In these blogs I have con­sis­tent­ly called for Jamaicans for Justice(JFJ) to make avail­able the sources of it’s fund­ing and as well as pro­vide to rel­e­vant Authority and the Jamaican peo­ple a detailed break-down how those monies are being spent. Jamaican for Justice presents itself as a legit­i­mate Human Rights Agency. It’s actions and utter­ances how­ev­er has demon­stra­bly indi­cat­ed that it has oth­er moti­va­tions. The lob­by group is head­ed by Carolyn Gomes a pedi­atric Doctor who argued not enough police offi­cers are being killed. She has argued that police shoot­ing are ille­git­i­mate ‚because not enough police offi­cers are killed com­men­su­rate with crim­i­nals killed by police. Not only is that com­par­i­son offen­sive, it is igno­rant. Police Officers are trained to evade get­ting shot, crim­i­nals aren’t. During my time as a police offi­cer, lit­er­al­ly all front line cops were either

Carolyn Gomes:

shot sev­er­al times, Shot once, or have been lucky not to be killed from being shot at. That does not include the brave heroes who gave their lives in defense of oth­ers, includ­ing Gomes and her cronies.https://​mike​beck​les​.com/​m​y​w​p​b​l​o​g​/​?​p​=​144. No sane per­son should be opposed to any per­son or group of peo­ple who ded­i­cate them­selves to the cause of Human Rights. However not every­one or every group which claim legit­i­ma­cy is legit­i­mate. By it’s actions JFJ has con­sis­tent­ly dele­git­imized itself by it’s sin­gle mind­ed cam­paign to per­se­cute cops. Many of the offi­cers per­se­cut­ed by Gomes and her fraud­u­lent lob­by-group are inno­cent, ded­i­cat­ed heroes of impec­ca­ble char­ac­ter Gomes could only hope for. I have called atten­tion to Gomes offen­sive and incen­di­ary rhetoric in these blogs. I have con­sis­tent­ly shown she man­u­fac­tures alle­ga­tions, innu­en­dos and false­hoods to feed to for­eign Governments and Agency to keep the fund­ing com­ing in.

Raymond Pryce

Finally some­one else is call­ing for JFJ to open its books to scruti­ny. People’s National Party Member of Parliament for North East St, Elizabeth Raymond Pryce , who is embroiled in a dis­pute with the lob­by group has repeat­ed­ly called for scruti­ny of JFJ’s books. I have no inter­est in the quar­rel or the rea­son for the quar­rel, what I am pleased to see is more calls for clos­er scruti­ny of that group.

Last week, the Government accused the JFJ of using its online peti­tion to dam­age Jamaica’s rep­u­ta­tion and sub­mit­ted the doc­u­ment to the Attorney General to see if any sanc­tions were applic­a­ble. We are thrilled to see that the Jamaican Government has final­ly real­ized that this group is the real ene­my of the state and not the polit­i­cal oppo­si­tion. I applaud Raymond Pryce and the Government for final­ly open­ing their eyes to what we have said for a long time.

How about Treason, sedition, .….….?

IT appears that Rank and File cops in Jamaica are final­ly com­ing to their sens­es, at least some of them are. The Jamaica Gleaner Reported yes­ter­day that Rank and File Cops have decid­ed they will not engage crim­i­nals unless crim­i­nals engage them personally.

On these pages we have long sug­gest­ed that good Jamaican Cops who are not engaged in crim­i­nal activ­i­ties should stand-down, wher­ev­er pos­si­ble. In Interviews with the Gleaner, Officers have voiced their dis­gust with the far left lean­ing Jamaican Constitutional Court’s deci­sion giv­ing pow­er-hun­gry Terrence Williams and (INDECOM) pow­er to arrest cops who have been accused of impro­pri­ety. Jamaica has a Director Of Public Prosecution, the Director’s office is quite capa­ble of han­dling the Nation’s crim­i­nal cas­es. If there are inad­e­qua­cies, then Government should allo­cate the nec­es­sary funds which will ensure the effec­tive dis­pen­sa­tion of Justice through that office.

Some were unmoved in their con­vic­tion that INDECOM is affil­i­at­ed to JFJ, which they believe is anti-police, even more so after Commissioner Terrence Williams shared the head table at a JFJ press conference.

“The gun­men are not attack­ing our homes. The only time we engage them is to solve crimes and get weapons off the street. Why should I both­er? “Unless I am attacked at home, or the police sta­tion is attacked, I have no inten­tion of engag­ing any gun­man. Tell INDECOM fi guh look fi dem,” he declared.http://​jamaica​-glean​er​.com/​g​l​e​a​n​e​r​/​2​0​1​3​0​8​2​5​/​l​e​a​d​/​l​e​a​d​5​.​h​t​m​l​#​.​U​h​o​W​Q​b​h​L​O​U​g​.​f​a​c​e​b​ook

It is the best strat­e­gy that Jamaican Police Officers have in a coun­try such as ours. There should be no place in the Department for rogue cops. However ‚dammit , I am tired of attach­ing these caveats, when I write or talk about Jamaican cops. The strat­e­gy to dis-engage is the best of a slew of bad options avail­able to them. In many Western Nations, mat­ters such as these may rea­son­ably be left to the Courts. There are no sane rea­son­able civic mind­ed Organizations or agen­cies in Jamaica which under­stands the impor­tance of strong law-enforce­ment. We haven’t seen any. That indict­ment includes Government and the Judiciary.

Many of the Island Judges were edu­cat­ed at the UWI , a hot-bed of lib­er­al and social­ist ide­ol­o­gy. Even now some of the peo­ple in top spots in the depart­ment are plants from that Institution who can­not get any oth­er job so they take up res­i­dence in the depart­ment. Officers can­not look to the Courts for ratio­nal rul­ings which pro­tects all Jamaicans. So it is up to them to pro­tect them­selves. I applaud them on this deci­sion. I hope this will be a sus­tained strat­e­gy of dis-engage­ment where pos­si­ble and not just a flash-in-the-pan emo­tion­al response to what has been a well coör­di­nat­ed and sus­tained attack by the Criminal Rights Lobby Jamaicans for Justice, using Williams and INDECOM in the process.

Terrence Williams: Indecom Commissioner.

Terrence Williams is a plant and a stooge of JFJ. He heads a neo­phyte Agency he him­self is a neo­phyte Investigator. Williams has done immense harm to the Agency he heads, there was no need for dis­trust or enmi­ty between the JCF and INDECOM. Goods cops have nev­er object­ed to hav­ing over­sight, In fact many cops tell me they wel­come the scruti­ny because they have noth­ing to hide. Williams’ deci­sion to join forces with well know crim­i­nal sup­port­ing , anti-police group JFJ was a clear sign that he was not an inde­pen­dent par­ty, but one with an Agenda to persecute

May Cops have been finan­cial­ly ruined through­out the years, their careers left in tat­ters after being charged crim­i­nal­ly. In many of these cas­es there was no evi­dence of wrong doing. In many cas­es the DPP pro­ceed­ed on spu­ri­ous alle­ga­tions, unsub­stan­ti­at­ed by cor­rob­o­ra­tive evi­dence. Simply put , the DPP is empow­ered to file charges with no evidence,so pub­lic out­cry may be quelled. Most times pub­lic out­cry is as a result of paid demon­stra­tors who claim to have seen impropriety.

I will not re-hash all the points I have raised on this sub­ject, inter­est­ed par­ties may go to the archives on this site and ver­i­fy for them­selves the fac­tu­al records there. I applaud offi­cers who have decid­ed to take this approach,I have long advo­cat­ed it, bravo!!!

How do large Police Departments in major Cities deal with crime yet main­tain and build trust with the cit­i­zens they pro­tect? In New York City this debate is rag­ing against the back­drop of a Federal Judge’s rul­ing that the Police Department’s stop and frisk Policy is uncon­sti­tu­tion­al.

Federal Judge Shira A. Scheindlin ruled on the prac­tice Aug. 12, deem­ing the pol­i­cy a vio­la­tion of the U.S. Constitution.“This case is about the ten­sion between lib­er­ty and pub­lic safe­ty in the use of a proac­tive polic­ing tool called “stop and frisk,’” she wrote in her deci­sion. “The New York City Police Department (NYPD) made 4.4 mil­lion stops between January 2004 and June 2012. Over 80% of these 4.4 mil­lion stops were of blacks or Hispanics.” Scheindlin not­ed that each stop result­ed in an inter­rup­tion of the person’s life with deten­tion and ques­tion­ing tak­ing place on pub­lic streets. “More than half of the time the police sub­ject­ed the per­son to a frisk.”The case was brought by four men, Lalit Clarkson, Deon Dennis, David Floyd, and David Ourlicht, who all claimed they were stopped, ques­tioned, and in some cas­es frisked with no rea­son­able cause.

The oppos­ing sides on this issue are not talk­ing to each oth­er. The Mayor has appealed the Judge’s deci­sion, which guar­an­tees this issue is not going away any time soon. Civil Rights groups like the NAACP , the National Action Network, and the New York Civil Liberties Union have long main­tained that this pol­i­cy is uncon­sti­tu­tion­al and racist​.New York City’s Police Commissioner Ray Kelly argues that it is an inte­gral tool which his Department uses to keep the city safe.

Ray Kelly has long been crit­i­cized for cre­at­ing a cli­mate in New York which allows Police Officers to abuse young Black and Latino men. Critics accuse the NYPD of hav­ing quo­tas, which places undue bur­den on cops to make arrests and write tick­ets. The Department has stri­dent­ly denied this, even as some mem­bers of the very Department has gone pub­lic claim­ing they are being forced to antag­o­nize and arrest peo­ple to bur­nish the per­cep­tion of a south­ern trend in crime. In oth­er cas­es Cops have tes­ti­fied that seri­ous crimes in white neigh­bor­hoods are being down­played and some­times not doc­u­ment­ed ‚to fur­ther the nar­ra­tive of declin­ing crime in the city.

The fact is that Police must have the abil­i­ty to rea­son­ably stop, ques­tion and if nec­es­sary search any­one they sus­pect of hav­ing com­mit­ted a crime, is about to com­mit , or is in the act of com­mit­ting a crime. So what exact­ly is the prob­lem? Why cant the police walk this fine line? Why can’t offi­cers be respect­ful and rea­son­able in serv­ing and pro­tect­ing? Many young men in New York City com­plain of being stopped and roughed up twice on one street by dif­fer­ent groups of cops all in the space of a few min­utes. They allege they are abused ver­bal­ly and phys­i­cal­ly . They allege when they complain,many com­plain of being searched sev­er­al time all in one day. Many com­plain of being arrest­ed and kept overnight, then released the next day with­out see­ing a Judge.

Commissioner Ray Kelly respond­ed to that claim by stat­ing the fol­low­ing .“To that point, last year 97 per­cent of all shoot­ing vic­tims were black or Hispanic and reside in low-income neigh­bor­hoods,” he said. “Public hous­ing where five per­cent of the city’s pop­u­la­tion resides expe­ri­ences 20 per­cent of the shoot­ings. There were more stops with sus­pi­cious activ­i­ty in neigh­bor­hoods with high­er crime because that’s where the crime is.” [Ray Kelly]

So does the NYPD Commissioner have a point? Yes he does, it is true that there are inor­di­nate amounts of crime in Black and Hispanic Neighborhoods. It is also true that the same can­not be said to be true in large­ly Caucasian neigh­bor­hoods. In cities all over America The rate of blacks killing blacks, and Latina gangs killing each oth­er is fright­en­ing. Police Departments have a duty not only to stamp it out but to make sure that it is dis­cour­aged. Police may only do so with strong no-non­sense approach which tells crim­i­nals exact­ly who is in charge.

New York city is not the only city with a crime prob­lem, Kansas city, Missouri: Little Rock Arkansas: Camden, New Jersey: Newberg, New York: Chicago, Illinois: Detroit, Michigan: Police Departments are respon­si­ble for cit­i­zen safe­ty, they are crit­i­cized when crime is out of con­trol yet lam­bast­ed when they adopt cer­tain mea­sures to deal effec­tive­ly with the can­cer of crime. With that said Police can­not oper­ate out­side of the laws they are sworn to uphold. That I believe is where the rub­ber meets the road. How do they pro­tect cit­i­zens rights , and pro­tect them from crime simul­ta­ne­ous­ly? It all comes down to how Police Officers do their jobs !

Those opposed to stop and frisk are jus­ti­fied in their out­rage at the instances of abuse, yet the Police Commissioner points to over 700 guns removed from the streets as a result of this process. Even as we reg­is­ter our dis­gust with the instances of humil­i­a­tion heaped onto our young peo­ple of col­or , we ignore the 700 weapons removed at our per­il. What we also ignore unfair­ly, are the amount of lives that may have been saved, and oth­er crimes pre­vent­ed as a result of the fear crim­i­nals have that they may be appre­hend­ed before they can car­ry out their crim­i­nal acts. In fact Ray Kelly has tran­scripts of con­ver­sa­tions sup­port­ing that very notion.

The solu­tion to the prob­lem lies in allow­ing Police to use stop and frisk as one tool in the arse­nal to fight crime. However police offi­cers must adhere to the guar­an­tees enshrined in law that they may only do so when they have rea­son­able cause to believe, that some­one may , have, or is about to com­mit a crime. It can­not be that the cri­te­ria for that sus­pi­cion is the col­or of one’s skin.

Even as Commissioner Ray Kelly points to the fact that when crimes goes up, the Black and Hispanic com­mu­ni­ty suf­fers the most, he must be mind­ful that these com­mu­ni­ties must also feel that the police work on their behalf. The entire cam­paign of keep­ing the streets safe, remov­ing guns from the streets , and down trend­ing crime sta­tis­tics as advanced by Mayor Bloomberg is miss­ing one com­po­nent. The entire pop­u­la­tion of the city must feel that thy are doing it on their behalf, not doing it on their backs. Michael Bloomberg would do well in under­stand­ing that act­ing like a sec­ond Giuliani is not a pos­i­tive for him.

It serves the inter­est of black lead­er­ship to face the real­i­ties of crime with­in the African-American com­mu­ni­ty, deny­ing the seri­ous­ness of it does noth­ing to fix the prob­lems. The socio- eco­nom­ic con­di­tions affect­ing the black com­mu­ni­ty cre­ates crim­i­nals. Young teenage women hav­ing babies out of wed­lock adds to the prob­lem. Fathers not tak­ing care of their chil­dren adds to the prob­lem. Black peo­ple claim­ing run down neigh­bor­hoods adds to the prob­lem. We have some work to do .

Yesterday I wrote that the JCF has dis­card­ed name brand cops. Some of my friends con­strue that to be a Clarion-call for a return to the old days, They inter­pret my assess­ment of the force of two decades ago and the exist­ing Constabulary of today, as a ring­ing endorse­ment for unin­tel­li­gent cops. I will try to set the record straight, using some facts and data sup­plied by the Constabulary itself.

I am not going for dis­band­ment of the Force as Reneto Adams did, maybe Adams knows some­thing I don’t, why he calls for the dis­band­ment of the depart­ment. After all he served for 41 years, I did a mere 10 years, 9 ¹⁄₂ to be exact. I am not ask­ing that the depart­ment be dis­band­ed, it would be self­ish to do so, it is an imprac­ti­cal solu­tion which is not guar­an­teed to pro­duce a bet­ter or dif­fer­ent result. As I have asked before, where would we source these peo­ple of impec­ca­ble char­ac­ter to staff this new department?

The Constabulary the coun­try has, is the con­stab­u­lary the coun­try will have to work, with and improve! I must ask though where is it writ­ten that the rule of law should take a back seat, or step back when crim­i­nals become more aggres­sion? Where is it writ­ten that mere­ly being able to present data bet­ter makes a bet­ter police force ?

One of the things the JCF has done is to fast track some recruits to the high­er ranks.[note I did not say senior ranks] Seniority is not some­thing you get from a col­lege or University, it is earned. Now here is the dis­con­nect between my friends and I . Even though I under­stand the need for more intel­li­gent offi­cers, and God knows over the years senior cops have embar­rassed us, there also needs to be a love and desire for the job by those who serve.

Over the years Jamaica’s Elitists have made the argu­ment that the Police Force was pop­u­lat­ed with fools who could not get any oth­er job. We don’t hear a peep out of those elit­ists, now that they have their plants at the top and through­out the depart­ment. These plants are not just elit­ists, they are par­ty hacks, they are unable to pro­vide results, they are not cops, and they will nev­er be cops.

Those of us who served want an intel­li­gent , suc­cess­ful, police depart­ment we can be proud of. It is impor­tant that we are able to say we were once a part of that. Unfortunately it is impos­si­ble, despite the rhetoric from some, for any­one to make that state­ment with­out hav­ing tongue in cheek. Police offi­cers are com­mit­ting more crimes than ever before, rob­beries, rapes, mur­der for hire, lar­ce­ny, tam­per­ing with wit­ness­es, graft , and every type of cor­rup­tion imaginable.

As I have stat­ed time and again the JCF which I love and which some of my dear­est friends and fam­i­ly are still a part of , are only clear­ing up 30% of crimes. Those num­bers are ques­tion­able , how those clear-ups are done are open to inter­pre­ta­tion. Detectives read­ing this knows what I am talk­ing about. Only about 7% of mur­der­ers are being arrest­ed or held to account. Again those num­bers are ques­tion­able. The con­vic­tion rate is even more dis­mal, and when they do secure a con­vic­tion in the coun­try’s lib­er­al courts , they are some­times over­turned on appeals.

In oth­er words, the JCF despite the hype as a com­pa­ny or a cor­po­ra­tion is a dis­mal fail­ure. There are tremen­dous forces which impact those real­i­ties, yet the hier­ar­chy, should be able to deliv­er more to the Jamaican peo­ple, their real bosses.

In response to an inter­view he gave to the Jamaica Observer Published in the Sunday Observer, I called my friend Dadrick Henry before I wrote a fol­low up to what was pub­lished in that Jamaican paper :http://​www​.jamaicaob​serv​er​.com/​n​e​w​s​/​F​o​u​r​-​y​e​a​r​s​-​w​i​t​h​o​u​t​-​e​a​r​n​i​n​g​-​a​-​c​e​n​t​_​1​4​7​6​3​7​9​5​#​i​x​z​z​2​b​7​f​8​8​rdI.

I want­ed to hear from the hors­es mouth, what exact­ly was going on, with­out the fil­ter of Editorial cut­ting and dic­ing. I also called his broth­er, a friend of mine, to learn from him what he knew. Having lis­tened to Dadrick explain what occurred, I was left with the impres­sion that he feels let down by the very peo­ple with whom he served at the Constant Spring CIB office, Some of those peo­ple are now in senior posi­tions with­in the JCF. I con­clud­ed our con­ver­sa­tion feel­ing that my entreaties over the years to him, to save some of him­self for him­self went unheed­ed.

He spoke long, emo­tion­al­ly and nos­tal­gi­cal­ly about what he and I accom­plished. I lis­tened as he vent­ed, he spoke at length about indi­vid­ual cas­es we worked on , from house break­ing to recov­ery of stolen prop­er­ty, recov­er­ing guns, to mur­der cas­es. My friend seemed stuck in the emo­tion­al exploits of our youth­ful exhuber­ance. Totally obliv­i­ous to the risks we took, unable to rec­on­cile the Constabulary force we served then with the JCF two decades lat­er. Ironically he believes some of the very peo­ple who were win­dow dress­ings at that CIB office of the mid 80’s to the ear­ly 1990’s are now some of the peo­ple who are twist­ing the dag­ger in his back.

Dadrick Henry the crime fight­er, was no dif­fer­ent than Altamoth (Parra) Campbell the crime fight­er, whose house was ran­sacked by mem­bers of the JCF on false infor­ma­tion that he was involved with a cer­tain sus­pect. Dadrick Henry rem­i­nisced about the night I was shot yet man­aged to recov­er a .357 Magnum bleed­ing pro­fuse­ly, my shoes filled with blood. He spoke about the Detective Corporal and a mem­ber of the Auxiliary, who were with me that night. They ran away, we laughed about that.

That Detective Corporal lat­er rose to the rank Of Senior Superintendent. I saw the new JCF com­ing two decades ago. Not a JCF which was more informed, bet­ter equipped, smarter, more effi­cient. No, I saw a JCF where it would be each man for him­self, where esprit de corps would be a dirty Latin term. Some of the peo­ple now in lead­er­ship were sec­ond rate Police Officers, they were peo­ple who were on a mis­sion of self, and they would do any­thing to get to where they thought they need­ed to be.

Dadrick Henry and a few oth­ers did not receive that memo, they are pay­ing the price. He had his demons but he loved his coun­try, he swore nev­er to live any­where else but Jamaica, he loved the Force. I won­der whether the force ever loved him. Some of my friends point to a new JCF, they say when this force takes shape it will be bet­ter. Others speak of the cour­tesy of offi­cers today, I always believed offi­cers should be cour­te­ous, I was cour­te­ous. I believed that offi­cers should be tough, I was tough, the two are not mutu­al­ly exclu­sive. The JCF is not get­ting more cour­te­ous as my friends insists, the force is get­ting less effec­tive, less com­pe­tent, less wor­thy of men­tion. The crime stats speaks volumes.

Until the JCF presents crime sta­tis­tics which are bet­ter than the sta­tis­tics of the 1980’s, Officers like Dadrick Henry, Parra Campbell, Bigga Ford and oth­ers will con­tin­ue to be larg­er than life, unfor­tu­nate­ly for these men and oth­ers like them the JCF rewards lethar­gy and incom­pe­tence not mer­i­to­ri­ous ser­vice. Merely being bet­ter able to com­pile crime data more effi­cient­ly, does not a more com­pe­tent force make.

One of the many things I learned about Policing in Jamaica is that it is not a job that you give your all to, It does not pay well, it is a thank­less job, and most of all, you are basi­cal­ly on your own in times of trou­ble even if you are dead right.

Left Former Inspector Dadrick Henry:

In 1987, I was one of four offi­cers trans­ferred tem­porar­i­ly from the Mobile Reserve to Constant Spring CIB. I was a young offi­cer with five years of ser­vice in the JCF. Within those five years, I had seen ser­vice at the then Beat, Foot Patrol at the bot­tom of West Street, reg­u­lar uni­form duties at the Mobile Reserve, and the so-called élite Rangers squad oper­at­ing out of the said Mobile Reserve. Contrary to the noise you hear about social engi­neer­ing and elit­ist polic­ing, we got results.
Our trans­fer aimed to fill the gar­gan­tu­an shoe-prints left by the indomitable Cornwall (big­ga) Ford, who had cement­ed a name for him­self in the Saint Andrew North Police Area. The fear was that crime would esca­late with Ford leav­ing for CIB Headquarters.

On our arrival there, that man whose por­trait you see above with that of Ford was a Corporal of Police, attached to the CIB office. No cop, Detective, or aide was more effec­tive than Dadrick Henry. On my first day learn­ing the area, I took a loaded .38 revolver from the waist­band of a well-known career crim­i­nal alias (chick­en-toe) — my very first col­lar in that precinct.
Dadrick Henry and I were to alter anchor one of the most suc­cess­ful duos ever sta­tioned any­where in the coun­try. Our record of suc­cess spoke for itself. We removed mur­der­ers and guns from the streets and gained con­vic­tions, which meant they paid for their crimes. We recov­ered stolen prop­er­ty, so much stolen prop­er­ty the media had to aid us in hav­ing peo­ple come into the Constant Spring Police Station to iden­ti­fy their prop­er­ty. People came from all over the country.
The recov­ered prop­er­ty facil­i­ty over­flowed, and there was no room to store the recov­ered prop­er­ty. Most impor­tant­ly, we pro­vid­ed a deter­rent to gang and drug activ­i­ty in the entire St Andrew North Police area. Dadrick Henry had a nose for sniff­ing crim­i­nals, like a trained snif­fer Dog. We took innu­mer­able amounts of guns from the streets. I told my friend, “Leave some of you for you” I reit­er­at­ed that mes­sage over the years when­ev­er we spoke.

Detective Inspector Noël Asphall, then our Boss, would put under­per­form­ing cops to work with us as pun­ish­ment; after a few weeks, they would say they had had enough and learned their les­son. We were always on duty, and the crim­i­nals knew it. Dadrick Henry is not per­fect; he had a tem­per, and he took the job some­times a lit­tle too seri­ous­ly. I warned him about that; I some­times act­ed as a good cop to his bad cop per­sona; it worked for what we want­ed to accom­plish and to keep him out of trouble.
Dadrick Henry stayed on with the JCF. He was­n’t per­fect, but he was a cops cop. After I left, he got into trou­ble; he lost his job and was con­vict­ed of using exces­sive force. I can­not speak to that; I was­n’t there. All I know is that he did his job. The force had no more use for his kind. He was tough, pro­duced results, and was no-non­sense. This new force belongs to Carolyn Gomes of the crim­i­nal rights lob­by JFJ.

Today, sad­ly, this is Dadrick Henry’s story :

Four years without earning a cent

Fearless vet­er­an cop Dadrick Henry yearns for bet­ter treat­ment by the police force.He has been shot twice in the line of duty and stabbed in both arms by an enraged crim­i­nal. But after serv­ing his coun­try for 35 years, embat­tled cop Inspector Dadrick Henry is almost a bro­ken man. He has been after four years in the wilder­ness with­out earn­ing a cent.

Read more: http://​www​.jamaicaob​serv​er​.com/​n​e​w​s​/​F​o​u​r​-​y​e​a​r​s​-​w​i​t​h​o​u​t​-​e​a​r​n​i​n​g​-​a​-​c​e​n​t​_​1​4​7​6​3​7​9​5​#​i​x​z​z​2​b​7​f​8​8​rdI

Jamaica’s chief Prosecutor Paula Llewellyn:

Criminals walk free because wit­ness­es can­not be found, Really? where the hell can any­one hide where it is impos­si­ble to find them. How can a pros­e­cu­tor take a mur­der case to court sole­ly on a wit­ness state­ment, par­tic­u­lar­ly know­ing how wit­ness­es are tam­pered with? Are we to believe that the Director of Public Prosecution did not know that this case was not ready for tri­al before fil­ing charges? So Kartel walks on that charge. What hap­pen to the vic­tim’s fam­i­lies ? Who look after their interest?

I believe the DPP’s time has come, she should resign in the pub­lic inter­est. Criminals have the best lawyers doing every­thing in their pow­er to get them out of jail, decent law-abid­ing cit­i­zens should have a fight­ing chance to get crim­i­nals off the streets. In the 1980’s Jamaica saw crime tamp­ing down when com­pared to the tumul­tuous 70’s, at the time many peo­ple berat­ed the police force, they talked about police being unable to speak stan­dard English, police offi­cers were ridiculed as mere big-foot peasants.

As I point­ed out in pre­vi­ous blog posts, I was offend­ed when we were called to inves­ti­gate one mat­ter or anoth­er and some woman in upper Saint Andrew would ask me “where were you trained”? They sim­ply did not believe there were any cops capa­ble of speak­ing any­thing but patios(patwa). Incidentally today, there is a big push to have every­one in Jamaica speak­ing patios the rea­son for that is lost on me but I will leave that alone. It seem how­ev­er that now arguably there are more edu­cat­ed peo­ple in the force, the com­mis­sion­er of police has both a bach­e­lors and a mas­ters degree in busi­ness admin­is­tra­tion. Many of the offi­cers in the top ech­e­lons have grad­u­ate degrees from the University of the West Indies and oth­er insti­tu­tions of high­er learning.

In 1991 when I depart­ed the force after a decade of hard work, the depart­ment was solv­ing over 70% of seri­ous crimes, not per­fect, but bet­ter than the debat­able 30% clear-up of sim­i­lar offences today. Even as the force claims they are clear­ing up 30% of seri­ous crimes, they are reg­is­ter­ing a low­ly 5% con­vic­tion rate from that 30%, and even then some of that measly 5% are over­turned on appeal.

So what’s miss­ing? Well edu­cat­ed peo­ple make bet­ter cops right? Well clear­ly not exact­ly so in Jamaica. It seem that the peo­ple in the force are just cool­ing their heels because they can­not find employ­ment in the field they want. So they take no risks , they do not go the extra mile , hence crime is where it is.

I believe Jamaica , a coun­try steeped in a vicious caste sys­tem, is real­iz­ing that degrees are not panaceas to every­thing. So even as they have cops who can speakie spokeie now, crime is on the rise as the prover­bial Phoenix . Cops have degrees in culi­nary skills are pro­mot­ed to Superintendent, not sure how that helps the Jamaican tax-pay­ers, many of whom can­not buy food.

As most real cops insist, polic­ing Jamaican streets and gul­lies requires a spe­cial breed, many of us left because we saw this dis­con­nect com­ing. The jury is still out on how our coun­try will fare with these (stush tapara­nis) elit­ists as their police officers.

May God help Jamaica, at least their offi­cers can speak stan­dard English now.

Dwayne Jones: This is the por­trait of Dwayne Jones an alleged gay Jamaican man who was bru­tal­ly shot and stabbed to death in Adelphi Saint James.The Jamaica Gleaner reports Jones, of Paradise Rowe and Porto Bello in St James was at a par­ty when he was alleged­ly attacked by a group of per­sons. A num­ber of explo­sions were heard and the police were called. Jones’ body was found on the road­way, with mul­ti­ple stab wounds and a gun­shot wound. One does­n’t have to be homo-sex­u­al, one does­n’t have to believe in the homo-sex­u­al lifestyle to know this is wrong ! How can a peo­ple, any peo­ple ‚under any cir­cum­stance do this to anoth­er human being? Does even the most anti-gay per­son with a shred of human­i­ty, believe that the rea­son these sav­ages killed this young man is total­ly because of his sexuality?

Who are the crim­i­nals? Does some­one of a dif­fer­ent sex­u­al ori­en­ta­tion deserve the death penal­ty? What does it say about a peo­ple who can sum­mar­i­ly exe­cute some­one and walk away as if noth­ing hap­pened? I know that some peo­ple will have all kinds of com­ments and opin­ions on this mur­der, they will argue back and forth about the pros and cons of homo­sex­u­al­i­ty, I will not get into that debate. A life was sum­mar­i­ly tak­en, that’s what is at stake, irre­spec­tive of what that young man did or did not do, every­one who par­tic­i­pat­ed in tak­ing his life are expo­nen­tial­ly more guilty than he could ever be.

ADIDJA PALMER (VYBES KARTEL) FREED.

Kartel

Dance-hall Disc-Jockey Adidja Palmer o/​c Vybes Kartel was freed in the Home Circuit Court on Wednesday July 24^th. Palmer who is accused of com­mit­ting two mur­ders, was freed on the mur­der of a Saint Catherine Business-man Barrington (Bossy) Burton.

Palmer will remain in cus­tody how­ev­er, as he awaits tri­al on the oth­er mur­der. Supreme Court judge Bryan Sykes instruct­ed the 12-mem­ber jury to return the ver­dicts ‚after the pros­e­cu­tion informed the court that it had no fur­ther evi­dence against the men.

The tri­al Judge Bryan Sykes alleged­ly barred two state­ments from being admit­ted into evi­dence, report­ed­ly those actions were the cat­a­lyst for the destruc­tion of the pros­e­cu­tion’s case.

Paula Llewellyn DPP:

As bystanders are we to believe that the Director of Public Prosecution Paula Llewelyn’s office under­took to pros­e­cute a homi­cide sole­ly on two eye-wit­ness­es state­ments? If this is so, it is a seri­ous indict­ment on that office, on the police and on what obtains for a jus­tice sys­tem in Jamaica. No crim­i­nal Justice sys­tem is fool-proof, as we have seen recent­ly in Florida, but it is seri­ous cause for alarm and con­ster­na­tion , when mur­der­ers are allowed to walk free because of bad laws, tech­ni­cal­i­ty, or shod­dy work by those tasked with bring­ing crim­i­nals to justice.

When jus­tice can be thwart­ed sim­ply because a wit­ness can­not be found , it is incred­i­ble incen­tive for future killers to make sure wit­ness­es are nev­er found, giv­ing rise to many more mur­ders. It is a vicious­ly wicked cycle which can only be arrest­ed when crim­i­nals are held to account for their crimes. This is done by metic­u­lous­ly going about inves­ti­ga­tions in a painstak­ing and pro­fes­sion­al way.

There is no great harm in allow­ing a suspect/​s to remain free until inves­ti­ga­tors, work­ing with com­pe­tent pros­e­cu­tors, are sure they have all the evi­dence avail­able or pos­si­ble to gain a con­vic­tion. Whether sci­en­tif­ic, eye-wit­ness, cor­rob­o­ra­tive, or cir­cum­stan­tial, police and pros­e­cu­tors owe it to the deceased and their fam­i­lies to do due dili­gence before arrest­ing a sus­pect. Most west­ern democ­ra­cies includ­ing Jamaica pro­tects a cit­i­zen’s con­sti­tu­tion­al right against dou­ble jeop­ardy, (can­not be tried twice for the same offence).

Because of those con­sti­tu­tion­al guar­an­tees, it is impor­tant that pros­e­cu­tors and law enforce­ment get it right the first time. As a young detec­tive can­di­date, a lec­tur­er told us quote. “There is no greater task giv­en any­one, than that which empow­ers him to bring the killer of the inno­cent to justice”.

That admo­ni­tion will always remain with me, even though I am no longer involved with law enforce­ment , I have pledged that I will always be on the side of inno­cent vic­tims, so help me God.

The views expressed here makes no assump­tions about the guilt or inno­cence of the accused Adidja Palmer.

I am par­tial and def­er­en­tial to the rule of law, I believe that as peo­ple we should be free to live our lives the way we chose, as long as what we do, does­n’t cause harm to oth­ers. I believe also that soci­eties must have rules com­men­su­rate with the times in which we live, oth­er­wise the result is chaos and anarchy.

Conversely I believe we should be able to find an agree­able mid­dle where the voic­es of those who gen­uine­ly advo­cate for human rights must be heard. The checks and bal­ances which gen­uine human rights agen­cies seek, can­not be over­looked, we owe it to our­selves to ensure that every cit­i­zen’s voice mat­ters, on the occa­sion when they can­not speak for them­selves, inde­pen­dent non-aligned human rights agen­cies should and must advo­cate on their behalf.

Oversight is good for law enforce­ment agen­cies, or at least the image of those who work in law-enforce­ment. I have spo­ken to numer­ous law enforce­ment pro­fes­sion­als, in var­i­ous police agen­cies in the United States as well as my for­mer col­leagues and I hear the same argu­ments over and over.

“We do not mind over­sight, we just do not need biased, zeal­ous over­sight, with peo­ple hav­ing their own agen­das”. My for­mer col­leagues in Jamaica, refers to over­sight agen­cies as “pres­sure groups” . They tell me they want peo­ple who under­stand what cops face, to do over­sight, and not fly by night pow­er-hun­gry-media whores, with nar­cis­sis­tic ambi­tions of grandeur.

INDECOM

The Independent Commission of Investigations was cre­at­ed to inves­ti­gate alle­ga­tions of abuse by agents of the Jamaican state.I will not bore you with the details sur­round­ing the for­mu­la­tion of the Agency. We will pro­vide a link so you may read for your­selves what the agency is sup­posed to be about.http://​www​.inde​com​.gov​.jm/.

The law has come up for review, as it has rea­son­ably been designed to after 3 years. As we com­ment­ed pre­vi­ous­ly, the Police, Military and now the Minister of National Security has come out against the Act. Minister Bunting who has respon­si­bil­i­ty for the nation’s secu­ri­ty did not mince words in rela­tion to this Act, quote: This com­mis­sion is too pow­er­ful. As we argued in a pre­vi­ous post, the Act con­flicts with the role of the com­mis­sion­er of police and the chief of defense staff’s abil­i­ty to oper­ate their agen­cies, notwith­stand­ing that the com­mis­sion­er of INDECOM has no expe­ri­ence in police or mil­i­tary mat­ters or procedures.

The com­mis­sion­er of INDECOM is empow­ered to direct both secu­ri­ty agency heads, to car­ry out and effect change to their respec­tive agen­cies , even though they are ulti­mate­ly respon­si­ble for the effec­tive­ness of their agen­cies. Not enough, the com­mis­sion­er of INDECOM , despite those sweep­ing pow­ers, is des­per­ate­ly demand­ing more and more pow­er, even as he runs around with peo­ple opposed to the rule of law and good order in Jamaica.

Despite all the heat­ed rhetoric com­ing from Terrence Williams about police excess and demands for more pow­er for him­self, in his lat­est sub­mis­sion to Parliament he report­ed that the major­i­ty of cas­es inves­ti­gat­ed by his office, police offi­cers act­ed prop­er­ly in the actions they took. This Act has ele­ments that seem clear­ly uncon­sti­tu­tion­al, even to the untrained. The Police Federation a use­less geld­ing pup­py does noth­ing for its mem­bers and nei­ther does the rum-bel­ly gazetted ranks, many of whom are mere polit­i­cal lap-dogs. These are the issues which should unite them toward a com­mon good. The Officers Association and Federation could be a for­mi­da­ble force on this issue, alas they would rather head for the near­est rum-bar.

This INDECOM Act was not prop­er­ly though out, it was a typ­i­cal knee-jerk act designed to assuage the con­cerns of crim­i­nal rights lob­by in the coun­try, with Carolyn Gomes of the anti-police group JFJ’s fin­ger-prints all over it. Not hav­ing a law is bet­ter than a bad law, this is a bad law which needs to be revamped re-debat­ed and re-authorized.

Sections of the Act lit­er­al­ly forces police offi­cers to self incrim­i­nate, it forces them to give state­ments, when they have to use force with­in a giv­en time, even as they are trau­ma­tized and should have the ben­e­fit of coun­sel. This Act in my esti­ma­tion is inju­ri­ous and harm­ful to law enforce­ment and offi­cers, National Security as artic­u­lat­ed by the Jamaica Defense Force, and huge con­se­quences for nation­al secu­ri­ty and pub­lic inter­est as argued by Minister Bunting.

Police needs over­sight which is con­ver­sant with the chal­lenges law enforce­ment faces. Oversight should be free from inter­fer­ence from the likes of Jamaicans for Justice. Those who inves­ti­gate the inves­ti­ga­tors should not be in a posi­tion to put self and per­son­al inter­est over coun­try as is hap­pen­ing now. When over­sight is car­ried out fair­ly , impar­tial­ly and free from ran­cor every­one ben­e­fits. What Jamaica can ill-afford, is a Jamaican FBI style agency, with a J Edgar Hoover type, ego-mani­a­cal nar­cis­sist, out of con­trol with too much power.

Fix it now or pay dear­ly later.

INDECOM said in many of their inves­ti­ga­tions, they have found that the con­duct of the offi­cers was proper. 

So said Terrence Williams head of the Independent com­mis­sion of Investigations, (INDECOM), and a media glut­ton. Williams was respond­ing to ques­tions dur­ing a com­mit­tee meet­ing in Parliament. He said the inves­tiga­tive body had issued some 200 reports and at the end of its probes, a “minor­i­ty” had been rec­om­mend­ed for prosecution.during a com­mit­tee meet­ing in Parliament..http://​jamaica​-glean​er​.com/​g​l​e​a​n​e​r​/​2​0​1​3​0​7​1​9​/​l​e​a​d​/​l​e​a​d​2​.​h​tml

At the same time the JCF and the JCF is demand­ing that the pow­ers of INDECOM con­flicts with the pow­ers of the Commissioner of police and and the chief of defense staff to prop­er­ly run their respec­tive agencies.

In effect the bill was not prop­er­ly thought out researched or debat­ed in my esti­ma­tion and as such INDECOM’ s head , who is actu­al­ly a com­mis­sion­er him­self is empow­ered to order the police com­mis­sion­er and/​or the head of the JDF to imple­ment changes to their respec­tive agen­cies, even though Williams have no train­ing or knowl­edge how either agency functions.

That aside, this report lit­er­al­ly exon­er­ate cops . Criminal rights advo­cates have labeled killing of dan­ger­ous crim­i­nals ‚extra-judi­cial killings. Irrespective of the legit­i­ma­cy of police actions in tak­ing out dan­ger­ous mass-mur­der­ers, JFJ, the largest crim­i­nal rights advo­ca­cy group oper­at­ing on the Island ‚has been on the fore­front, lam­bast­ing cops for alleged­ly abus­ing cit­i­zens, usu­al­ly with­out one scin­til­la of evidence.

Goffe:

Head of crim­i­nal rights group JFJ Carolyn Gomes:

Head of the crim­i­nal lob­by Carolyn Gomes and her sec­ond in com­mand Susan Goffe who spear-head crim­i­nal enabling in Jamaica under the guise of human rights , are notice­ably, yet pre­dictably silent in light of this report. This is not the kind of news Gomes and Goffe wants or needs. The biggest dilem­ma for these two bleed­ing heart char­la­tans, is that they can­not dis­cred­it the com­mis­sion­er of INDECOM as they would the pre­vi­ous over­sight agency that pre­ced­ed INDECOM.

This guy Williams is their guy, their plant, their stooge, yet he can­not man­u­fac­ture evi­dence, that would be a seri­ous felony. This pos­es a prob­lem for Gomes and Goffe, how will the for­eign mon­ey keep com­ing, if the police are not killing peo­ple extra-judi­cial­ly, as they have lied to every­one who cared to listen.

This is indeed inter­est­ing, if these two lying frauds open their mouths about this report, they will find a way to take cred­it for the pos­i­tives enshrined with­in the report. They will tell you it is because of their vig­i­lance that cops aren’t ille­gal­ly killing peo­ple. You can hide from a thief, you can­not hide from a liar.

A DAY WHICH WILL LIVE IN INFAMY.

I can­not relate to what Tracey Martin and Sabrina Fulton feel for the loss of their child. As the father of four boys I can­not even begin to under­stand their pain. However even as I strug­gle to appre­ci­ate even some sem­blance of their agony.

WHAT DID THE JURY DO?

The jury humil­i­at­ed the Martin fam­i­ly, by rub­bing salt in their wounds. That’s jus­tice the American way, remem­ber OJ Simpson? he got off a mur­der rap yet he was sen­tenced for steal­ing his own prop­er­ty and sen­tenced for the mur­ders he was pre­vi­ous­ly acquit­ted of. Black peo­ple sim­ply can­not get any jus­tice in America, remem­ber the laws which says that a black man has no right a white man have to respect? What has changed? Remember Rosewood in the very state of Florida?

On January 1, 1923 a mas­sacre was car­ried out in the small, pre­dom­i­nate­ly black town of Rosewood in Central Florida. The mas­sacre was insti­gat­ed by the rumor that a white woman, Fanny Taylor, had been sex­u­al­ly assault­ed by a black man in her home in a near­by com­mu­ni­ty. A group of white men, believ­ing this rapist to be a recent­ly escaped con­vict named Jesse Hunter who was hid­ing in Rosewood, assem­bled to cap­ture this man.

Prior this event a series of inci­dents had stirred racial ten­sions with­in Rosewood. During the pre­vi­ous win­ter of 1922 a white school teacher from Perry had been mur­dered and on New Years Eve of 1922 there was a Ku Klux Klan ral­ly held in Gainesville, locat­ed not far away from Rosewood.

In response to the alle­ga­tion by Taylor, white men began to search for Jesse Hunter, Aaron Carrier and Sam Carter who were believed to be accom­plices. Carrier was cap­tured and incar­cer­at­ed while Carter was lynched. The white mob sus­pect­ed Aaron’s cousin, Sylvester Carrier, a Rosewood res­i­dent of har­bor­ing the fugi­tive, Jesse Hunter.

On January 4, 1923 a group of 20 to 30 white men approached the Carrier home and shot the fam­i­ly dog. When Sylvester’s moth­er Sarah came to the porch to con­front the mob they shot and killed her. Sylvester defend­ed his home, killing two men and wound­ing four in the ensu­ing bat­tle before he too was killed. The remain­ing sur­vivors fled to the swamps for refuge where many of the African American res­i­dents of Rosewood had already retreat­ed, hop­ing to avoid the ris­ing con­flict and increas­ing racial tension.

The next day the white mob burned the Carrier home before join­ing with a group of 200 men from sur­round­ing towns who had heard erro­neous­ly that a black man had killed two white men. As night descend­ed the mob attacked the town, slaugh­ter­ing ani­mals and burn­ing build­ings. An offi­cial report claims six blacks killed along with two whites. Other accounts sug­gest a larg­er total. At the end of the car­nage only two build­ings remained stand­ing, a house and the town gen­er­al store.

Many of the black res­i­dents of Rosewood who fled to the swamps were evac­u­at­ed on January 6 by two local train con­duc­tors, John and William Bryce. Many oth­ers were hid­den by John Wright, the own­er of the gen­er­al store. Other black res­i­dents of Rosewood fled to Gainesville and to north­ern cities. As a con­se­quence of the mas­sacre, Rosewood became deserted.

The ini­tial report of the Rosewood inci­dent pre­sent­ed less than a month after the mas­sacre claimed there was insuf­fi­cient evi­dence for pros­e­cu­tion. Thus no one was charged with any of the Rosewood mur­ders. In 1994, how­ev­er, as the result of new evi­dence and renewed inter­est in the event, the Florida Legislature passed the Rosewood Bill which enti­tled the nine sur­vivors to $150,000 dol­lars each in compensation.

As America awaits the ver­dict from an almost all white female jury in Sanford Florida, I took a minute to pon­der some of the infor­ma­tion in the pub­lic domain. I do not have all the evi­dence in front of me, yet I believe there are some ques­tions which I believe are still not answered.

Does a Jury of 5 white women out of 6 women rep­re­sent the inter­est of Trayvon Martin?

How come we did not hear about injuries to George Zimmerman even when his team was alleg­ing “stand your ground”, before they real­ized that defense would not work.

Who took these pic­tures, and why?

Was Zimmerman in a police car?

Was he handcuffed?

Whether he was cuffed or not, what was the rea­son for tak­ing these photographs?

Why was the pub­lic fed the nar­ra­tive that George Zimmerman was in a life and death strug­gle with Trayvon Martin, when the phone call Trayvon Martin had with Rachel Jantel did not sup­port that narrative?

Mark Omara claimed there was a 4 minute lapse in the time­line in which Trayvon Martin could have gone home , why did his client the men­ac­ing stalk­er with a gun, not go home.

If I was hid­ing from a creepy crack­er, why would I lead that creepy crack­er to my home?

If Trayvon Martin was on top, of the more than 50 pounds heav­ier George Zimmerman, in a strad­dle-hold in wet grass, how come there is no known green col­or­ing of the knees of Trayvon Martin’s pants. It would require con­sid­er­able pres­sure of the knee-area which invari­ably would lead to con­sid­er­able grass stain­ing of that area of Martin’s pants, irre­spec­tive of the type or col­or of his pants.

From a prac­ti­cal per­spec­tive, it is very dif­fi­cult to stay on top of any­one in a strug­gle, and cer­tain­ly much more dif­fi­cult, if the per­son on the bot­tom is heav­ier that the per­son on top. That would neces­si­tate the per­son on top hav­ing to adopt a much low­er cen­ter of grav­i­ty, essen­tial­ly firm­ly pressed against the per­son on the bot­tom , with the per­son on top face hav­ing to be almost pressed against the face or neck of the per­son on the bottom.

If my hypoth­e­sis is correct,it would make it lit­er­al­ly impos­si­ble for the per­son on top,in this case (Trayvon Martin) as alleged to, 1) main­tain that top posi­tion as a result of his less­er weight, and 2) lit­er­al­ly impos­si­ble for him to see the weapon which from Zimmerman’s own admis­sion was in a hol­ster in the back of his pants. It would also make it impos­si­ble for him to pull the weapon if the sce­nario he and his lawyers laid out as facts are correct.

It would be lit­er­al­ly impos­si­ble for a strug­gle of that nature and mag­ni­tude, to occur with­out DNA evi­dence under the fin­ger-nails of the vic­tim Trayvon Martin. Even if this high­ly improb­a­ble was to occur, there would have been evi­dence of con­tact, evi­dent of of a strug­gle, scratch­es, as would occur in most cas­es of a sex­u­al assault.

Mark Omara took a chunk of con­crete into court alleg­ing that that was a weapon , giv­ing the impres­sion that Trayvon Martin had a weapon which jus­ti­fied his death, anoth­er false-hood.

If Zimmerman act­ed in good faith and was inno­cent of mal­ice who post­ed these pic­tures, and why?

I’ll tell you why, it is for the same rea­son that Zimmerman and his lawyer Mark Omara found them­selves on the tele­vi­sion show of one of the most despi­ca­ble racial cretins in America, Sean Hannity, where he declared arro­gant­ly he would have done noth­ing dif­fer­ent­ly, because the killing of 17 year old Trayvon Martin was quote “God’s will”.

It is for the very rea­son why he is able to mount this very expen­sive defense. A defense which seem­ing­ly has unlim­it­ed resources to pay expert wit­ness­es to tes­ti­fy to the verac­i­ty of their lies. There are peo­ple putting large sums of mon­ey into defend­ing him and fund­ing his fam­i­ly. It is for the very rea­son, there are so-called expert wit­ness­es ‚(white women ) lawyers who are adamant­ly mak­ing the case that Zimmerman legit­i­mate­ly killed 17 year old Trayvon Martin.

So, how did we get to this? Zimmerman is not exact­ly a blond, blue-eyed Caucasian male, is he? He does­n’t have to be, there is enough inher­ent hatred in America for black peo­ple, par­tic­u­lar­ly on the right. It does not mat­ter how right Trayvon Martin was, or how mur­der­ous George Zimmerman is, lit­er­al­ly half of this coun­try does not care, it’s all about race.

This fraud­u­lent char­ac­ter­i­za­tion was designed to depict 17 year-old Trayvon Martin as a fear­some black mon­ster , a fear­some thug, while vis­cer­al­ly depict­ing The mur­der­er George Zimmerman as an all American suit-and-tie good guy. Many peo­ple believe these are sub­lim­i­nal mes­sag­ing. There is noth­ing sub­lim­i­nal here, these are overt racial stereotypes.

Why was the lead inves­ti­ga­tor Detective Chris Serino,the ini­tial inves­ti­ga­tor over-ruled when he thought Zimmerman should be charged with manslaugh­ter? Why is he back on reg­u­lar patrol duties?

Whether we want to face the truth or not it does not change facts, America is still an incred­i­bly racist coun­try. There are peo­ple with a lot of hatred in their hearts, at the heart of what killed Trayvon Martin, is that deep-seat­ed ani­mus many whites have for black people.

What mes­sage is being sent to the pub­lic, when a police force of just under 10.000 is con­stant­ly forced to issue warn­ings to it’s mem­bers, that crim­i­nals are out to kill them?
law abid­ing cit­i­zens can­not feel safe, if the peo­ple entrust­ed with their safe­ty is pre­oc­cu­pied with pro­tect­ing their own damn lives.
Last night I had a con­ver­sa­tion with a dear friend who is a serv­ing Superintendent of police in the Jamaica Constabulary Force, he tells me that the police force of yester-year is no more, he boast­ed that the force’s upper-ech­e­lon are all hold­ers of either one or two degrees. Great I though, the next morn­ing the Jamaica observ­er bore out my friend’s asser­tion,http://​www​.jamaicaob​serv​er​.com/​n​e​w​s​/​J​a​m​a​i​c​a​n​-​p​o​l​i​c​e​-​n​o​w​-​s​e​e​n​-​a​s​-​l​e​s​s​-​c​o​r​r​u​p​t​_​1​4​6​6​3​975

I have argued for years as a mat­ter of his­tor­i­cal record that the police force is the only enti­ty in Jamaica that seeks to fix itself. As per Transparency International the polit­i­cal direc­torate is get­ting even more cor­rupt. No agency is spared , that includes the judi­cia­ry. I gen­er­al­ly do not attach to any cred­i­bil­i­ty to opin­ions or analy­sis for­eign groups have to about my coun­try. Particularly when they come in as sav­iors with the pow­er of good over evil. Generally their research is flawed accounts of peo­ple who are part of the prob­lem rather than agents of a solu­tion. Even so how­ev­er there are Jamaicans who have fig­ured out to make mon­ey, and fame from these very White Knights who come in as friends.

None more so ‚than the group Jamaicans for Justice (JFJ)and their leader a pedi­a­tri­cian Carolyn Gomes. She fig­ured out how to ride that gravy-train, beat up the police under the guise of Human Rights, get nation­al hon­or at home and mon­ey from abroad. On this how­ev­er I agree with Transparency International. I com­mend the police and in par­tic­u­lar Commissioner Ellington on some of the moves he has made to engen­der trust in the police force. I do not agree with every­thing he’s done, but on his pub­lic stance regard­ing cor­rup­tion he has my sup­port. Dirty cops are bad for the depart­ment and the coun­try. Bravo JCF !!!

CAROLYN GOMES NO FRIEND OF JAMAICA:

Carolyn Gomes the crim­i­nal Rights activist based at Fagan Avenue ‚con­tin­ues to thumb her nose at the death of inno­cent Jamaicans who are killed by crim­i­nal . She does so even as she aids and com­fort every crim­i­nal arrest­ed or shot by police. Let me say again I per­son­al­ly will not stand by and allow Carolyn Gomes, Susan Goffe and their cronies to put the lives of police offi­cers at fur­ther risk through their work of lies and dis­in­for­ma­tion. We will ral­ly the nec­es­sary sup­port to push back against this anti-Jamaican activ­i­ty . To the Police Federation , you are a union, the police force can­not push back against politi­cians and oth­er inter­est groups who malign the force with lies and smear. You can , that’s your job, stop engag­ing in actions to pro­tect cops who are doing things they have no busi­ness doing, stop lob­by­ing for cops who are doing wrong things and do your job , fight for what’s right. And one more thing Federation chair­man, I am talk­ing to you, I have sources, take my advice. The police Federation is sup­posed to speak force­ful­ly for rank and file mem­bers, not lob­by for offi­cers who run afoul of the laws.

A 41 year old radio per­son­al­i­ty who is the mar­ried father of two, has an illic­it affair with a co-work­er, she became preg­nant. He demands that she have an abor­tion, she refused, so he hires a 37 year-old trig­ger-man, pays him J$250.000 to exter­mi­nate her. He dri­ves the shoot­er to the gate of his for­mer para­mour where the trig­ger man shoots the 7 months preg­nant woman, Once in the face and once in the right hand.

The shoot­er runs back to the car and he and the would be mur­der mas­ter-mind dri­ves away, after he was able to con­vince the mas­ter-mind Wayne Whyte that the vic­tim Jody-Anne gray was indeed dead.. The police shows up and rush­es the seri­ous­ly wound­ed preg­nant woman to the Hospital.On the way to the hos­pi­tal the woman gath­ered the strength to point out the car with her assailants to the police. they were arrest­ed and, sub­se­quent­ly plead guilty to the attempt on her life.

Wayne Whyte (adapt­ed)

This is not a Hollywood script, it is just anoth­er day in the annals of the mur­der cap­i­tal called Jamaica.

It is the sto­ry of Jamaican radio per­son­al­i­ty 41 year-old Wayne Whyte and 37 year-old Rastafarian, Safari Farr the trig­ger-man who pumped two bul­lets into the woman 7 months preg­nant. It is report­ed that both would be mur­der­ers broke down and wept like lit­tle bitch­es when the ver­dict was hand­ed down yes­ter­day July 7^th 2013.

Wayne Whyte and Jody-Anne Gray at an event in hap­pi­er times

http://​jamaica​-glean​er​.com/​g​l​e​a​n​e​r​/​2​0​1​3​0​7​0​9​/​l​e​a​d​/​l​e​a​d​1​.​h​tml

So I’m sure you are all con­fi­dent these two dirt-bags will nev­er see the light of day again right? Well not so fast, this hap­pened in Jamaica , remem­ber? They were sen­tenced to 14 years in prison and could be out in as lit­tle as 9 years with good behavior.

The intend­ed vic­tim Jody-Anne gray is not a per­fect per­son, no one is with­out sin but she sure­ly did not deserve to be shot in the face and arm for her trans­gres­sions, and by the way she has been forced to live over­seas because of fear for her life.

As I argued in anoth­er forum the court should not have accept­ed the plea deal of wound­ing with intent. The Director of Public Prosecution was hap­py to get this ver­dict, that office is hap­py for any win. Yet the plea of wound­ing with intent leaves ques­tions unan­swered . What is intent?.….….…. Intent is to kill.

There is ample evi­dence in this case to prove intent, the mas­ter­mind Wayne Whyte paid J$250.000 to Safari Farr to kill the woman car­ry­ing the child he did not want. Farr shot the defense­less preg­nant woman twice then ran back to the car, Whyte refused to dri­ve away until he was con­vinced that Farr had killed Jody-Anne Gray, the woman car­ry­ing his child.

There is more than enough evi­dence of mal­ice, depraved indif­fer­ence, wan­ton dis­re­gard for human life and intent to mur­der, to send these two low-lives away for life, yet they may very well be out in 9 years.

Gangster Paradise, Jamaica nice.

I was engaged in a con­ver­sa­tion with a senior civ­il ser­vant in Jamaica recent­ly, we agreed to dis­agree on a raft of issues. We agreed on some , but we def­i­nite­ly agreed that Jamaicans always know how to do every­one else’s job, but have no clue how to do their own.

INDECOM Terrence Williams Commissioner:

Nowhere is this more clear than the head of the neo­phyte Agency called the inde­pen­dent com­mis­sion of investigations(indecom). Generally when some­one is appoint­ed to head a body or agency, that per­son under­stand that there ought to be col­le­gial­i­ty with oth­er agen­cies. In essence always main­tain a sense of pro­fes­sion­al cour­tesy in not inter­fer­ing in any­one’s domain.

The idea is to do one’s own job and to extend a sense of pro­fes­sion­al tact, about what you say in pub­lic ‚par­tic­u­lar­ly about oth­er agen­cies. Obviously that memo has not reached the pub­lic­i­ty-hound Terrence Williams. Ever since this self-aggran­diz­ing moron was appoint­ed to head what is actu­al­ly a drain on the pock­ets of the gullible pub­lic, he has not missed an oppor­tu­ni­ty to grand­stand at the expense of the Police depart­ment and the mil­i­tary. Don’t be fooled, this does not mean that this pub­lic­i­ty-hound is just a nor­mal moron, out look­ing for glo­ry. In fact the reverse is true, Williams is con­scious­ly aware of just how easy it is to achieve his goals at the expense of the Police and Military.

Batts:

Just last week we com­ment­ed on a case in Jamaica where one Justice Batts ruled that police can­not arbi­trar­i­ly stop and frisk peo­ple under the road traf­fic act, since then Batts has done a kind of walk-back say­ing the issue before him was not about stop­ping and search­ing peo­ple under the road traf­fic law. That of course did not stop Batts how­ev­er from shoot­ing off at the mouth about police mat­ters, even though by his own acknowl­edge­ment it was­n’t even the mat­ter before him.

Anyway back to Williams, even though Williams has many cas­es before him that has not been resolved, he nev­er miss­es an oppor­tu­ni­ty to find a cam­era, of course this is when he is not beg­ging for more pow­er to per­se­cute police, fight­ing with the DPP and to cap it all and prob­a­bly more class­less, telling every­one who will lis­ten that his office is equal to that of a high court judge.

Williams makes it his job to give instruc­tions to the police just last week regard­ing search­es done dur­ing traf­fic stops. Having looked at the com­ments made by Batts about police use of the road traf­fic act, I saw noth­ing there which would con­tra­dict any­thing the police has done for decades. As I wrote in an ear­li­er blog, Batts com­ments were quote “the police does not have a right to arbi­trar­i­ly pull peo­ple over and search their per­sons and/​or their cars”.There is no con­flict there , Police can­not arbi­trar­i­ly do any­thing, they have to car­ry out their duties with­in the frame­work of the law. As I said then, Batts did not break any ground, he mere­ly stat­ed the obvi­ous for the ben­e­fit of the cheer­ing-sec­tion over at his old school Kingston College.

Like oth­er grand­stand­ing Jamaicans, Batts has decid­ed to make a name for him­self at the expense of the police. I applaud the com­mis­sion­er of police for con­tin­u­ing the pro­gram. It is up to offi­cers to use all the laws, archa­ic and out­dat­ed though they are, to arrest law­break­ers and let the pon­tif­i­cat­ing frauds con­tin­ue cheer­ing the Emperor who has no clothes.

The police has used the road traf­fic act, pre­di­al lar­ce­ny act, firearms act, dan­ger­ous drugs act to legit­i­mate­ly remove dan­ger­ous crim­i­nals from the streets for decades. Within that time, tens of thou­sands of firearms , hun­dreds of tons of drugs, have been con­fis­cat­ed and offend­ers pros­e­cut­ed. This is just the actu­al enforce­ment, there is no way of mea­sur­ing the innu­mer­able deter­rent-effect those stops have had on crim­i­nal activ­i­ty in our coun­try, or the amount of lives which have been saved.

“I would think that the com­mis­sion­er, being the well-think­ing per­son that I know he is, will take the approach of sus­pend­ing any such activ­i­ty until he is cer­tain of its constitutionality”[Terrence Williams].

I won­der where Terrence Williams find time to inves­ti­gate, between the pho­to ops, cock­tail circuit,hanging out with crim­i­nal-sup­port­ing groups, and giv­ing inter­views. I call on Terrence Williams to pay atten­tion to what he is tasked with and leave the police to do actu­al policing.

There are too many self-serv­ing char­la­tans in Jamaica, the coun­try is going to hell, do your­self a favor, do your own damn jobs and leave oth­ers to do theirs. There is a sec­tor of the pub­lic which I like to refer to as ( neva si cum si ), they are the most pre­ten­tious sons ‑of ‑bitch­es. They have opin­ions on every­thing, they get involved in every­thing and no one knows more than they do. There is anoth­er name for them in Jamaican ver­nac­u­lar “friten fri­day”. They are the biggest imped­i­ment to progress.

The astound­ing luna­cy of the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem in Jamaica, and the crim­i­nal lov­ing judges who pop­u­late those courts were on full dis­play this week.

The Court of Appeal has set aside the death sen­tence of 31-year-old Lennox Swaby and 29-year-old garbage truck dri­ver Calvin Powell, who were con­vict­ed in 2009 of the mur­der of Manchester busi­ness­man Richard Lyn and his wife, Julia.The two have been sen­tenced to life impris­on­ment with an order that they must each serve 35 years before they can be eli­gi­ble for parole. The sen­tences are to run from January 20, 2010.Prosecutors Claudette Thompson and Greg Walcolm, in argu­ing the appeal, had asked the court not to dis­turb the con­vic­tions because Justice Marva McIntosh’s sum­ma­tion to the jury could not be faulted.The court upheld the legal argu­ments.DEATH SENTENCE NOT WARRANTED

Defence lawyers Dr Randolph Williams and Elham Bogle had argued on appeal that the case did not mer­it the death sen­tence and the court agreed. The Crown led evi­dence at the tri­al in the Home Circuit Court that the cou­ple were stran­gled between December 9 and 10, 2006, dur­ing a rob­bery at their home in Mandeville. Their bod­ies were lat­er found at a dump site​.In hand­ing down its deci­sion yes­ter­day, the court paid trib­ute to all the par­ties involved in the inves­ti­ga­tion and tri­al of the mat­ter. “The police obvi­ous­ly poured sig­nif­i­cant resources into this effort and worked dili­gent­ly at iden­ti­fy­ing the per­pe­tra­tors,” the court said.http://​jamaica​-glean​er​.com/​g​l​e​a​n​e​r​/​2​0​1​3​0​7​0​6​/​n​e​w​s​/​n​e​w​s​4​.​h​tml

The fact is these demon­ic mis­cre­ants would nev­er be exe­cut­ed as man­dat­ed by law.

Reason being , the Jamaican gov­ern­ment is the biggest law-break­er in the coun­try. With that said, I am absolute­ly flum­moxed. If enter­ing some­one’s home, rob­bing and killing them, then dis­card­ing their bod­ies at a dump site, does not qual­i­fy for the death penal­ty, what the f*** does? These crim­i­nal lov­ing judges sim­ply do not get it .

Let me just has­ten to say Justice Marva McIntosh is a fine and exem­plary jurist. One of the best and more expe­ri­enced in the coun­try bar none. One of the biggest imped­i­ment to jus­tice is high­er court“s con­tin­u­al­ly inter­fer­ing with low­er court’s deci­sion. It brings the sys­tem into dis­re­pute, cre­at­ing the impres­sion of cor­rup­tion, and does not engen­der con­fi­dence in the low­er courts or the system.

There is noth­ing here which says the deci­sion of jus­tice Macintosh was unlaw­ful or improp­er, yet it seem the jus­tices on the court of appeals have decid­ed to use their posi­tions to give favors to the defense team.

There was noth­ing in the deci­sion as far as the report goes that sug­gest that the tri­al judge had erred or act­ed improperly.

To sug­gest that the way the Lyns were slaugh­tered did not rise to the lev­el of what con­sti­tutes the death penal­ty is beyond luna­cy. It flies in the face of the fam­i­ly of these two hard work­ing peo­ple who were so bru­tal­ly killed not because of any­thing they did. Not only is the Appeals court inter­fer­ence an affront to the fam­i­ly , it is an affront to the learned jus­tice who presided over the tri­al. It is an affront to the inves­tiga­tive police team which worked assid­u­ous­ly to bring the mur­der­ing scums to jus­tice. It is an affront to jus­tice in gen­er­al , giv­ing the impres­sion that the low­er courts and judges are incompetent .

Above all, inter­fer­ing with the tri­al court’s sen­tence with­out hav­ing rea­son to change the ver­dict brings the ques­tion of cor­rup­tion into the dis­cus­sion. Nobody wants to ask the ques­tion so I will, ” how much mon­ey is chang­ing hands in these deci­sions with­ing the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem in Jamaica”? Judges are sworn to inter­pret the law, they are not the law, they are not a law onto them­selves, more and more we see Jamaican judges inject­ing them­selves into areas they have no place being, act­ing as leg­is­la­tors and in some cas­es as defense attor­neys. Justice can­not be open to change because of con­nec­tions between Judges and defense attor­neys or worse the con­nect­ed pay­ing off judges to rule a cer­tain way.

I have no evi­dence mon­ey is chang­ing hands in these deci­sions, but I am absolute­ly con­fi­dent con­nec­tions are play­ing a part. If con­nec­tions are hav­ing an influ­ence in the way these cas­es are decid­ed, what is to stop mon­ey from cor­rod­ing the sys­tem? Judges who drink and social­ize with their defense lawyer friends, can­not be allowed to use those friend­ships to influ­ence how they rule. Justice is big­ger than their lit­tle cliques and fra­ter­ni­ties. This action of the court of appeals is one more in a litany of oth­er deci­sions that we see which is caus­ing chaos in the small nation of 2.7 mil­lion people.

Just this week a Police Detective was mur­dered walk­ing toward his home Corporal Gassop was gunned down by crim­i­nals , The men who mur­dered Corporal Gassop were on mur­der charges, yet they were returned to the streets by the coun­try’s activist judges who are above the laws. The result of their actions, one more dead cop.

This has got to stop, we sim­ply can­not have judges return­ing accused mur­der­ers back onto the streets to kill cit­i­zens and police offi­cers. Worse yet, when they are prop­er­ly con­vict­ed these crim­i­nals lov­ing jack-ass­es who parade as judges have no right return­ing them to the streets.

Recently Retired Senior Superintendent of Police Renetto Adams came out scathing­ly against the Jamaican police force he served for 41 years.

“The JLP under (Sir Alexander) Bustamante dealt effec­tive­ly with the Coral Gardens riots of 1963; Mr (Edward) Seaga, when he was prime min­is­ter, gave up a list of 13 crim­i­nals to include the infa­mous ‘Dudus’ (Christopher Coke), but the com­mis­sion­er at the time Col (Trevor) MacMillan failed to act upon it. Those 13 men have all either been killed or are in prison,” Adams said.Read more: http://​www​.jamaicaob​serv​er​.com/​n​e​w​s​/​A​d​ams – Scrap-the-police-force#ixzz2Y1HlgyTJ

Senior Superintendent Adams is a for­mer cop who came to promi­nence some­where in the mid to late 1990’s, dur­ing my time in the depart­ment I nev­er saw him at any crime scenes, The CIB fra­ter­ni­ty was real­ly a tight-knit fraternity.Jamaican crime fight­ers, with the excep­tion of cer­tain units out of the Mobile Reserve and a few uni­form cops were main­ly plain clothes officers.

Adams rose to infamy for sev­er­al con­tro­ver­sial killings, includ­ing the Krawle killings in which sev­er­al young men lost their lives , as well as an ill-advised for­ay into Tivoli Gardens (or as he calls it Ti-va-li)which again end­ed with sev­er­al peo­ple killed. One thing I learned and tried to remem­ber while I served was not seek fame, do the job and go home. The Jamaican pub­lic endeared them­selves to cer­tain police offi­cers because those offi­cers were tough, kind, gen­tle, depend­able, hon­est, trust­wor­thy, nev­er because they are bru­tal. Many cops opt­ed for the lat­ter and found out real quick­ly that what emanates from that is hatred and resentment.

Former Superintendent Adams loves polic­ing, he wants to see a crime free Jamaica like many of us do. He has made eye­brow-rais­ing com­ments in the past, but his recent com­ments call­ing for the dis­band­ment of the police force has lit­er­al­ly shown that the deci­sion not to con­sid­er him for the top cop job was a sound one.

I find his com­ments to be self serv­ing and small-mind­ed. Adams argues that the force is cor­rupt, that is true, there are far too many offi­cers in the force who should not be, but by and large I believe this com­mis­sion­er has done a good job in weed­ing out bad cops from the depart­ment. A for­mer col­league of mine appro­pri­ate­ly asked why did Adams not call for the dis­band­ment of the force while he was serv­ing for a full 41 years?

Were the deci­sion to be tak­en to dis­band the police force what would be put in it’s place in the inter­im? Adams argues that after dis­band­ing the depart­ment the author­i­ties should embark on a process of select­ing qual­i­fied clean can­di­dates to fill the posi­tions. Might I inquire from mis­ter Adams where would these peo­ple come from? Would they come from the same pop­u­la­tion pool, or would Jamaican author­i­ties have to go to the plan­et kryp­ton to find these Superman type cops Adams references.

I sug­gest that mis­ter Adams find con­struc­tive ways to aid the rule of law as so many are doing after hav­ing left, we love Jamaica that’s the rea­son we decid­ed to serve, don’t make a spec­ta­cle of your­self, if you have noth­ing good to say shut up.

I haven’t giv­en evi­dence in a crim­i­nal tri­al in many years, but what I saw over the last sev­er­al days in that Florida court room does not bode well for the pros­e­cu­tion. I can­not say what it is but there seem to be some­thing real­ly off between the pros­e­cu­tion and it’s witnesses.

It almost seem that there is bad blood between the pros­e­cu­tor and the police wit­ness­es, In all my time around law enforce­ment and the years watch­ing law enforce­ment close­ly, I have nev­er seen police wit­ness­es for the pros­e­cu­tion actu­al­ly give char­ac­ter evi­dence for the accused.

I mean, turn out the lights, every­one go home, first we have a tri­al in the mur­der of a 17-year-old African-American boy, the jus­tice sys­tem could not find a sin­gle black man , or any man for this tri­al. In fact what we hear is that there are 5 white women, I am yet unsure what the eth­nic­i­ty of the 6^th juror is.

Then the most insult­ing thing that could poten­tial­ly hap­pen to Tracey Martin and Sabrina Fulton, the cops who ought to give the best evi­dence for the pros­e­cu­tion’s case turn up and give char­ac­ter evi­dence for the defendant.

Why did the lead inves­ti­ga­tor sud­den­ly get put back to reg­u­lar uni­form patrol , and why did he show up giv­ing char­ac­ter evi­dence for the accused ? This was the same lead Investigator Chris Serino who believed George Zimmerman should face manslaugh­ter charges, why has he changed his sto­ry , why has he been reas­signed to patrol?

There is some­thing seri­ous­ly wrong with the way this tri­al is being han­dled, I sus­pect all hell is going to break loose if peo­ple do not feel that jus­tice is being served , we will con­tin­ue to watch.