can have an impact . Of course real cops worth their salt know there are lots of oth­er uncon­ven­tion­al tools police have at their dis­pos­al to bring pres­sure to bear,which invari­ably lead police to sus­pects or bring sus­pects out of hiding.

Despite the Commissioner’s promise and blus­ter it has been three months and still there is no word on the sus­pect Marlon Perry and no one has been charged in the death of these two officers.
Once again this medi­um call on the police depart­ment to bring the killers of these two heroes to jus­tice. For far too long the Police depart­ment has allowed crim­i­nals to live lives of lux­u­ry while pre­tend­ing the depart­ment is active­ly engaged in efforts to bring them in to answer for the heinous crimes they commit.
Donnovan(bul­bie) Bennett, remained on the lam for years liv­ing a life of lux­u­ry while he con­tin­ued to direct the oper­a­tions of his crim­i­nal empire from his man­sion in Clarendon.
It’s time the police depart­ment stop being an embar­rass­ment to itself and the nation. If it can­not bring crim­i­nals who assas­si­nate cops to jus­tice how can it be trust­ed to pro­tect the population?

“I should not have the need to remind ministers that they must at all times conduct the affairs of the country with the highest level of integrity,“declared Holness. “But it is important that I repeat it. Corruption will not be tolerated in this Government.”

Andrew Holness Jamaica’s new Prime Minister uttered these words on Monday March 7^th at the King’s house swear­ing in cer­e­mo­ny of his new cabinet.
A moment after mak­ing that state­ment the prime Minister exit­ed the stage and took his seat.
I assume the Prime Minister saved those words for the last under­stand­ing the val­ue of optics as well as the res­o­nance they would have being the last words he uttered before step­ping from the podium.

It is because I fun­da­men­tal­ly believe the Prime Minister under­stand the val­ue and impor­tance of optics that I and many like myself are left scratch­ing our heads about his choice for Minister of National Security.
For years because of the stub­born­ness of the Island’s crime sit­u­a­tion the Ministry Of National Security has been looked at by many as a pun­ish­ment of sorts for those tasked with that port­fo­lio. The new Prime Minister seemed to under­stand that fix­ing the coun­try hinged on seri­ous­ly reduc­ing crime as this medi­um has been focused on for the last four years.

Going forward, Jamaica’s development must rest on its ability to create propositions of value and attract investments to convert the value into wealth. In this model, Government is not the main investor, it is the Private Sector whether they be large enterprises or small business. In the economic partnership with the Private Sector, Government’s role, among others, is: To ensure the rule of law. Create a safe, secure, and fair environment for business .Make markets where none exist. Ensure transparency and access to information ‑and create an efficient and supportive public sector bureaucracy.(Andrew Holness).

This sec­tion of the Prime Minister’s speech could eas­i­ly have been lift­ed from any one of the many Articles I have writ­ten , detail­ing these very points on which our coun­try must embark if it is to succeed . 
It is with that in mind and Holness’ seem­ing aware­ness by his own words that I am per­plexed about his choice of Robert Montaque for Minister of National Security.

I am not sug­gest­ing that the Minister of National Security must be a lawyer or Police offi­cial but I am unsure of what Robert Montague brings to the table as min­is­ter with respon­si­bil­i­ty for that portfolio?
I am quite will­ing to give Montague a chance to show what he can do, but if the stat­ed goals of the new admin­is­tra­tion are to be real­ized I won­der at the choice of some­one who nec­es­sar­i­ly will need to learn on the job.

Robert Montague is bet­ter known to many of us in Local Government cir­cles through his dynamism and vocal expres­sions as for­mer Mayor of Port Maria and Chairman of the St. Mary Parish Council, since 2003. Mr. Montague has a long his­to­ry of ser­vice, hav­ing been a Councillor for 18 years. During his tenure in the St. Mary Parish Council, Minister Montague also held the chair of the St Mary Environmental Protection Committee, Director of the St. Mary Co-op Credit Union, Distinguished President of the Kiwanis Club of St Mary and Distinguished Lieutenant Governor. Mr. Montague’s professional/​academic back­ground is in agron­o­my. He is also involved in a num­ber of com­pa­nies includ­ing being President of the Suntel Corporation. Mr. Montague’s tran­si­tions into the port­fo­lio of Minister of State in the Office of the Prime Minister with respon­si­bil­i­ty for Local Government affairs, gave him an even more strength­ened voice on the direc­tion and path of local gov­er­nance at the local lev­el in Jamaica.
Robert Montague.

There is not a wealth of infor­ma­tion avail­able on the new Minister of National Security beyond that which appear on the JLP’s web­site. Additionally what we do recall is that there were alle­ga­tions of rape pur­port­ed­ly lev­eled against Montague in 2015 which from all accounts were nev­er substantiated..

According to RJR news 5:23 pm, Tue November 10, 2015 .
Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) Chairman, Senator Robert Montague, is deny­ing rape alle­ga­tions appear­ing on social media sites. In a release this morn­ing, Montague said he received a pri­vate com­mu­ni­ca­tion, on August 28 on his Facebook account that con­tained the alle­ga­tions, threats and an attempt to extort mon­ey. He says he report­ed the mat­ter to the police on August 31 and was advised not to reply. Shortly after anoth­er pri­vate mes­sage was received stat­ing that the alle­ga­tions have been passed to the media. On September 1 a blog with some of the alle­ga­tions and fur­ther innu­en­dos was pub­lished and was brought to the atten­tion of the Police. Montague says con­tact was made with the legit­i­mate own­er of the account, from where the mes­sages were sent but the own­er denied involve­ment. Montague says it is unfor­tu­nate that per­sons are seek­ing to use the inci­dent to gain polit­i­cal advan­tage in light of the impend­ing gen­er­al election.He says the Counter Terrorism and Organized Crime Branch and the Major Organized Crime Agency have been informed of his deci­sion to make the mat­ter public.
JLP Chairman denies rape allegations

For the record this medi­um and this writer has no oth­er infor­ma­tion regard­ing this inci­dent which was report­ed by Montague him­self to the Jamaican Press in 2015.
To my knowl­edge there has been no fur­ther devel­op­ment regard­ing this issue to the best of my knowl­edge. I am also con­ver­sant of the harm unsub­stan­ti­at­ed alle­ga­tions such as these can do to an inno­cent per­son­’s life and image.

It will be inter­est­ing to see how the new Minister of National Security deal with the every press­ing issue of crime and those whose task it is to enforce the laws. It is no easy task as the new Administration seeks to change the eco­nom­ic sit­u­a­tion in the Island it is impor­tant that the rule of law is vig­or­ous­ly pursued.
There will be no real eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment with­out a sus­tained tar­get­ed par­al­lel push to erad­i­cate crime.

Those of us who worked in law enforce­ment and are keen­ly inter­est­ed in the crime sit­u­a­tion on the Island will be scratch­ing our heads as we main­tain a keen vig­i­lance as it regards this admin­is­tra­tion and this par­tic­u­lar assignment.

Whether the final count is 33 – 30 or 32 – 31 in favor of the Jamaica Labor Party when the final count becomes offi­cial Jamaica must still be gov­erned. Of course if you lis­ten to the prog­nos­ti­ca­tors and bot­tom feed­ing polit­i­cal hacks who con­trol the mega­phone in Jamaica one would think this not doable.
These are they whom have grown fat at the trough of PNP largess. Many would not know how to earn a hon­est liv­ing oth­er than the slop they devour as a result of that par­ty’s entrenched sys­tem of corruption.
One of the issues to be con­sid­ered going for­ward is how to get the over 50% of qual­i­fied elec­tors back to believ­ing in the process.
Much of this will not be real­ized overnight, but arguably will rest on the abil­i­ty of the new­ly elect­ed Administration to get it’s agen­da enacted.

WHY HAVE JAMAICANS GIVEN UP ON THE PROCESS?
In the Interest of clar­i­ty it’s impor­tant to rec­og­nize that despite low vot­er turnout those who vot­ed spoke elo­quent­ly about who they want to gov­ern the coun­try for the next five years.
As the seat count present­ly stand the JLP has a 32 – 31 lead over the PNP with one pre­vi­ous­ly declared going to a Magesterial recount. . On that alone the JLP would have picked up a whop­ping 11 seats, mov­ing its total from 21 to a ten­ta­tive 32.
That 11 seat swing was no easy task in light of the PNP’s rough­ly 20 seat gar­ri­son advantage.
Not only has the JLP won the seat count the par­ty also won the pop­u­lar vote albeit less than a per­cent­age point.

Now there are many who will say “wow Mike why do you need to point this out , you are gloating” ?
I want to address that whole notion right away. I nev­er liked PNP poli­cies that is no secret.
A cur­so­ry look at our coun­try is more than evi­dence to sup­port my revul­sion for the PNP’s ide­ol­o­gy. I believe the pover­ty and decay which has char­ac­ter­ized their reign is rea­son enough to eschew what they are selling.
The idea of ide­o­log­i­cal Socialism tak­ing a coun­try into the first world is an oxy­moron and a mas­sive con game.
I much rather a mar­ket dri­ven econ­o­my, a phi­los­o­phy which tack­les crime and cor­rup­tion , low­er tax­es, encour­age for­eign invest­ments, and adher­ence to the rule of law.

Those who say they don’t care about either par­ty are angry PNP sup­port­ers who are cry­ing in their orange-aid our coun­try will be fine while they moan and complain.
I sim­ply love Jamaica too much not to speak out about the decay and deca­dence which the PNP has rep­re­sent­ed for decades.
There are no suc­cess­ful Nations on this plan­et which has adopt­ed ide­o­log­i­cal social­ism as a polit­i­cal mod­el. I asked many of my friends who sup­port the People’s National Party to name me a sin­gle ide­o­log­i­cal social­ist coun­try which is a suc­cess I’m still await­ing their response.
Conversely, much of the pover­ty and social upheaval which plague parts of Africa, Southern and Latin American may be laid at the feet of Socialist ideology.
I am not opposed to the brand of social­ism which is prac­ticed by the  Liberal Party in Canada, or that which is prac­ticed in parts of Scandinavia. Simply put, the People’s National Party’s phi­los­o­phy is noth­ing close to that which is prac­ticed in these countries.

Eivind Kjørstad, of the web­site Quora​.com  in an Article asks How social­ist are Scandinavian coun­tries? : ” All coun­tries are a mix of social­ist and cap­i­tal­ist ideas. In fact I per­son­al­ly think that adher­ence to a sin­gle “pure” ide­ol­o­gy is a pret­ty good indi­ca­tor of evil. No good ever comes from believ­ing that a sin­gle tool is the cor­rect one to solve all prob­lems. The real world is diverse, and it’s wise to use a diverse set of tools to solve soci­ety’s prob­lems”.
The PNP would be well advised to con­sid­er this as it licks it’s wounds and pon­der the arro­gance which land­ed it into the role of Opposition.

Jamaicans spoke this elec­tion that they are tired of the old style pol­i­tics of anger , divi­sion and clenched fists. They opt­ed out of abra­sive Garrison style pol­i­tics which have kept them chained ide­o­log­i­cal­ly and eco­nom­i­cal­ly to promis­es of pros­per­i­ty just around the cor­ner which have time and again turned out to be only a mirage.
They opt­ed out of the sell-off of our nation­al trea­sures and turned their backs on sec­ond-class cit­i­zen­ship in their own country.
And yes they respond­ed to the promise of pros­per­i­ty , even though not total­ly con­vinced they chose to believe because it came from a dif­fer­ent source.
They grew tired of the same old song and dance. They were tired of being sick and tired and hun­gry most of all.

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The elec­tions are over, as Jamaicans we must all roll up our sleeves and begin the task of build­ing our nation. Whether we live on the Island or else­where our con­tri­bu­tion is critical.
The Jamaican dias­po­ra sent back 16 Billion dol­lars over the last decade alone. It is fair to say that with the mis­man­age­ment of the econ­o­my over the last three decades the Jamaican econ­o­my would have col­lapsed with­out that injec­tion of un-earned capital.
Many Jamaicans in the dias­po­ra are now watch­ing to see whether the new Administration has the balls to tack­le crime at it’s core by giv­ing the police the lat­i­tude and sup­port they need while ensur­ing the appro­pri­ate lev­el of over­sight are in place.
The key to the Nations imme­di­ate eco­nom­ic prob­lems is pri­vate sec­tor employ­ment. In order to encour­age pri­vate investors to come in crime must be under con­trol and pub­lic sec­tor cor­rup­tion and bureau­crat­ic incom­pe­tence must be a thing of the past.
More impor­tant­ly is the mul­ti­tude of retirees who are dying to return home with their sav­ings, social secu­ri­ty and pen­sion checks.
But their return is pred­i­cat­ed on crime being under control.
let’s see if the new JLP Administration under­stand how this recov­ery must be tackled.
JAMAICANS IN DIASPORA IN NO HURRY TO RETURN HOME

From time to time this writer and this medium speak on the Jamaica Constabulary Force the Agency which gave me the privilege of serving my country for roughly 10 years of my young life.
Despite having left many years ago I still support the work of the JCF , even as I continue to call for real and substantive changes in the Agency so that the lives of many more Jamaicans can be impacted positively as mine have been .
However there are times when the JCF has not acted with due diligence or propriety, in those instances despite my unwavering support I refuse to stand by and not speak out.
Here’s is an officer who is aggrieved I will allow him to speak for himself .

Name: Evon Blake

Occupation: Police Corporal

Address: Hunts Bay Police Station

St.Andrew South Division,

States,

I have been a mem­ber of the Jamaica Constabulary Force since July 9^th 1997; I was pro­mot­ed to cor­po­ral in December 2002,

On the 25^th day of May 2005, I was shot and injured dur­ing a shootout with gun men along Pretoria road Kingston 13. I suf­fered from a sev­ered right femoral artery and frac­tured right thigh bone. A vas­cu­lar repair of the artery was per­formed by Dr.Dott at the Kingston Public Hospital; I was lat­er hand­ed over to Dr.Phillip Waite for treat­ment rel­a­tive to the fracture.

In July 2007 I returned to work, I was ful­ly recu­per­at­ed and was able to car­ry out both phys­i­cal and admin­is­tra­tive duties as I saw was required of me.

After I was on duty I was ordered (via doc­u­men­ta­tion) to attend a med­ical board hear­ing at the Spanish Town Hospital in rela­tion to my injuries, it appeared irrel­e­vant to me at the time since I was already back on duty but I attend­ed in any case. The board rec­om­mend­ed that I remained on duty as there was no need for me to be sent back on sick leave.

On the 28^th day of October 2007 I was acci­den­tal­ly shot and injured by con­sta­ble S.williams at 12 gua­va road Kinston 11 while con­duct­ing an oper­a­tion on the instruc­tions of then SSP Derrick Knight, My injuries were gun­shot wound to my right groin which exit­ed through my right but­tocks, a right shat­tered hip joint and femoral head (shat­tered thigh bone). I was tak­en to the Kingston Public Hospital where I was treat­ed by Dr. Ion Neal and lat­er trans­ferred in his care at the St. Joseph Hospital, In November of this said year Neal per­formed a hip recon­struc­tive surgery on my right hip and I was lat­er released on November 25^thto recu­per­ate at home.

I was nev­er sent on a med­ical board even though I had been on injury leave for more than a hun­dred and eighty days. Despite my efforts the sys­tem seemed to have turned its back on me. I was nev­er coun­seled nor assist­ed in any way while at home. I had to access my NIS ben­e­fits myself along with med­ical appoint­ments and treat­ments for all those years untill now.

In March 2013 for the first time I was con­tact­ed by the Office of the Commissioner to attend a med­ical board on the 22^nd of March 2013 at the Spanish Town Hospital, pri­or to this there was no con­tact in rela­tion to my injuries. I was sup­posed to be med­ical board­ed after a hun­dred and eighty days on sick leave as accord­ing to the book of rules of the Jamaica Constabulary Force to deter­mine my fit­ness to work but this was after six years.
This was a breach of my rights under the said JCF own rules. I attend­ed the med­ical board and was informed by the doc­tor that I was not fit to car­ry out my duties because I was in need of a total hip replace­ment surgery.

On September 12, 2013 I was served with a doc­u­ment by detec­tive Inspector K.O.Bennett at my home, upon obser­va­tion this doc­u­ment was as a result of the med­ical board which was con­vened on March 22^nd 2013 at the Spanish Town Hospital. This doc­u­ment stat­ed that with­out the surgery I was unfit to car­ry out my duties in the JCF, but if the hip replace­ment was to be done I might be able to do admin­is­tra­tive duties.
The doc­u­ment also gave me the fol­low­ing options, “opt­ing for retire­ment on med­ical grounds or perus­ing the hip replace­ment surgery. The option of surgery was clear to me how­ev­er the option of retire­ment was not. As a result I respond­ed to the doc­u­ment with­in the four­teen days peri­od they gave me to respond and ask to be prop­er­ly advised as it relat­ed to the option of retire­ment on the 25^th of September 2013, Up until now my request have not been met by anyone.

On the 17^th day of June I vis­it­ed Dr. Grantel Dundas, he explained to me as a result of my com­plaints that I was in imme­di­ate need of the hip replace­ment surgery.
As a result on the 30^th day of July 2014 I sent a doc­u­ment to office of the com­mis­sion­er agree­ing to pur­sue the option of the hip replace­ment surgery even though I still did not received any com­mu­ni­ca­tions rel­a­tive to my request on the advice on the option to retire on med­ical grounds sent on the 25^th of September 2013. A copy of a med­ical report from the said doc­tor accom­pa­nied with an out­line of the cost of the surgery was also attached to this doc­u­ment. The ref­er­ence num­ber for all doc­u­ments sent was A19/​B1919.

In December 2015 one Mr. Hamilton con­tact­ed me from Human resource branch; he informed me that he was mak­ing prepa­ra­tion to pay for my surgery to be done. In January 2016 he con­tact­ed me again and informed me that the surgery was paid for and I would be con­tact­ed by the med­ical associate’s hos­pi­tal. In February 2016 I was con­tact­ed by an agent for this hos­pi­tal who informed me that my surgery was paid for and that I should con­tact my doc­tor to set a surgery date con­ve­nient. I con­tact­ed my doc­tor and an appoint­ment was set for me to vis­it him on Wednesday the 17^th day of February at 3pm .

On the 9^th day of February 2016 I was con­tact­ed by phone by a DSP McFarlane from hunts bay admin, she request­ed to speak to me on the mat­ter. On the 1oth day of February 2016 I was vis­it­ed by inspec­tor Quarry who advised me that my salary would be sus­pend­ed if I do not set a surgery date. I also spoke again with the DSP via phone while with Insp Quarry, I informed them both of my appoint­ment with my doc­tor rel­a­tive to my surgery. The orga­ni­za­tion has failed in all regards to have my med­ical board done on time as also failed to respond to the doc­u­ments I have sent to them.

I have been suf­fer­ing immense pain and has been unable to do my hip replace­ment surgery. I was med­ical board­ed in March 2013 and my surgery was just paid for in January 2016. But yet they blame me for their incom­pe­tence and stop­ping my salary seem to be their best option at this point. I am stressed out and in no con­di­tion men­tal­ly to do a third major surgery but if it means still get­ting a salary to pro­vide for my wife and five chil­dren I will do it even if it kills me.

On the 17,day of February 2016 I vis­it­ed doc­tor Grantel Dundas at his office for him to set a date for my surgery, he med­ical­ly exam­ined me and gave a doc­u­ment to attend the med­ical asso­ciates hos­pi­tal radi­ol­o­gy depart­ment to have x‑ray of my hip con­duct­ed on the 18^th day of February 2016 at 8:30 am. On this date I did as he instruct­ed and brought the x‑rays done to him at his office. He exam­ined them and made cer­tain rec­om­men­da­tions as it relat­ed to my hip and surgery but he did not set a surgery​.date, he gave me sick leave for three years which start­ed on February 15, 2013 and one for fifty-six days com­menc­ing on February 18, 2016. Later this same day I informed both the Human Resource and admin depart­ment of doc­tor Dundas find­ings and recommendations.

I spoke to SP. Shand and Inspector quar­ry at the Admin Department, I also gave them copy of the sick leaves. I lat­er went to the Hunts Bay Police Station where I hand­ed in both sick leaves along with the rel­e­vant appli­ca­tions to Sergeant Bryan in charge of the gen­er­al office.

On the 19^th day of February 2016 I was con­tact­ed by Dr. Dundas, he explained my med­ical options to me and con­clud­ed that my only option was still the hip replace­ment surgery, he as result set a surgery date for the 5^th day of July 2016 and I was to check in the med­ical asso­ciates hos­pi­tal on the 4^th day of July 2016 for surgery. He gave me sick leave from the 18^th of February to the 19^th day of august 2016.

I con­tact­ed the human resource branch via MR. Hamilton and informed him, I went in per­son to the admin and informed both SSP Shand and Inspector Quarry.i also informed Sgt.Bryan at the hunts bay gen­er­al office.

On the 24^th day of February 2016 I real­ized I was not paid, I made enquir­ers and found out that a,stop order on my salary was done by the same admin depart­ment who I had been in com­mu­ni­ca­tion with, I was not informed in writ­ing nor ver­bal­ly that my salary was to be stopped but it was stopped any­way. i am unable to work as a result if my injuries and I have no oth­er source of income on which to pro­vide for my family.

From the time I was shot until now I have had no con­tacts from admin depart­ment as it relates to my wel­fare, they have noth­ing for me exempt to stop my salary.I was acci­den­tal­ly shot by anoth­er police offi­cer while on duty. As a result of my injuries I have suf­fered finan­cial­ly and emo­tion­al­ly, my employ­ment options are lim­it­ed to noth­ing until I have com­plet­ed the hip replace­ment surgery. I have lost pay and advance­ment as a police Officer. I have lost oppor­tu­ni­ty to excel in oth­er areas of life. I was not coun­selled at any­time as the orga­ni­za­tion did not see it fit to look out for my wel­fare, I am stressed and on the edge and now even worse with­out a salary and no finan­cial recourse.

This state­ment is true to the best of my knowl­edge and beliefs and I make it know­ing that if it is ten­dered in evi­dence, I shall be liable to pros­e­cu­tion if I have will­ful­ly stat­ed in it any­thing I know to be false or do not believe to be true.

(Share this sto­ry and force the Government of Jamaica and the JCF to act.)

Responding to the Nomination day event in Flankers St James in which a bus trans­port­ing JLP sup­port­ers was sprayed with gun­fire result­ing in the death of at least one person,
(SSP) Steve McGregor Commanding offi­cer for the parish had this to say.
“No per­mis­sion was grant­ed for the moror­cade to pro­ceed through Flankers, “In fact, there were explic­it warn­ings against it,”.
“We are appeal­ing to organ­is­ers and par­ty offi­cials to heed all instruc­tions and warn­ings giv­en in the future,”.

Okaaay !!!
Well there you have it JLP , I guess McGregor told you!!!
According to the report­ing on the ground one per­son was killed in the attack and sev­er­al vehi­cles were dam­aged as well.
Can you imag­ine the Police telling Political can­di­dates where they can and can­not go in any soci­ety oth­er than Jamaica?
Set aside for a moment that the vic­tims in this instance were mem­bers of the JLP . Make them PNP sup­port­ers or whomev­er , where does the police get off telling cam­paigns not to cam­paign , regard­less of neighborhood?

I get the part about cam­paigns not first receiv­ing per­mits before going ahead.
If it’s the law that cam­paigns first receive per­mits before pro­ceed­ing with cer­tain ele­ments of cam­paign­ing then cam­paigns must respect the laws .
I also under­stand that this could be the con­cern of the Commanding officer.
Nevertheless the larg­er issue I believe is that if you remove the green or orange shirts and par­ty para­pher­na­lia Jamaicans have a right to go wher­ev­er they chose in their coun­try with­out the expec­ta­tion of get­ting attacked and killed.

I under­stand that the police are deal­ing with sit­u­a­tions as they have been in our coun­try since inde­pen­dence. That sense of frus­tra­tion was evi­dent in Steve McGregor’s statement.
However as I have said on pre­vi­ous occa­sions the police seem unable to find its way out of a paper-bag.
It is incom­pre­hen­si­ble that the Police is in the busi­ness of telling cam­paigns in 2016 not to go to cer­tain neighborhoods.

Has the police giv­en up on it’s own mis­sion statement ?
(1) Prevention and detec­tion of crime.
(2) Protection of life and property.
(3) Preservation of peace and good order.

If it has­n’t , how then can the Agency tasked with the pro­tec­tion of inter­nal secu­ri­ty jus­ti­fi­ably tell any Jamaican not to go any place in Jamaica or even 12 miles out to see which falls with­in it’s sphere of responsibility?
Sure I under­stand ‘Risk Assessment?
Sure I under­stand the need to inform poten­tial tar­gets of vio­lent assaults of the threats against them .
Warning tar­gets of threats of vio­lence how­ev­er does not absolve the police of the respon­si­bil­i­ty to pro­tect that tar­get of said intend­ed attack.

SSP McGregor seem to be of the opin­ion that his respon­si­bil­i­ty as Commanding offi­cer is to issue warn­ings to the tar­gets, in this case the JLP.
Many of my for­mer col­leagues crit­i­cize me for being crit­i­cal of the police even despite glar­ing instances of mas­sive incompetence.
Yet they hard­ly seem to pon­der the sub­stance of my points.
Senior Superintendent McGregor said that “police intel­li­gence assets are on the ground con­tin­u­ous­ly mon­i­tor­ing the sit­u­a­tion and that this infor­ma­tion informs deci­sions about the grant­i­ng of per­mis­sion for march­es and motorcades”.

Word of advice to the JCF and SSP McGregor . The sup­posed police intel­li­gence assets on the ground which informs deci­sions about the grant­i­ng of per­mis­sion for march­es and motor­cades should not be used to stop campaigning.
They should be used to weed out the crim­i­nals who would attack inno­cent people.
Regardless of the short­ages the police face, SSP McGregor’s state­ments are exact­ly indica­tive of law enforce­men­t’s fail­ures on the Island because of the depart­men­t’s ret­ro­grade thinking.

On Bolt win­ning the 100 meters race.

“I salute Usain as a nation­al brand ambas­sador extra­or­di­naire, not only for tak­ing the best of Jamaica to the world but also for his superb rep­re­sen­ta­tion of the best of ath­let­ics and sports in gen­er­al,” Prime min­is­ter Portia Simpson Miller said in a state­ment, adding that Bolt con­tin­ues to inspire Jamaica and the world with his leg­endary per­for­mance on the track.

On the Reggae Boyz sec­ond-place fin­ish in the CONCACAF Gold Cup final

I con­grat­u­late all mem­bers of the team and coach­ing staff under the lead­er­ship of head coach Winfried Schaefer for the strong sec­ond-place fin­ish and an over­all sol­id and encour­ag­ing per­for­mance through­out the tournament,”
Despite the team los­ing to Mexico 3 – 1, the prime min­is­ter said that the Reggae Boyz “demon­strat­ed dis­ci­pline, deter­mi­na­tion, and a strong spir­it through­out.” “Well done. The peo­ple and Government of Jamaica are proud of you,” Simpson Miller said.

Additionally, every day an aver­age of 3.2 Jamaicans are slaugh­tered by maraud­ing gun­men who kill men, women, and children.
No one is spared; the word out of Jamaica House.….….….….….….….….….….….….…
We will con­tin­ue with this Article as we await word from the Nation’s high­est elect­ed office.

The lead­er­ship qual­i­ty in Jamaica is not a reflec­tion of the leader alone, as we some­times allow our­selves to believe. Conversely, it is more direct­ly a reflec­tion of the qual­i­ty of the peo­ple. We know we are under when we low­er the bar so low that the bot­tom of the bar­rel becomes a high place.
Jamaicans long gave up the right to dis­ci­plined, intel­li­gent lead­er­ship. For decades Jamaican vot­ers allowed them­selves to be herd­ed into zones of polit­i­cal exclu­sions where they have been made to do the bid­ding of both polit­i­cal parties.
This result­ed in a sit­u­a­tion where the peo­ple became the ser­vants of the polit­i­cal par­ties rather than the Parties serv­ing the peo­ple. Over the years, both polit­i­cal par­ties have played that game, and today the Governing par­ty has mas­tered the art of manip­u­lat­ing the people.
Unfortunately, most of the vot­ers who sup­port the polit­i­cal par­ties are bliss­ful­ly igno­rant that they deserve bet­ter, not bet­ter, in the sense of hand­outs. But bet­ter ser­vices., Better rep­re­sen­ta­tion. Better Infrastructure. Better Leadership.Better Education and Health. Better sourc­ing of mar­kets for their pro­duce. Better in terms of bring­ing man­u­fac­tur­ing back to the Island. Better in erad­i­cat­ing the demon­ic crim­i­nals who use the coun­try as a haven. Better in terms of how chil­dren are protected.

Today, due to the poor lead­er­ship qual­i­ty the peo­ple accept­ed, Jamaica con­tin­ues as a shell of what it used to be. She sits at the bot­tom of the bar­rel in employ­ment — top of the list for mur­ders, seri­ous felonies, and the abuse of chil­dren. Near the top in Poverty and mis­ery. Moral val­ues, once a hall­mark of almost every Jamaican fam­i­ly now a dirty term.
I just hap­pened to see a video on social media yes­ter­day; it was of two women in a dance hall naked as they were born. I won­dered, ” How in Heaven’s name did we get here”?
Those who exploit the peo­ple for their own polit­i­cal gains may be half-baked idiots, but they know enough to latch onto the win­ners’ suc­cess­es even though they played no part in their development.
It is not dif­fi­cult to under­stand why the Prime Minister is mute on the con­tin­ued killings and assaults on hun­dreds and hun­dreds of Jamaicans but vocif­er­ous­ly latch­es onto the suc­cess­es of the Nation’s athletes.
Jamaican Politicians have always been par­a­sites; why should they stop now?

The Joint Select Committee of Parliament decid­ed that (indecom)the Agency tasked with over­sight of the Police Department. Military and Corrections Department should itself be sub­ject to .…
Well..
Oversight..
Well what do you know, what a Novel con­cept? You mean that final­ly the group of knuck­le-heads debat­ing this issue final­ly had an epiphany? You mean they are final­ly start­ing to get the sim­ple con­cept of checks and bal­ances? I mean even the Politicians are held to some degree of account­abil­i­ty, some­thing which nev­er exist­ed before, why not (inde­com)?

After the Contractor General’s ACT was passed many peo­ple includ­ing this writer thought , “Oh great final­ly some degree of account­abil­i­ty”. Naturally many politi­cians past and present were not hap­py with the vig­i­lance and aggres­sive ded­i­ca­tion Greg Christie the first Contractor General brought to the job.
Many were hap­py to see the back of Christie. For the aver­age man on the street Christie was a mod­ern day Savior who saved tax-pay­ers much mon­ey which oth­er­wise would have been siphoned off through illic­it and cor­rupt prac­tices in the con­tracts awards process.
Just last week a mem­ber of the Governing Administration vent­ed his frus­tra­tion with the Office of Contractor General. He claimed that the long delay of con­tracts being reviewed by the OCG places the Administration in a posi­tion in which it can­not car­ry out its man­date to cre­ate jobs. 

A rea­son­able argu­ment to make. Yet it was the cor­rupt prac­tices of the politi­cians which made the Office Of Contractor General a neces­si­ty in the first place.

The (inde­com) Act became a real­i­ty because of police offi­cers mis­deeds, as well as mem­bers of the Military and Corrections Department. Many mem­bers past and present are opposed to the Agency under­stand­ably because of their affil­i­a­tions with either of the three Agencies.
This writer is not opposed to (inde­com) the agency . I oppose the oper­a­tional tenets of the Act and I cer­tain­ly am opposed to the Commissioner him­self whom I fun­da­men­tal­ly believe should not have the job as head of (inde­com). Those who read my blogs are well aware of my dis­like for Terrence Williams, not because he heads (inde­com) but because he is on a per­son­al cru­sade to persecute .
I per­son­al­ly do not care about cor­rupt cops get­ting their just deserts. In the short ten years

I spent in the JCF I was instru­men­tal in the pros­e­cu­tion and impris­on­ment of three cor­rupt cops , whom I was hap­py to see leave the department.
So I’m cer­tain­ly not an apol­o­gist as some would imag­ine because I do not sup­port the whole­sale per­se­cu­tion of good Cops.
There are some peo­ple who are men­tal­ly inca­pable of mov­ing past cor­rupt cops and embrac­ing the val­ue of good offi­cers to society.
Those peo­ple can­not be changed, they don’t want to change. The bad cop argu­ment is a per­fect anchor, one from which they have no desire to be unhitched.

The (inde­com) Act is the brain-child of the abbre­vi­at­ed Bruce Golding Administration . The law was passed after pub­lic out­cry reached fever pitch about police abuse and extra-judi­cial killings. The truth of the mat­ter is that so called Human-Rights advo­ca­cy and lob­by­ing efforts were more to be cred­it­ed for the laws exis­tence than mas­sive police abuse. Nevertheless a pha­lanx of advo­ca­cy groups emerged all arrayed against the police and demand­ing change. Jamaicans For Justice(JFJ) head­ed by Carolyn Gomes a pedi­atric Doctor, Families against State Terrorism (FAST) head­ed my Yvonne McCall Sobers were just two of the advo­ca­cy groups to seri­ous­ly lob­by the Golding Administration for over­sight of the police.

Both groups had seri­ous back­ing from International Human Rights Agencies to include

the London based Amnesty International and the Washington DC based Inter American Commission on Human Rights. Gomes and (JFJ) were instru­men­tal in pre­sent­ing false , unsub­stan­ti­at­ed and in many cas­es flawed and dis­cred­it­ed infor­ma­tion to her han­dlers in Washington DC about police killings.
INDECOM was born with much input from (FAST) and (JFJ) , how­ev­er there were many more anti-police groups with sig­nif­i­cant pow­er which pushed for a law which would basi­cal­ly shack­le the police once and for all. The Norman Manley Law School and the Island’s Bar Association were instru­men­tal in hav­ing a law passed which would effec­tive­ly send crime sky-rocketing .
The Administration did not both­er to con­sult or con­sid­er the Police , Military or the Corrections Department before for­mu­lat­ing and pass­ing the law. INDECOM was born and Carolyn Gomes was award­ed a National honor. 
It did not take long for the Nation’s crim­i­nals to fig­ure out that the Police were now a paper tiger.

Gomes has since stepped down after much scruti­ny by the Government of the Group’s finan­cial records

and con­duct. The alliance between (jfj) and (inde­com) was well known, at least to this writer. This pissed off police offi­cers who

demand­ed that Terrence Williams the head of (inde­com) be fired after he attend­ed an anti-police press con­fer­ence with (jfj). The Government did not acqui­esce to the Police’s demand but the well of good­will was already poi­soned between the police and the over­sight agency.
The Commissioner of (inde­com) want­ed and demand­ed more and more pow­er to go after Police, this led to a bat­tle with the office of the Director of Public Prosecution. Williams claimed that the DPP was not doing enough to pros­e­cute police transgressions.
Never mind that Williams had the option to grand­stand but the DPP is oblig­at­ed to present tan­gi­ble evi­dence to a court of law or face unlaw­ful pros­e­cu­tion backlash.
It’s impor­tant to note that the (DPP) has the pow­er to charge police offi­cers with a crime to quell pub­lic out­cry even with­out the req­ui­site evi­dence nec­es­sary to con­vict. Literally every police shoot­ing in Jamaica gen­er­ates out­cry from some quar­ter or another.

The tug-o-war end­ed up before Parliament with the DPP sup­port­ed by the Police call­ing for over­sight of (inde­com) . Friends of (inde­com) are ene­mies of the police and they did not aban­don Williams as he pushed for more pow­er to per­se­cute police while notably want­i­ng to have no over­sight of (inde­com). Essentially Williams want­ed to head a super Agency vot­ed into office by no one, but with vast unchecked powers.

Citizens’ Action for Principles and Integrity (CAPI) says any over­sight body for the Independent Commission of Investigations (Indecom), will ren­der it impo­tent. A joint-select com­mit­tee of par­lia­ment exam­in­ing the Indecom Act has pro­posed an over­sight enti­ty for the inves­tiga­tive and pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al body. Indecom was set up as an inde­pen­dent body tasked to inves­ti­gate mis­con­duct by mem­bers of the police force. Co-Convenor of CAPI Dennis Meadows argues that Indecom, as a com­mis­sion of Parliament, already has par­lia­men­tary over­sight in addi­tion to judi­cial scruti­ny with its financed and oper­a­tions falling with­in the ambit of the Auditor General and the Contractor General. respec­tive­ly. National Security Minister Peter Bunting has stat­ed that there was a dan­ger in con­cen­trat­ing as much pow­er as

the act has done in the hands of the Commissioner of Indecom. At the time Human rights lob­by group, Jamaicans for Justice said it was research­ing the pro­pos­al that the Independent Commission of Investigations (Indecom) should have an inter­nal over­sight. This lat­est pro­pos­al from par­lia­men­tar­i­ans fol­lows ear­li­er objec­tions to Indecom hav­ing an exter­nal over­sight. In a state­ment the JFJ says it con­tin­ues to engage in robust advo­ca­cy at the pol­i­cy lev­el to pro­tect and pro­mote the human rights of all per­sons in Jamaica. Central to that advo­ca­cy has been the issue of police over­sight. To this end, JFJ sub­mit­ted its com­ments on the pro­pos­al for over­sight of Indecom, to the joint-select com­mit­tee of par­lia­ment review­ing the Indecom Act. The JFJ says its recent sub­mis­sion address­es the issue of exter­nal over­sight of Indecom, as has been sug­gest­ed by some par­ties. The lob­by group says such addi­tion­al exter­nal over­sight of Indecom would be inap­pro­pri­ate and dam­ag­ing to Indecom’s inde­pen­dence, poten­tial­ly revers­ing the pos­i­tive gains that have been made.

In the end the Joint select Committee of Parliament decid­ed that more over­sight was nec­es­sary as we report­ed here and cor­rect­ly so.
At the time the deci­sion was made the sole Jamaica Labor Party Member of the com­mit­tee in atten­dance Delroy Chuck an anti-police lawyer vot­ed not to have over­sight of (inde­com).
In sum­ma­ry (inde­com) was cre­at­ed by the Labor Party .
Dennis Meadows a JLP Senator and head of (Capi) want­ed no over­sight of (inde­com).
Delroy Chuck anoth­er JLP Senator vot­ed for no over­sight of (inde­com).
We have writ­ten about oth­er Labor par­ty aspi­rants here who have demosntra­bly shown a dis­dain for police offi­cers and the rule of law.
We need to know how many more mem­bers of the Labor Party wants unfet­tered pow­ers for an over­sight agency which is not required to face Jamaica’s crim­i­nals. As a com­men­ta­tor I have been stri­dent against the PNP Administration for what I per­ceive to be incom­pe­tence, cor­rup­tion, and a host of oth­er malfeasance.
In the inter­est of fair­ness how­ev­er it is impor­tant to lay blame for the Island crime sit­u­a­tion square­ly where it belongs, on both polit­i­cal parties.

This may be more for for­mer Law Enforcement Officers than oth­ers. Does it seem like Cops of today are abus­ing their author­i­ty much more than when you served? It’s okay to speak freely with­out fear of being brand­ed anti-cop. After all, those who wore uni­forms and braved the bul­lets have earned the right to speak with­out fear­ing being silenced with the anti-cop tarbrush.

♦How about telling a sus­pect, “you are under arrest; turn around, and place your hands behind your back, please”?

♦ What is the need to wres­tle every sus­pect to the ground with mul­ti­ple cops pil­ing on to effect a sim­ple arrest?

♦Is it nec­es­sary for police to esca­late every minor infrac­tion to agi­tate citizens

so they may have an excuse to use force?

More and more, we see police offi­cers betray­ing the sacred trust of the cit­i­zens who pay their salaries by abus­ing and even killing the peo­ple they are sworn to pro­tect. Every time there is an inci­dent where a cop is shot or even shot at, Mayors and police Brass, and Unions fall over them­selves to talk about the dan­gers police face. We get that; that’s what every cop signed up for.

What hap­pens to the cit­i­zen police abuse? Are the police out there serv­ing them­selves, or do they serve the pub­lic? When did cit­i­zens become ser­vants of cops they paid to pro­tect them? In case after case, we see cops abus­ing cit­i­zens. Police brass and their Unions respond with absolute dis­dain and con­tempt for the pub­lic. It’s as if they are Monarchs rul­ing by decree.

Of course, the job has dan­gers, so cops are trained to deal with those dan­gers when they arise. That’s why cops are giv­en the tools with which to pro­tect them­selves. Including the pow­er of life and death over citizens

That pow­er of life and death can be an intox­i­cat­ing drug that seems now to be influ­enc­ing many a police offi­cer’s behav­ior. Police Officers can­not con­tin­ue to abuse mem­bers of the pub­lic and then fab­ri­cate sto­ries, fur­ther putting the aggriev­ed cit­i­zen in fur­ther jeop­ardy. If an offi­cer can­not func­tion in their capac­i­ty, they should find alter­na­tive employment.

I served in Kingston, Jamaica, one of the world’s most vio­lent cities. I have been shot in the line of duty, and I have been shot mul­ti­ple times.

Yet it nev­er influ­enced me to be dis­re­spect­ful or abu­sive to cit­i­zens. Yes, using force to effect an arrest is some­times nec­es­sary, just not as often as these cops use it.

Video evi­dence high­lights the vio­lence and dis­re­spect police show and vis­it cit­i­zens. Even more fright­en­ing is the lengths they go to in fab­ri­cat­ing evi­dence. This should scare every man, woman, and child in this Nation.

All too often, we read or hear of cas­es where Prosecutors are forced to drop charges against an accused because evi­dence sur­faced show­ing cops fab­ri­cat­ed charges. The ques­tion is, why are they not charged? Why are cops sub­ject to dif­fer­ent rules?

Fabricating evi­dence to gain a con­vic­tion is one of the most rep­re­hen­si­ble things a police offi­cer can do. It is an egre­gious breach of the sacred trust between police and cit­i­zen. An impor­tant creed of any law enforce­ment Agency must be that it is bet­ter for a guilty par­ty to go free than for the inno­cent to be convicted.

No stone should be left unturned in the quest to bring the guilty to jus­tice; despite that, the rights of the inno­cent must trump that desire. We are mere slaves to the law if our God-giv­en right to life and lib­er­ty can be snatched away on the whim and at the dis­cre­tion of a sin­gle cop with an agenda.

POLICE STATE

According to Jerome Herbert Skolnick, in deal­ing large­ly with dis­or­der­ly ele­ments of soci­ety, some peo­ple work­ing in law enforce­ment may grad­u­al­ly devel­op an atti­tude or sense of author­i­ty over soci­ety, par­tic­u­lar­ly under tra­di­tion­al reac­tion-based polic­ing mod­els; in some cas­es, the police believe that they are above the law.

Twelve states have adopt­ed “eaves­drop­ping” laws pro­hibit­ing peo­ple from video­tap­ing police actions with­out the offi­cers’ con­sent. And in California, police offi­cials have open­ly stat­ed that they will arrest peo­ple tak­ing pho­tographs with­out “appar­ent esthet­ic val­ue” if those peo­ple seem sus­pi­cious. Several courts have ruled these poli­cies uncon­sti­tu­tion­al. http://​www​.pbs​.org/​w​n​e​t​/​n​e​e​d​-​t​o​-​k​n​o​w​/​t​h​e​-​d​a​i​l​y​-​n​e​e​d​/​a​r​e​-​w​e​-​b​e​c​o​m​i​n​g​-​a​-​p​o​l​i​c​e​-​s​t​a​t​e​-​f​i​v​e​-​t​h​i​n​g​s​-​t​h​a​t​-​h​a​v​e​-​c​i​v​i​l​-​l​i​b​e​r​t​i​e​s​-​a​d​v​o​c​a​t​e​s​-​n​e​r​v​o​u​s​/​1​2​5​63/.

What cop will grant con­sent to mem­bers of the pub­lic to pho­to­graph them abus­ing some­one? Let’s agree that State Legislators who give such sweep­ing powers 

police are not all idiots. We must assume, then, that there are issues far deep­er and more sin­is­ter why they feel oblig­ed to pass these laws. 

In most cas­es, Police actions are total­ly san­i­tized. Even cre­den­tialed Journalists are barred from scenes of oper­a­tion. Some lack­eys who write what they want are allowed on-site. Demonstrations in America now have to be approved by .…. you guessed it, the Police. They decide where demon­stra­tors are allowed to con­gre­gate, usu­al­ly so far away from the tar­get of the demon­stra­tion that it ren­ders the protest null and void.

In some cas­es, Journalists have kept miles away from oper­a­tion sites under the guise that it’s for their pro­tec­tion. Generally, those oper­a­tions end with sus­pects killed after sus­tained fire­fights, and in a few cas­es, their bod­ies are burnt beyond recog­ni­tion. Every cit­i­zen who feels this is in their inter­est must ask them­self whether they or their loved ones are immune from a sim­i­lar fate.

Whose inter­est are the police serv­ing? Do cops still serve the inter­est of the cit­i­zens they swore to pro­tect? Or are offi­cers now tools of the cor­po­rate and polit­i­cal Oligarchs? Driving down any New York State Highway on a sum­mer day, you will most like­ly see a State Police Car lurk­ing in a medi­an or with lights flash­ing have some­one pulled over every two miles or so. Generally, they pull motorists over in places that put the motor­ing pub­lic at seri­ous risk. What did New York State do? The state passed addi­tion­al law requir­ing motorists to move into the next lane away from the cop. This places the bur­den of avoid­ing the cop on mem­bers of the trav­el­ing public. 

If guide­lines require them to pull over motorists in safe places, it isn’t obvi­ous from what I have seen. In the event of an acci­dent on a rainy day, you will prob­a­bly wait upward of an hour before a cop shows up. Where are all the cops on rainy days when the pub­lic like­ly needs assis­tance? The fact is that they are not there to serve the inter­est of the pub­lic, and they serve as tax col­lec­tors for the ever-mon­ey-hun­gry state.

This does not mean all police offi­cers are bad; besides friends, I also have fam­i­ly mem­bers who are police offi­cers. Most are caught up in a Tsunami they have lit­tle or no con­trol over. Many offi­cers who dare to speak out against abuse are side­lined or harassed out of their respec­tive departments.

Most of us who have worn a Police offi­cer’s uni­form will hon­est­ly attest to hav­ing had to speak to a col­league about their behav­ior, and some of us may have spo­ken to our­selves. This brutish brava­do being dis­played by police offi­cers is not an American phe­nom­e­non alone.

What both­ers me is America’s insis­tence on fideli­ty to Human Rights for small­er Countries. Most of these Nations have expo­nen­tial­ly few­er resources for sup­port and train­ing than their more pow­er­ful neigh­bor. While right here in America, Police act with impuni­ty dai­ly, as they are embold­ened to beat and kill cit­i­zens, large­ly with­out consequence.

Where is the out­rage from Amnesty International? Where is the out­rage from The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights or the United Nations Commission on Human Rights? Does the respon­si­bil­i­ty for Human Rights fall only to small, impov­er­ished coun­tries while large Western pow­ers and Israel are shield­ed and exempt from scrutiny?

I think not!

Commissioner of Police Owen Ellington has decid­ed to call it quits. Ellington took office in 2010 amidst ram­pant Police cor­rup­tion and esca­lat­ing crime.

During his tenure, the coun­try saw a sig­nif­i­cant decrease in mur­ders. In 2010, the mur­der toll dropped to 1,442 from 1,683 in 2009. In 2011 a total of 1,132 mur­ders were report­ed, while in 2012 the num­ber stood at 1,097. However, the fol­low­ing year the num­ber increased to 1,300. 

Ellington has brought wide spread change to the Department, par­tic­u­lar­ly in deal­ing with rogue cops. He is also guilty of some mis-steps , chief among which is the deci­sion to make the Force Orders avail­able to the pub­lic. A colos­sal no-no in my opinion.

It is dif­fi­cult how­ev­er to argue that he was inef­fec­tu­al or a polit­i­cal lack­ey like some of his pre­de­ces­sors. Commissioner Ellington has served as well as could be expect­ed from some­one hav­ing to do his Job in that climate.

Given an ide­al sit­u­a­tion Ellington would have been an exem­plary Commissioner of Police. He is edu­cat­ed and has gen­uine lead­er­ship skills. His depar­ture will be our coun­try’s loss.

“Commissioner Ellington has indi­cat­ed that his deci­sion to retire is based on the need to sep­a­rate him­self from the lead­er­ship and man­age­ment of the force pri­or to the com­mence­ment of the upcom­ing Commission of Enquiry into the con­duct of the oper­a­tions of the secu­ri­ty forces in Western Kingston and oth­er areas dur­ing the lim­it­ed State of Emergency in 2010,” the min­istry said in a news release.“In addi­tion, he believes it will allow the Independent Commission of Investigations, (INDECOM) to con­duct its inves­ti­ga­tion into alle­ga­tions of police-involved Clarendon Division (some of which occurred dur­ing his tenure) with­out any per­cep­tion of influ­ence or inter­fer­ence on his part.(observer)

Everyone must know this is a Press Release which has noth­ing to do with the real reason/​s Mister Ellington has decid­ed to take his leave. I per­son­al­ly wish him well, he was far more suit­ed to lead the peo­ple who were lead­ing him .

God speed Owen Ellington…

POLICE Commissioner Owen Ellington’s deci­sion to retire sent shock­waves across the island yes­ter­day. But none were more sur­prised than his top rank­ing offi­cers with whom he had his week­ly Monday morn­ing Executive Management Board

(EMB) meet­ing with­out utter­ing a word about his plan.

It was after the EMB meet­ing that Ellington met with his deputy com­mis­sion­ers — Glenmore Hinds (Operations); Carl Williams (Crime); Delworth Heath (Inspector General); Clifford Blake (Administration) and James Golding, the for­mer Commandant of the Island Special Constabulary Force (ISCF) who became a deputy com­mis­sion­er after the recent merg­er of the ISCF and the JCF — and informed them of his decision.

Yesterday, the nation­al secu­ri­ty min­istry said Ellington indi­cat­ed that he would retire from his post on com­ple­tion of his vaca­tion leave which starts today.

“Commissioner Ellington has indi­cat­ed that his deci­sion to retire is based on the need to sep­a­rate him­self from the lead­er­ship and man­age­ment of the force pri­or to the com­mence­ment of the upcom­ing Commission of Enquiry into the con­duct of the oper­a­tions of the secu­ri­ty forces in Western Kingston and oth­er areas dur­ing the lim­it­ed State of Emergency in 2010,” the min­istry said in a news release.

http://​www​.jamaicaob​serv​er​.com/​n​e​w​s​/​C​o​m​m​i​s​h​-​s​t​e​p​s​-​d​own

T

The Sambisa Forest brings fear to Nigerians

May 13, 2014

The mil­i­tary dis­cov­ers weapons, bunkers and oth­er dan­ger­ous mate­r­i­al in the head­quar­ters of Boko Haram.

http://​amer​i​ca​.aljazeera​.com/​w​a​t​c​h​/​2​0​1​4​/​5​/​t​h​e​-​s​a​m​b​i​s​a​-​f​o​r​e​s​t​b​r​i​n​g​s​f​e​a​r​t​o​n​i​g​e​r​i​a​n​s​.​h​tml

The Sambisa Forest brings fear to Nigerians

May 13, 2014

The mil­i­tary dis­cov­ers weapons, bunkers and oth­er dan­ger­ous mate­r­i­al in the head­quar­ters of Bo

May 13, 2014

The military discovers weapons, bunkers and other dangerous material in the headquarters of Boko Haram

he Sambisa Forest brings fear to Nigerians

May 13, 2014

The mil­i­tary dis­cov­ers weapons, bunkers and oth­er dan­ger­ous mate­r­i­al in the head­quar­ters of Boko Haram

The National neigh­bor­hood Watch Movement in Jamaica has come out in sup­port of the ver­dict which led to the incar­cer­a­tion of Vybez Kartel and his three co-accused. In a state­ment the groups said: “We also want to place on record our com­men­da­tion to the main wit­ness in the case, who, in spite of the immi­nent dan­ger and the ‘informer fi dead’ cul­ture that has ham­pered the growth and progress of the neigh­bor­hood watch move­ment in the past, made the coura­geous deci­sion to step up and give evi­dence in the mat­ter.” We are in total agree­ment with the NWM, for stand­ing in sup­port of the main wit­ness in this case, and hav­ing the courage and for­ti­tude to speak out, not only in sup­port of the ver­dict, but stand­ing against the moron­ic (infama fi ded ) cul­ture. I have com­ment­ed exten­sive­ly in these Blogs on this tri­al, not out of ani­mus for these par­tic­u­lar con­vict­ed men. I do not know any of them, what forms the sub­ject of my ire, is the con­tin­ued and unabat­ed blood­let­ting, which must come to an end. I would have liked to see more and more Organizations and indi­vid­u­als stand and defend the rule of law. Notwithstanding, it is heart­en­ing that the NWM has made it’s voice heard. Just today I had a long con­ver­sa­tion with a 21 year old police offi­cer who emi­grat­ed to the United States recent­ly. Someone sent him to see me, we sat and talked for awhile, I learned that he served at the Mobile Reserve, as I did for a while.

It was refresh­ing to lis­ten to this fresh-faced kid talk about how he want­ed to serve. He quizzed me about how come peo­ple do not assault American Cops? He lament­ed the fact that peo­ple think it’s per­fect­ly okay to fight Jamaican offi­cers. He spoke of his dis­gust when peo­ple back home talk about American cops like they were Angels. He laugh­ing­ly point­ed out how that mis­con­cep­tion con­flict­ed with the real­i­ties as he saw them. He con­fid­ed to me that young Officers are not will­ing to risk their free­dom to arrest crime, with no sup­port from any­one. I have a feel­ing the crime num­bers will con­tin­ue to be high as long as the police is shackled.

https://m.soundcloud.com/nationwide-newsnet/kartel-voicenote-exclusive-by vybez kartel’s voice notes

https://m.soundcloud.com/nationwide-newsnet/kartel-voicenote-exclusive-by vybez kartel’s voice notes

Jamaican Judge Lennox Campbell sen­tenced Adijia (Vybz Kartel Palmer to Life in prison,without the pos­si­bil­i­ty of parole until he has served 35 years.All of this is pred­i­cat­ed on whether Kartel los­es his appeal. This web­site and this blog­ger in par­tic­u­lar, has been par­tic­u­lar­ly angry at Jamaican Judges for their lib­er­al stance par­tic­u­lar­ly in sen­tenc­ing and the Granting of Bail. I believe that Bail should not be used as pun­ish­ment. However ‚there should be seri­ous eval­u­a­tion done on a case by case basis regard­ing the grant­i­ng of Bail,when the charges are mur­der and oth­er seri­ous offences. Courts sim­ply can­not be in the busi­ness of return­ing homi­ci­dal mur­der­ers to the streets to kill time and again before they face tri­al on the first charge. As such I wrote a series of Articles which I des­ig­nat­ed the mad Liberal Agenda of Jamaica’s Judges> The Observer of April 4^th, 2014 sto­ry titled [Why Kartel got life] allud­ed to the fact that Lennox Campbell was in fact a Liberal Judge.

Michael Lorne, who rep­re­sents Campbell, asked for a 15-year prison term and said that the judge could con­sid­er going low­er, not­ing the judge’s his­to­ry of impos­ing mod­est sen­tences. The lawyers said that the men were not beyond reha­bil­i­ta­tion and that they could con­tribute to soci­ety if released early.

We feel vin­di­cat­ed , that we had not spent all that time trum­pet­ing the prob­lems in the sys­tem because we are mean or unfair. This state­ment came from a well-known Criminal Defense Lawyer. I com­mend Lennox Campbell on his rea­soned assess­ment of the evi­dence pre­sent­ed in his court. We are thrilled that he now sees fit to seri­ous­ly look at mur­der accused the way they ought to be looked at. Despite what appears to be rebirth of Lennox Campbell, this pub­li­ca­tion and this hum­ble Blogger will con­tin­ue to look at the actions of the courts and bring them to the atten­tion of the world.

In hand­ing down the sen­tences, Justice Campbell out­lined that he took into con­sid­er­a­tion the fact that the mur­der of Clive ‘Lizard’ Williams on August 16, 2011 was planned and pre­med­i­tat­ed; that Williams’ body had been con­cealed; the men­tal stress Williams had been put through before his mur­der; and the attempt to destroy evi­dence.  http://​www​.jamaicaob​serv​er​.com/​n​e​w​s​/​W​h​y​-​K​a​r​t​e​l​-​g​o​t​-​l​i​f​e​_​1​6​4​0​9​626

That is all we ever ask from Judges , that they look at the evi­dence and not be swayed by opin­ions, and emo­tions. We hope that oth­er Judges will fol­low suit, even as we hope that Lennox Campbell will con­tin­ue to employ com­mon sense and fideli­ty to the laws.

In oth­er matters .

In ask­ing for lenience for the men, Rogers quot­ed Jesus Christ from the Bible: “What you do to the least among them you do to me. Attorney Pierre Rogers, appeared for St John . Well Just when I thought I had heard it all, go figure.

Dance-hall Disc Jockey and entre­pre­neur Adijia Palmer oth­er­wise called Vybz Kartel who was con­vict­ed with his three accom­plices for the killing of Clive Lizard Williams was this morn­ing sen­tenced to life along with his three co-accused. This sen­tence is as strong as it gets for cap­i­tal mur­der because of the mora­to­ri­um on Capital pun­ish­ment. This ver­dict will undoubt­ed­ly be seen as unjust by cer­tain quar­ters of the Jamaican pop­u­lace in light of the dra­con­ian and obvi­ous­ly arbi­trary man­ner in which Senior Resident Magistrate Judith Pusey dis­posed of the Kern Spencer crim­i­nal case.

Governance is a Covenant between those Governed and those who Govern. Our Judicial System is an equal part of that Government struc­ture. In fact our courts are gen­er­al­ly looked at as the last place to get rea­son­able solu­tions to our every­day prob­lems, crim­i­nal or civ­il. When the Courts los­es that awe, that respect ‚the ensu­ing is chaos. It can­not be that some peo­ple are led to believe Prisons are only for the very poor and dis­pos­sessed. In order for the sys­tem to work effec­tive­ly the peo­ple must buy into it. For objec­tive Jamaicans at home or abroad ‚the strong sen­tence of these accused is a good first step in deal­ing with brutish mur­der­ers. However when it is jux­ta­posed with the Spencer ver­dict it leaves a bit­ter taste in our mouths.

This plac­ard car­ries a strong mes­sage from res­i­dents of West Kingston who say they are tired of vio­lence in their communities.

POLICE have increased secu­ri­ty along Spanish Town Road, in the vicin­i­ty of Denham Town, after receiv­ing reports that res­i­dents in West Kingston have again come under threat from gang mem­bers locked in a dead­ly feud in the city’s west end. West Kingston res­i­dents said they have been ‘liv­ing on edge’ as the con­flict between crim­i­nals from Tivoli Gardens and Denham Town has esca­lat­ed. The gang­sters, they said, have now set up a so-called imag­i­nary bor­der where res­i­dents have been warned not to cross. “… They have threat­en to kill any­one from oppos­ing com­mu­ni­ties who try to pass that area,” said a man who resides in Denham Town. The man, who asked not to be named because of the fear of being attacked, was among a small group of res­i­dents who shared sim­i­lar sen­ti­ments with the Jamaica Observer on Thursday. “Right now the peo­ple are liv­ing in fear; police are doing what they can but the crim­i­nals find ways to work around them,” said a female res­i­dent from Tivoli Gardens. Member of Parliament for West Kingston Desmond McKenzie, con­firmed the reports about the attacks. “I have heard of the reports and the peo­ple in com­mu­ni­ties are call­ing on the police to increase their pres­ence as Spanish Town Road is the major hot spot,” said McKenzie.

He said that efforts by the police to bring crime in the area under con­trol was bear­ing fruits. McKenzie said the major­i­ty of peo­ple were buy­ing into the con­cept that crime in the divi­sion can­not con­tin­ue. Head of the Kingston Western Division Steve McGregor have also con­firmed receiv­ing reports of attacks by feud­ing gangs in the area.. “Police are keep­ing a 24-hour pres­ence along Spanish Town Road as we have heard about these reports,” said McGregor. Yesterday, one res­i­dent claimed that at least two fam­i­lies were instruct­ed to leave from where they were liv­ing because they had rel­a­tives in the oppos­ing com­mu­ni­ty. Police have warned that they would leave no stones unturned in going after crim­i­nals who were hell bent on cre­at­ing hav­oc in the area. At the same time, the con­stab­u­lary said its work with sev­er­al agen­cies have been mak­ing sig­nif­i­cant head­way in ‘break­ing the back of the crime mon­ster’ in West Kingston. It not­ed that pro­grammes such as the youth cur­few, under which young­sters under the age of 17 must be off the streets by 9:00 pm, as well as the pro­gramme where moti­va­tion­al speak­ers meet and hold dis­cus­sions with res­i­dents, have been wel­comed by the peo­ple of West Kingston. http://​www​.jamaicaob​serv​er​.com/​n​e​w​s​/​P​o​l​i​c​e​-​k​e​e​p​i​n​g​-​c​l​o​s​e​-​w​a​t​c​h​-​o​n​-​s​e​c​t​i​o​n​s​-​o​f​-​W​e​s​t​-​K​i​n​g​s​t​o​n​_​1​6​3​6​4​297

Livingston Cain, the juror accused of attempt­ing to bribe fel­low jurors in the Vybz Kartel mur­der tri­al, leaves the Corporate Area Resident Magistrate’s Court with his lawyer Dian Watson, yes­ter­day. (PHOTO: LIONEL ROOKWOOD)

LIVINGSTON CAIN, the juror accused of attempt­ing to bribe fel­low jurors to return not-guilty ver­dicts in the Vybz Kartel mur­der tri­al is still main­tain­ing his inno­cence in the mat­ter. “We can’t reveal [what the defence] is at this time but he’s main­tain­ing his inno­cence of course, Dian Watson, Cain’s attor­ney, told reporters yes­ter­day after the mat­ter was men­tioned in the Corporate Area Resident Magistrate’s Court in Half-Way-Tree. Cain’s $750,000 bail was extend­ed until April 24, by which time the pros­e­cu­tion is expect­ed to pro­vide the defence with tran­script from an in-cham­bers meet­ing where the attempt­ed bribery was dis­cussed in the High Court after it was report­ed. The pros­e­cu­tion is also to turn over a cell­phone alleged­ly used by the jury fore­man to record her con­ver­sa­tion with Cain. The items were request­ed by Watson, who told the court that the defence wish­es to have its own expert exam­ine the phone. Cain is charged with five counts of attempt­ing to per­vert the course of jus­tice and one count of con­spir­a­cy to per­vert the course of justice.

He is accused of offer­ing the jury fore­man in the Kartel mur­der tri­al $500,000 for a not-guilty ver­dict. It is also alleged that Cain told anoth­er juror that he would “take care of him” if he returned a not-guilty ver­dict as well. He is also alleged to have approached oth­er jurors. Cain was the only juror to vote not guilty in the con­vic­tion of Vybz Kartel, Shaw ‘Shawn Storm’ Campbell, Andre St John, and Kahira Jones. A fifth man, Shane Williams, was acquit­ted. The men were con­vict­ed for the August 16, 2011 mur­der of Clive ‘Lizard’ Williams over the dis­ap­pear­ance of two ille­gal guns. http://​www​.jamaicaob​serv​er​.com/​n​e​w​s​/​K​a​r​t​e​l​-​j​u​r​o​r​-​m​a​i​n​t​a​i​n​s​-​i​n​n​o​c​e​n​c​e​_​1​6​3​7​1​754

— Paul Henry

Whose grand idea was it to inves­ti­gate where there are no alle­ga­tions of impro­pri­ety ‚or crim­i­nal mis­con­duct? The Jamaica Constabulary Force cer­tain­ly needs over­sight. No one could rea­son­ably dis­agree with the idea of over­sight of Police Agencies and cer­tain­ly not the (JCF). Oversight how­ev­er should not be a witch-hunt with per­son­al agen­das . Why waste time and scarce resources look­ing for wrong-doing where there is none. Interestingly as is cus­tom­ary in Jamaica where every­thing is done incor­rect­ly, that is exact­ly how they do busi­ness. The for­ma­tion of the neo­phyte Agency , the Independent Commission of Investigation (INDECOM) does exact­ly that. The Agency’s head Terrence Williams the first to head the Agency has been lit­tle more than a pow­er-hun­gry Media whore whose bid to become the Director of Public Prosecution fell flat. Since becom­ing Commissioner of this vir­gin Agency Williams seemed to rel­ish in the idea of cre­at­ing a rift between the new Agency and the JCF, to show Independence and prove his bona fides. In fact Williams made that point clear by attend­ing a Press Conference with Carolyn Gomes then head of anti-police Antagonist group, Jamaicans for Justice(JFJ). That deci­sion cre­at­ed much angst and con­ster­na­tion among mem­bers of the police depart­ment. If Terrence Williams want­ed to delib­er­ate­ly cre­ate ene­mies , he suc­ceed­ed beyond his wildest dreams. That did not seem to both­er Williams who has con­tin­ued to seek out the media in a push for more pow­er. Because of it’s lack of objec­tiv­i­ty Jamaicans for Justice, is not tak­en seri­ous­ly by objec­tive observers. The group is large­ly sup­port­ed and embraced by crim­i­nals and their supporters.

Despite Williams rapa­cious hunger for pow­er and his piti­ful pleas for more, INDECOM has been forced to con­cede that in the major­i­ty of cas­es it inves­ti­gat­ed, there was no wrong-doing on the part of offi­cers. Now let me be clear, I am elat­ed that this Elitist Agency is look­ing into police con­duct. If INDECOM has the trust and con­fi­dence of the pop­u­la­tion then all the bet­ter for the blue-col­lar mem­bers of the JCF, who actu­al­ly pro­duce results for the pit­tance they are paid.

The dif­fer­ence in coun­tries like the US , Canada and the UK is that these coun­tries believe in the rule of law. Their law-enforce­ment over­sight takes noth­ing from the process it enhances the process. Officers get to do their jobs safe in the knowl­edge that as long as they fol­low the laws they are insu­lat­ed from crim­i­nal pros­e­cu­tion. Can mem­bers of the JCF say the same? INDECOM snoops around every police shoot­ing scene, this is a waste of time and scarce resources which could be more judi­cious­ly used. It cre­ates the impres­sion of wrong-doing , even when there are no alle­ga­tions of any. Police Officers are removed from front-line duties on the flim­si­est alle­ga­tions made by any one police-hat­ing wit­ness. Many times these wit­ness­es are man­u­fac­tured. Anyone privy to the crime sit­u­a­tion in Jamaica must gasp at this notion con­sid­er­ing the lev­el of sup­port crim­i­nals get in this nation of 2.7 million.

PERSPECTIVE

1) Organized crime and oth­er crim­i­nal ele­ments are preva­lent and extreme­ly active. Most of the crim­i­nal activ­i­ty is gang-relat­ed. The police have only resolved (make arrests) 44 per­cent of homi­cides annu­al­ly, and they only con­vict per­pe­tra­tors in five per­cent of the homi­cide cas­es. This leads both the pub­lic and police to doubt the effec­tive­ness of the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem, lead­ing to vig­i­lan­tism, which exac­er­bates the cycle of vio­lence. Based on their past expe­ri­ences, most civil­ians fear that, at best, the author­i­ties can­not pro­tect them from orga­nized crim­i­nal ele­ments, and, at worst, are col­lud­ing with crim­i­nals, lead­ing cit­i­zens to avoid giv­ing evi­dence or wit­ness testimonies.

2) Kingston is rat­ed “Critical” for crime by the Department of State due to a high fre­quen­cy of crim­i­nal activ­i­ty through­out Jamaica. Violent crime is a seri­ous prob­lem, par­tic­u­lar­ly in Kingston. In 2012, Kingston saw a reduc­tion in the mur­der rate and oth­er vio­lent crimes. This reduc­tion may be attrib­uted to proac­tive police actions. There were 1,083 mur­ders, 1,218 shoot­ings, 763 car­nal abuse, 833 rape, 2,679 rob­beries, 3,094 break-ins, 691 lar­ce­ny cas­es record­ed in 2012. With a pop­u­la­tion of approx­i­mate­ly 2.7 mil­lion peo­ple, the num­ber of mur­ders and oth­er vio­lence places Jamaica in the top five tiers of the high­est per capi­ta homi­cide rates in the world. https://​www​.osac​.gov/​p​a​g​e​s​/​C​o​n​t​e​n​t​R​e​p​o​r​t​D​e​t​a​i​l​s​.​a​s​p​x​?​c​i​d​=​1​4​289

The inept Administration in Kingston is inca­pable of get­ting any­thing right. Crime is eat­ing away at the fab­ric of the Country. It is believed even in International cir­cles that crime is being sup­port­ed by peo­ple who ought to be work­ing toward its elim­i­na­tion (not the police). Someone in the Administration with a lit­tle brain, Peter Phillips now hold­ing the Finance Portfolio maybe, please impress upon the Prime Minister in the sim­plest terms pos­si­ble, that pass­ing IMF tests is good for the IMF , but bad for the people.

The dai­ly depre­ci­a­tion of the dol­lar is proof pos­i­tive that things are not get­ting bet­ter. This econ­o­my is even­tu­al­ly going to crater, when it does the blame will be hung around your neck, despite the years of harm Omar Davies did. If you believe crime is high now wait a lit­tle longer when the coun­try is forced to apply even more aus­ter­i­ty to sat­is­fy the pup­peteers at IMF Headquarters. Peter Phillips you bucked the sys­tem before. Maybe you need to do it again for Country.