Commissioner Quallo, If You Want To Fix St.James Clean House Now.…

The Police high com­mand is sup­pos­ed­ly con­ven­ing a top-lev­el meet­ing to devise strate­gies to tack­le the astro­nom­i­cal crime rate in the Parish of Saint James which has so far this year result­ed in over 310 peo­ple mur­dered and many more shot and injured not to men­tion prop­er­ty destroyed.

Just recent­ly the Police announced that Deputy com­mis­sion­er Clifford Blake would be sent to the Parish to tack­le the mon­ster there which is caus­ing mas­sive loss of life and extreme embar­rass­ment for the police.
I am unsure of what DCP Clifford Blake will bring to the table which will change the tra­jec­to­ry of crime in St. James or any­where for that matter.
Speaking to cops on the ground about this they snick­er when Blake is mentioned.
They have long com­plained that DCP Blake’s claim to fame is to antag­o­nize offi­cers about whether their whis­tles are clean and shiny as well as mak­ing demands that they wear the offi­cial uni­form, replete with cum­mer­bund instead of the more prac­ti­cal den­im dress for duties in places like Riverton city and oth­er grit­ty places in the Saint Andrew South Police Area.

Set the absur­di­ty of a Clifford Blake impact aside.
For decades it was an open secret that cops in the west­ern parish­es which make up the police Area 1 were large­ly corrupt.
Without tar­ring and feath­er­ing all of the offi­cers who have passed through the Police Area 1 over the years, it is fair to say that there is much truth to those whispers.
Having served in the Mobile Reserve which dis­trib­uted cops across the Island to cool hot spots, it was not lost on us when­ev­er we went to the parish of Saint James that there were two police depart­ments, Police Area One and the rest of the Constabulary.

Those who make the argu­ment that a cor­rupt police depart­ment can­not have suc­cess in con­tain­ing crime are absolute­ly correct.
The stran­gle­hold with which crime has tak­en over the west­ern parish­es and the stub­born­ness with which it has with­stood reme­dies sug­gests that the police is an inte­gral part of the crime cul­ture there.
While all of this is hap­pen­ing crime is mush­room­ing across the Island with alarm­ing feroc­i­ty. This is not hap­pen­ing in a vac­u­um, for years I have been warn­ing that if the coun­try does not push back hard and deci­sive­ly crim­i­nals will con­tin­ue to push the enve­lope with alarm­ing brazen­ness and it may even­tu­al­ly over­whelm the Island’s already sus­pect secu­ri­ty infrastructure.

Though not the first time we have had brazen shoot­ers enter a church, just yes­ter­day 9 mourn­ers were shot in a church on Winward Road as they attend­ed a funer­al ser­vice. According to pub­lished reports, there were fatal­i­ties among the injured.
For the record that was an act of ter­ror­ism whether the Island’s polit­i­cal lead­er­ship wants to admit it is nei­ther here nor there.

So what does the police hier­ar­chy do about the crime sit­u­a­tion across the coun­try and specif­i­cal­ly in St James?
Listen closely!
The Police Area 1 did not get to be the crime haven it is overnight, it won’t be reme­died overnight. In order to begin to reverse the trend, the lead­er­ship of the force will have to begin the ardu­ous task of regain­ing trust from the citizenry.

That is going to be a mon­u­men­tal task and so in order to change the per­cep­tions of a cor­rupt police the depart­ment will have to be heavy on the optics.
Even so, it will require a con­sid­er­able amount of time before the cit­i­zens being to talk to offi­cers again about what is hap­pen­ing in their com­mu­ni­ties, who are com­mit­ting those acts and where to find them.
If cit­i­zens are unable to dis­tin­guish cop from crim­i­nal how can they be expect­ed to risk their lives to fur­nish intel­li­gence when that noble act of cit­i­zen­ship may end up cost­ing them their lives.

Talk to any cop of the past who had any suc­cess deal­ing with crim­i­nals with­in their areas of oper­a­tion and they will tell you that they were able to get good intel­li­gence from the peo­ple they served. It is a part­ner­ship between the pro­tect­ed and the pro­tec­tors which require mutu­al respect and collaboration.

COMMISSIONER QUALLO, USE THIS SHEET TO HELP YOURSELF AND JAMAICA DEAL WITH THE CRIME SCOURGE

#1

Desperate times require strong mea­sures. In order to impress the cit­i­zens of St, James the Police Commissioner must buck some trends and go big.
Going big means trans­fer­ring every sin­gle cop sta­tioned in the Parish to oth­er Parishes.

#2
Do not send DCP Blake to the Parish he has no prac­ti­cal polic­ing expe­ri­ence and may very well have been pro­mot­ed above his capa­bil­i­ties. Since those wrongs are not going to be right­ed today there is no rea­son to fur­ther exac­er­bate the sit­u­a­tion by para­chut­ing a tech­no­crat who has no idea what he is doing.
Sending Blake to St. James guar­an­tees one out­come, dis­grun­tled demor­al­ized cops who drop their hands further.

#3
This Police Department of 2017 must begin once again to val­ue the dif­fer­ence a robust Criminal Investigations Branch brings to any police department.
This has noth­ing to do with the cre­ation of mul­ti­ple sup­posed Investigative arms which are based in Kingston and can­not inves­ti­gate itself out of a brown paper bag.

#4
Fresh police offi­cers in the Parish and a push toward com­mu­ni­ty-based polic­ing is crit­i­cal while get­ting capa­ble under­cov­er cops embed­ded into the com­mu­ni­ties is crit­i­cal to any suc­cess the Police Department is going have going forward.
The Police must get back to gath­er­ing intel­li­gence if it is to have any hope of revers­ing this crime wave.

#5
Commissioner Quallo, it is crit­i­cal that the offi­cers oper­at­ing in the com­mu­ni­ties have a senior sub-offi­cer at all times.
Having sea­soned sub-offi­cers on the ground reduces the like­li­hood of cit­i­zens abus­ing younger offi­cers and it reduces the like­li­hood of offi­cers abus­ing citizens.
It also reduces the poten­tial for corruption.

#6
There are seri­ous well-con­nect­ed play­ers oper­at­ing in the Police Area 1.
Out of those con­nec­tions emanate the lot­to-scam, guns for drugs, the cocaine trade and oth­er transna­tion­al crimes which are hav­ing dev­as­tat­ing con­se­quences on the secu­ri­ty of Jamaicans.
It is imper­a­tive that the links between those well-con­nect­ed fig­ures and police offi­cers are disconnected.

#7
Commissioner Quallo, you must demand that the Prime Minister and his lack­eys as well as the PNP and its lack­eys step aside and allow the Police to do its work unobstructed.
Failing which Commissioner, you must Investigate the Politicians who as much as lift a fin­ger to obstruct, hin­der, or oth­er­wise ingra­ti­ate them­selves into the oper­a­tional pro­ce­dures of the police depart­ment regard­less of where they oper­ate from, be it Jamaica House or Flankers.

#8
If the Prime Minister and his lack­eys or the PNP and it’s lack­eys refuse to stand aside while the police depart­ment does what it is man­dat­ed to do by virtue of the Jamaica Constabulary Force Act, ten­der your res­ig­na­tion and reveal through the media what they did to ham­per your work.
Do not allow any­one to use you as a scape­goat while they are absolved of respon­si­bil­i­ty for whats happening.

#9
Initiate a push aimed at break­ing up the Gangs oper­at­ing in those spaces, it is impor­tant that you cre­ate an anti-gang task force sole­ly for the west­ern Parishes. This task-force must be relent­less, not just oper­at­ing dur­ing the day­light hours, but must be so relent­less and lethal that no one wants to be asso­ci­at­ed with a gang.
Yes, I said lethal, I specif­i­cal­ly used that term to annoy the bleed­ing heart frauds who pon­tif­i­cate about human rights as if the rights of killers super­sede those of their victims.

#10
Commissioner Quallo, one of the best qual­i­ties of a good leader is that lead­er’s abil­i­ty to inspire, to moti­vate. The abil­i­ty to make some­thing out of noth­ing, to get sub­or­di­nates to go the extra mile.
Not because of the good­ness of the Organization or even the nobil­i­ty of the cause but because they want to work for that leader.
Your Agency is doing a tremen­dous dis­ser­vice to the young men and women who join, remem­ber that the agency is hav­ing a dif­fi­cult time attract­ing suit­able can­di­dates to fill exist­ing spots.
Additionally, over 500 offi­cers are leav­ing each year, try­ing to imprison them in order to keep them in is a waste of time, it is unconstitutional.
The atti­tude of your senior staff to the men and women under their com­mand is a huge part of the rea­son police offi­cers are flee­ing the department.
Being a leader does not make one a Lord, get that mes­sage to your com­man­ders and maybe, just maybe some of your prob­lems will be averted.

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