Gaping Loophole In Firearms Act Not Unbeknownst To Politicians…

We crit­i­cize them when they fail to act pro­fes­sion­al­ly and so we should com­mend them when they act accord­ing­ly and pro­duce pos­i­tive results for Jamaica, speak­ing of the secu­ri­ty forces.
This medi­um wish­es to give cred­it to the CTOC team and to DPP Paula Llewelyn in the case involv­ing Jamaican gun­run­ner Jermaine Rhoomes .
Rhoomes was giv­en a 57 months sen­tence by a Florida judge for ille­gal­ly ship­ping a num­ber of guns and mul­ti­ple rounds of assort­ed ammu­ni­tion to Jamaica.
Jamaica’s DPP Paula Llewelyn attend­ed the hear­ing and addressed the court. The accused plead guilty, avoid­ing a poten­tial 20-year prison sen­tence.
Rhoomes was bust­ed at his res­i­dence in Saint Petersburg Florida after law enforce­ment bust­ed into his house and even­tu­al­ly found mul­ti­ple, guns and assort­ed rounds of ammu­ni­tion being read­ied for ship­ment along with foodstuff.

The DPP report­ed that it was mem­bers of Jamaica’s Counter-Terrorism and Organised Crime Investigation Branch (CTOC), who found the bar­rels, the guns and ammu­ni­tion inside the bar­rels on the wharf hid­den under pack­ages of flour, rice, and sug­ar. [Llewelyn said CTOC, through sci­en­tif­ic means, made the link between Rhoomes and the weapons and enlist­ed the assis­tance of US Homeland Security inves­ti­ga­tors in Florida which led them to find him, search his house, and find the ship­ment of guns and ammu­ni­tion being pre­pared accord­ing to local report­ing].

Where Are The Investigators…

As a crit­ic of the law enforce­ment process in Jamaica, I am encour­aged by the news that col­lab­o­ra­tion between local and American law enforce­ment are being pur­sued result­ing in pos­i­tive results for both coun­tries.
I have long stat­ed that the end game can­not sim­ply be to inter­cept the ship­ments, it must be a long game that includes strate­gi­cal­ly tar­get­ed col­lab­o­ra­tive inves­ti­ga­tions that traces the ship­ments of illic­it arms and ammu­ni­tion to the gen­e­sis of their existence.

The DPP laud­ably spoke to the lives that will be saved because this scum was caught and will be cool­ing his heels in an American prison.
Nevertheless, what is more, astound­ing is the DPP’s warn­ing that had Rhoomes been tried in Jamaica he would like­ly have walked free.
As I have tried to remind the Jamaican peo­ple in this medi­um, the polit­i­cal rep­re­sen­ta­tives are not doing due dili­gence on crime. This is result­ing in untold unnec­es­sary mur­ders and the resul­tant trau­ma those killings bring to ordi­nary Jamaican fam­i­lies.
The bang­ing on desks and the moron­ic infan­tile ban­ter that goes on in Gordon house does pre­cious lit­tle, if any­thing, to advance the inter­est of the nation.
The DPP can­not say it so I said it.

According to Llewelyn, “Section 4 of the Firearms Act pro­vides that the impor­ta­tion of firearms and ammu­ni­tion into Jamaica, with­out the req­ui­site license being a breach of the law. However, the Firearms Act does not pro­vide for arms traf­fick­ing as an offense. The cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing this case would be on all fours with arms traf­fick­ing”.
This is a gap­ing loop­hole in the law, no rea­son­able per­son in Jamaica or any­where else who reads this should be under any illu­sion that this is unbe­knownst to the polit­i­cal lead­er­ship on both sides of the polit­i­cal divide.
This forces the ques­tion of why?
Why would this gap­ing hole in this crit­i­cal law be left open? Could this have some­thing to do with who exact­ly is involved in bring­ing guns and ammu­ni­tion into the coun­try?
As the Government and Opposition polit­i­cal par­ty pay lip ser­vice to the epi­dem­ic of mur­der which is wreak­ing hav­oc on nor­mal peo­ple, the evi­dence sug­gests that well-con­nect­ed peo­ple are mak­ing a killing from this illic­it trade.

The DPP should be com­mend­ed for tak­ing the ini­tia­tive to spear­head the move to have the weapons found in Jamaica sent back to the United States and hav­ing the accused tried in the US know­ing the inad­e­qua­cy of local laws.
At the same time, I must chas­tise the Director for not being proac­tive enough. In fact, she has been total­ly reac­tive on this issue accord­ing to her own account­ing.
“I also under­stand that the Jamaica Constabulary Force has made rec­om­men­da­tions to the com­pe­tent author­i­ties here,(JAMAICA) for ‘a deal­ing in firearms’ pro­vi­sion to be put into the Act, and what we will do is lend sup­port to that, because it is very impor­tant”.
It is unclear whether or not there were con­sul­ta­tions between the office of the DPP and the JCF before the afore­men­tioned JCF rec­om­men­da­tions were made to the Government?
What is clear is that there should have been con­sul­ta­tions between police and pros­e­cu­tor on a mat­ter this impor­tant.
What is also cru­cial, is that the DPP knew about the police rec­om­men­da­tion and clear­ly did not add the weight of her office to it.
Actions of this nature, or more to the point a lack of action of this nature, are cer­tain­ly not to her credit.

Mike Beckles is a for­mer Jamaican police Detective cor­po­ral, busi­ness­man, researcher, and blog­ger. 
He is a black achiev­er hon­oree, and pub­lish­er of the blog chatt​-​a​-box​.com. 
He’s also a con­trib­u­tor to sev­er­al web­sites.
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