Despite Being Supporters We Have To Call Incompetence .……Incompetence

In the late 1980’s Wayne ‘Sandokan’ Smith exe­cut­ed a nev­er before seen attack on the Olympic Gardens police sta­tion. Three police offi­cers were shot and killed dur­ing the attack and weapons and ammu­ni­tion stolen from the sta­tion . Waterhouse, Tower Hill, Riverton City and oth­er areas of Kingston where the gang­ster was believed to hang out was car­pet­ed by Police Officers.
As a mem­ber of the Ranger Squad I was one of those offi­cers on the front lines search­ing for Smith. Despite the Intelligence com­ing in and being dis­sem­i­nat­ed to us on the ground it was oth­er mem­bers of the crim­i­nal under­world which decid­ed the heat was too much and Sandokan was more of a lia­bil­i­ty to their safe­ty than he is worth. He was exter­mi­nat­ed in Tower Hill in 1989 by his own kind. This inci­dent was not the first time that Police offi­cers had been killed far from it . Jamaicans have nev­er been a bunch which had much respect for the nation’s laws or for those whose job it is to uphold them. It was how­ev­er a loss of inno­cence for the Police depart­ment (or it should have been).
Despite those real­i­ties Police Stations across the Island are soft tar­gets for any­one wish­ing to car­ry out an attack on mem­bers of the police department.

For the most part even the mod­ern police sta­tions are poor­ly thought out edi­fices which does not reflect the mod­ern real­i­ties and safe­ty con­cerns of 21^st cen­tu­ry polic­ing. In some cas­es police sta­tions are old hous­es which was nev­er intend­ed to be police sta­tions. This places the lives of police offi­cers at addi­tion­al and undue risks even as they sleep in these old dilap­i­dat­ed facilities.
These are fail­ures of Government which can­not be brushed aside. Notwithstanding the police have a duty to them­selves to be ever vig­i­lant if not for any­one but their own secu­ri­ty and survival.

Despite the loss of inno­cence in 2009 the Police hier­ar­chy was to be left egg on their faces again, unable to explain how for 182 days, 23-year-old Courtney Grayson of Hendon Norwood, in St James, worked as a police­man at the Mt Salem Police Station in Montego Bay, before he was arrest­ed and charged for imper­son­at­ing a police offi­cer and unlaw­ful pos­ses­sion of property.

If the Police can­not even tell who is a police offi­cer how can this agency be trust­ed with the secu­ri­ty of a nation?
Is it that some­one just show up and say “I’m a police offi­cer “and he/​she is allowed in? Where is the trans­fer in the week­ly Force Orders autho­riz­ing the trans­fer? Where was the big bel­ly Superintendent or whomev­er was in charge of that frat house pos­ing as a police station?
Doesn’t an offi­cer report­ing to a new divi­sion or even a trans­fer with­in the same divi­sion have to report to whomev­er is in charge, where he/​she is then val­i­dat­ed and briefed before set­tling in?
That did not happen ..

On many occa­sions when we see instances of break­down with­in the JCF I am par­tic­u­lar­ly hard on the lead­er­ship. Many peo­ple includ­ing ex-mem­bers some­times push back because they con­tin­ue to embrace the auto­crat­ic method­ol­o­gy of the JCF even though they have long left.
Of course it is always a fail­ure of lead­er­ship when these break­downs occur. We may argue that the Officer in charge can­not see every­thing but it is up to him/​her to imple­ment proac­tive for­ward think­ing strate­gies which would pre­vent inci­dents like these from ever happening.

September 2015 : A man, peo­ple say is of unsound mind, alleged­ly sneaked onto the Hunts Bay Police Barracks in St Andrew recent­ly, slept, then woke up and got dressed in police gear the fol­low­ing morn­ing. A police source told the Jamaicaobserver​.com that the man went unno­ticed until he asked one of the offi­cers for $20. It is said that a senior offi­cer at the Hunts Bay Police Station became sus­pi­cious when he noticed the man wear­ing a police vest, back-to-front, on his bare skin. The uniden­ti­fied man report­ed­ly pro­ceed­ed to the guard­room to sign for a firearm and in the process, start­ed beg­ging for mon­ey. According to sources, the man has slept on the police bar­racks before with­out being noticed.
I’m not sure how one say he has slept in the bar­racks before then in the same sen­tence say he did so unnoticed.
I guess that’s my point, noth­ing this Police Force says make sense these days.

I have been an unapolo­getic sup­port­er of the rule of law in our coun­try. Because of my sup­port for the rule of law I under­stand I have to sup­port those who uphold the laws. Despite my unmit­i­gat­ed sup­port I have been a vocal crit­ic of what Jamaicans have come to know as the Police high command.
One of the rea­sons I walked away from the Police Department is exact­ly because of what I saw dur­ing my 9 ¹⁄₂ year service.
Gross-Incompetence. Bravado. Nepotism. Political-Connections. Dishonesty. Ignorance. Stupidity. Poor lead­er­ship skills.
These are just a few of the char­ac­ter­is­tics which caus­es the Jamaican peo­ple a lot of mon­ey spent on train­ing peo­ple, turn­ing them into police offi­cers, yet the police depart­ment has been like an old sieve as it has been unable to retain good qual­i­ty peo­ple who are capa­ble of doing the job. Some for­mer Police offi­cers will always make the case that poor salaries and remu­ner­a­tions are the rea­son why there is such a high attri­tion rate. I agree only par­tial­ly. Upward mobil­i­ty have always been a way for offi­cers to earn more mon­ey. The so-called high com­mand made a mock­ery of that process by pro­mot­ing peo­ple who worked in offices who nev­er did a day’s actu­al polic­ing. Additionally they pro­mot­ed friends and lack­eys who licked their boots. When polit­i­cal pro­mo­tions are added to the mix there is pre­cious lit­tle upward mobil­i­ty left for decent, hard-work­ing cops to make the depart­ment a career.

In the years since men scaled the walls of the police sta­tion and mur­dered 3 police offi­cers in Olympic Gardens police sta­tions have burned, dozens of offi­cers have been killed both on and off duty.
The Police Department will prob­a­bly be woe­ful­ly short of equip­ment and man­pow­er for the fore­see­able future irre­spec­tive of which par­ty holds pow­er. The Police depart­ment will have to be more proac­tive with sim­ple com­mon sense issues like the one ones I just allud­ed to. It cer­tain­ly does not engen­der con­fi­dence when we see inci­dents of this kind being allowed over a peri­od of decades.
Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me. The police depart­ment can­not issue state­ments about pro­tect­ing the nation when it clear­ly can­not secure its own facilities.
In light of these rev­e­la­tions it is clear to assume that if a group of peo­ple so desire they can take over any police facil­i­ty at any time.
Not because of any­thing but the Police own incompetence.….…