Commissioner Must Immediately Disclose What Happened At Four Paths Police Station, If Anything„

Yesterday I opined on the tem­pest in a teacup that has been brew­ing over the last sev­er­al days (speak­ing of the alle­ga­tions by Clarendon res­i­dent Nzinga King that mem­bers of the Four Paths police cut her dread­locks against her will.
https://​mike​beck​les​.com/​n​e​w​-​e​v​i​d​e​n​c​e​-​s​u​r​f​a​c​i​n​g​-​n​z​i​n​g​a​-​k​i​n​g​-​m​a​y​-​b​e​-​l​y​i​n​g​-​a​b​o​u​t​-​b​e​i​n​g​-​t​r​i​m​m​e​d​-​b​y​-​c​o​ps/

This inci­dent, like most oth­ers involv­ing alle­ga­tions involv­ing the police quick­ly cement­ed peo­ple into camps. The entire dis­ci­pline of polic­ing has become a light­ning rod, not just in Jamaica but across the world, as police depart­ments con­tin­ue to be tone-deaf to their pub­lic’s demand for changes in how police offi­cers are allowed to operate.
The job of polic­ing has dra­mat­i­cal­ly changed; cit­i­zens are less like­ly to stand for abus­es of their rights, a stance I whole­heart­ed­ly support.
When police offi­cers go about their duties with­out mal­ice or ill will and make mis­takes, I am always sym­pa­thet­ic to those mis­takes, under­stand­ing that humans do make mistakes.
When police offi­cers vio­late rights because of pre­con­ceived ideas and bias­es, there is no sym­pa­thy com­ing from this writer.

Every offi­cer is taught the basics of the laws they are attempt­ing to enforce. They are also taught what statu­to­ry pow­ers they have to enforce said laws. Nowhere in the JCF train­ing man­u­al are offi­cers taught to vio­late any­one’s human rights. So if an offi­cer, or offi­cers any­where in Jamaica in this day and age decides to cut the hair from some­one’s head, that per­son should have no place in the JCF.
Even if a cit­i­zen asks an offi­cer to cut their hair, that offi­cer should polite­ly decline, ful­ly under­stand­ing the poten­tial back­lash from some­one get­ting the wrong impres­sion of that action.
As a friend and for­mer offi­cer insist­ed yes­ter­day, these alle­ga­tions do not need a long-drawn-out inves­ti­ga­tion from the top brass. The ques­tion is sim­ple, “did a mem­ber of the Four Paths Police unlaw­ful­ly cut the hair from the head of Nzinga King? Who is the mem­ber, and on what author­i­ty did that member/​s engage in that act?
To instill con­fi­dence in the police, the police com­mis­sion­er [must] move swift­ly to tell the pub­lic whether or not any offi­cer actu­al­ly cut the hair from the head of Ms. King immediately.
Each day that pass­es with­out that answer feeds the fire of spec­u­la­tion, builds sus­pi­cion that the depart­ment is hid­ing evi­dence, and increas­es ani­mos­i­ty toward offi­cers, and final­ly, it gives oppor­tunis­tic vul­tures, be they polit­i­cal or anti law enforce­ment, fod­der on which to feed.

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