Cop Shot And Paralyzed On Duty Gets J$1000 Per Month​.US$ 8.019

I saw this and was stunned that this still per­sists even at a time when the Jamaican Government is in the process of hand­ing out huge sums of mon­ey to res­i­dents of Tivoli Gardens, despite that com­mu­ni­ty’s deci­sion to oper­ate out­side the laws for generations.

A Police Officer who was shot in the line of duty receives J$1000 per month, lives in squalor, does­n’t even have a radio or tele­vi­sion set.
This is how Jamaica treats it’s police officers.
My squad­mate was shot and injured many years ago he is wheel­chair bound as well. I called him a few weeks ago and asked how he was doing?
He tells me only for the mer­cy of God that he is surviving.

Now despite my sense of anger that a police offi­cer was shot in the line of duty is treat­ed this way I am not sur­prised. The JCF has been an agency which prid­ed itself on form but pre­cious lit­tle substance.
What the over bloat­ed high com­mand was always good at has always been the spec­ta­cle, show, and no performance.

Having been shot in 1988 while on duty ( not that it should mat­ter, cops are nev­er off duty) I under­stand all too well that by and large the men and women who make up the high com­mand did not under­stand their roles as supervisors.
Commanders nev­er grasped the con­cept of com­pli­ment­ing their juniors in pub­lic and chastis­ing them in pri­vate. The reverse has always been a sore point in the JCF. As a con­se­quence few com­man­ders had the abil­i­ty to har­ness the full poten­tial of the work­force under their com­mands and even if they were able to, I’m unsure they would know what to do with it.

I nev­er received a vis­it from my Divisional offi­cer when I got shot, I nev­er received a vis­it from the area offi­cer, not from the crime offi­cer and cer­tain­ly not a call from the then Commissioner Herman Ricketts.
It mat­tered not that it was not a seri­ous injury, good lead­er­ship entails look­ing after your charges before you con­tem­plate doing any­thing else.
You can­not secure the pub­lic with men and women who are bro­ken down and that seem to be a large part of the problem.

Across the seas, Police Departments look after them­selves and they do not allow any­one to dic­tate to them how they should go about doing so.
One thing is cer­tain is that they do not cow­er in fear from crit­i­cism of any­one out­side their depart­ments who do not know what it takes to do the job.
Congratulations to Steve McGregor a real leader and police com­man­der. Thank you, Steve, for lead­ing where Government and your own supe­ri­ors have failed.

I appeal to mem­bers past and present, par­tic­u­lar­ly those of us who live in the dias­po­ra to inbox me so we can for­mu­late a plan of action.
If you do not I will con­tact you.
We need to assist these heroes who gave their best for their coun­try and are now destitute.
It could have been any one of us.

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