Crime In Jamaica Part # 5.

If the method­ol­o­gy in the train­ing man­u­al has­n’t changed much, except to accom­mo­date the demands of crim­i­nal rights lob­by, and if not a sin­gle detec­tive was trained for over a decade in one instance, how are the police sup­posed to cur­tail cyber crime, lot­tery scammers,and trans-atlantic criminality?

Earlier this year with the pre­dictable upsurge in crim­i­nal behav­ior, which always fol­lows the PNP ele­va­tion to pow­er, the police respond­ed with what many label extra­ju­di­cial killings. The loud­est con­dem­na­tion came from those who ben­e­fit most from crime oth­er than the known front-line criminals.

Criminal Lawyers/​Politicians:

Many of the coun­try’s Legislators are crim­i­nal defense lawyers, this glar­ing con­flict of inter­est is not addressed by law. The peo­ple who are sup­posed to bring fideli­ty to the sys­tem are the very peo­ple who are the ben­e­fi­cia­ries of the dis­tor­tion with­in the system.

So they prac­tise law even while they are in the leg­is­la­ture. They parade with high-pro­file clients/​constituents/​colleagues, even as they pur­port to rep­re­sent the will of decent people.

Criminal lawyers are singly, the most repul­sive, rapa­cious and craven crea­tures oper­at­ing with­in the Jamaican crim­i­nal jus­tice system.

Criminal Rights Lobby:

These are those who latch onto the nobil­i­ty of Human Rights advo­ca­cy. In Jamaica this process has been hijacked and tak­en over by peo­ple with motives oth­er than those intend­ed in true advo­ca­cy. Some of those motives are hatred for law-enforce­ment, per­son­al vendet­tas, and for per­son­al gain. There is a lot of mon­ey to be had from over­seas human rights agen­cies which actu­al­ly are invest­ed in human rights.

They are pow­er­ful in get­ting their views implant­ed into leg­is­la­tion. They are not how­ev­er sat­is­fied with advo­ca­cy, those for­eign funds go to pay­ing high-pow­ered lawyers to file motions in the pathet­ic jus­tice sys­tem to fight pro­mo­tion of hero police officers.

The Confused Clergy:

The Clergy is by no means all bad, many preach­ers have risked their lives to tell the truth, as well as to speak out against the ram­pant crim­i­nal­i­ty with­in the soci­ety. Many mem­bers have spo­ken direct­ly to the women who are the moth­ers, wives, girl­friends, sis­ters and employ­ees of the men who are wreak­ing hav­oc on the Island. Several Pastors have been killed for speak­ing out. There are how­ev­er the pre­tenders, those I call the Pharisees who use the cler­gy to fur­ther their polit­i­cal and fidu­cia­ry inter­est. These are the loud­est, they speak out about what they call extra­ju­di­cial killings , with no facts, yet nev­er have a kind word for crime victims.

Let me be clear this is no way an endorse­ment for unlaw­ful police killings, wher­ev­er this is allowed to exist, no one is safe. What I am say­ing is that peo­ple not cog­nizant of the dan­gers police offi­cers face in deal­ing with Jamaican’s crim­i­nals, are in no posi­tion to make judge­ment calls on what usu­al­ly are life and death deci­sions made in a frac­tion of a second.

The Jamaica Observer a more sane and ratio­nal pub­li­ca­tion than it’s com­peti­tor has pub­lished what I thought is a use­ful and infor­ma­tive series of arti­cles detail­ing the sto­ries of notable Jamaicans who have evad­ed death on sev­er­al occasions.

Needless to say most of the peo­ple telling their sto­ries are Police Officers. Keith Gardiner o/​c (Trinity), Cornwall Ford o/​c (Bigga Ford)among oth­ers, the truth is this just scratch­es the sur­face of police Officers killed and to a less­er extent who have been shot at least once in the line of defend­ing our coun­try from criminals.

Yours tru­ly is not removed from those sta­tis­tics. I too was shot in the line of duty. I too had been shot at, numer­ous times in har­row­ing expe­ri­ences which could have extin­guished my life, had it not been for the mer­cy of the cre­ator, and me putting my train­ing to good use. As a result there is noth­ing more infu­ri­at­ing to me, noth­ing makes me more angry than know noth­ing peo­ple who sit around a com­put­er, or with­in their cir­cle of fools and pass judge­ment with­out a sin­gle iota of under­stand­ing of what it takes to be a cop on the island of Jamaica.

Left wing lib­er­al judges:

This is very much an inte­gral part of the sys­tem­at­ic fail­ure of the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem in Jamaica. When added to archa­ic laws, incom­pe­tent leg­is­la­tors, some cor­rupt police offi­cers and a con­flu­ence of social soci­etal ills we have a per­fect storm of events which led us to where we are now in Jamaica.

In the inter­view Assistant Commissioner of Police, Keith (Trinity) Gardiner gave to The Jamaica Observer, Gardiner told of get­ting attacked by a group of men who were on a rob­bing spree. Gardiner stat­ed that he was stand­ing by his car when he was approached by the men, they pulled guns he pulled his weapon and all hell broke loose, he was shot and sub­se­quent­ly went to the Kingston Public Hospital to receive treat­ment, whilst there one of the men turned up also to receive treat­ment. Gardiner stat­ed that after inves­ti­ga­tions it was rea­son­ably con­clud­ed that the man was indeed a mem­ber of the group who attempt­ed to rob him and arbi­trar­i­ly shot him, the bul­let that was even­tu­al­ly extract­ed from the body of this man was fired from Gardiner’s weapon.

Gardiner was ecsta­t­ic that the man was con­vict­ed in court. He was elat­ed that the man who along with his cronies robbed a woman of her motor car, robbed oth­ers in a spree, then attacked and shot him in anoth­er rob­bery attempt had received his just due in the courts/

Three years imprisonment.

You see Trinity had rea­son to be ecsta­t­ic, the Jamaican courts are very hos­tile to the people/​prosecutors, a con­vic­tion does not hap­pen very often. Three years for a rob­bery spree where a police offi­cer was attacked and shot. Trinity said the man told him dur­ing the inter­view process that had he known he was a police offi­cer he would have most assured­ly killed him.

As the howls of con­dem­na­tion of the police esca­lat­ed into a crescen­do the rook­ie National Security Minister Peter Bunting demand­ed that the com­mis­sion­er of police stop cops from killing peo­ple. Ellington con­ceiv­ably can ill-afford to give up his posi­tion, so he draft­ed new use of force policies .

THESE INCLUDES:

(1)Firing in the air to warn suspects.

(2) Yelling at armed sus­pects to drop their weapons.

(3) Yelling loud­ly so that wit­ness­es may tes­ti­fy to hear­ing the ver­bal commands.

I wont con­tin­ue any fur­ther with Ellington’s use of force pol­i­cy, which are so non­sen­si­cal that they do not war­rant seri­ous con­sid­er­a­tion. What Ellington revealed is that he had zero under­stand­ing of police work, or how shoot­ings occur in real life sit­u­a­tions. Ellington may be a good admin­is­tra­tor but as a cop he needs guidance.

Most shoot­ings between police offi­cers and crim­i­nals occur in a frac­tion of a sec­ond. In oth­er cas­es where there are pro­tract­ed shoot-outs between those two oppos­ing fac­tions ‚the three afore­men­tioned pol­i­cy addi­tions are moot for obvi­ous reasons.

As for as the reac­tion of police is con­cerned ‚many in the soci­ety argue that the police must retreat from crim­i­nals who attack them. Many vehe­ment­ly state that police must allow crim­i­nals to walk free rather than risk hurt­ing inno­cent bystanders even if the are under fire.

I am real­ly not at my best when I hear these pro­pos­als, anger is not the best emo­tion, I under­stand that ratio­nal thought and anger sel­dom walk hand-in-hand.

Such is the nature of the coun­try which depends on tourism as its chief for­eign exchange earn­er. Most tourists to the Island nev­er set foot out­side the all-inclu­sive cocoon hote­liers place them in. The down side is that the tourism dol­lar is con­fined to the rich hote­liers whom are most­ly for­eign investors, so the mon­ey goes right back to Europe or North America.

But how can any­one blame hote­liers for pro­tect­ing their guests? Foreign nation­als to Jamaica’s shores are no dif­fer­ent from any­one else in a strange coun­try, you sim­ply do not expect to be mur­dered sim­ply for walk­ing down the streets, or shar­ing a drink or some mar­i­jua­na with a stranger, (those who smoke).

It was­n’t always like this, tourists were not always kept away from the locals, what keeps them away are harass­ment, pushy dope and trin­ket deal­ers and the astro­nom­i­cal­ly high homi­cide rate.