Government Incompetence & Complicity Killing Both Police And Citizens…

Every per­son, man or woman who ever raised his or her right hand and swore an oath to defend the con­sti­tu­tion and the peo­ple they intend to serve under­stood going in that they may die in the line of duty.
I, too, took that oath to defend the Jamaican Constitution and pro­tect and serve my coun­try’s peo­ple. And I, too, have the dubi­ous dis­tinc­tion of hav­ing been shot in the line of duty. It is not some­thing we crave going in, but it is some­thing every police offi­cer under­stands all too well.
Whatever the rea­son peo­ple embark on this endeav­or, be it eco­nom­ic, patri­ot­ic, or what­ev­er, I salute every well-inten­tioned per­son in Jamaica who steps for­ward to serve.
And to the ones who do so to sul­ly the agen­cy’s name, abuse the cit­i­zen­ry, and seek fame and for­tune, you will be found out soon­er or later.

Every police offi­cer who los­es their life car­ry­ing out their legit­i­mate duty or is killed because they are a police offi­cer is an attack on us all. As cit­i­zens, we must come to this under­stand­ing that police offi­cers who are act­ing in good faith to pro­tect and serve are there as a buffer between us and those who would mur­der and destroy. Consequently, we need a laser-like focus on the vital work good police offi­cers do on our behalf while we sleep in our warm beds or go about our dai­ly lives. When the bul­lets start fly­ing, and we run away, they run toward the sound of the explosions.
We as cit­i­zens have a duty and an oblig­a­tion to hon­or and respect that com­mit­ment and sacrifice.
I am not here ask­ing you to show feal­ty and blind def­er­ence to those who would dis­hon­or the badge they wear and the author­i­ty you bestowed on them. As a for­mer cop, I ask that you exer­cise the abil­i­ty to chew the meat and spit out the bones.
Are there way too many bad cops? You bet.
There are bad judges, doc­tors, nurs­es, fire­fight­ers, lawyers, phar­ma­cists, teach­ers, politi­cians, and bad actors in every oth­er dis­ci­pline. Some will read­i­ly start a fight, or worse if you dare crit­i­cize their polit­i­cal par­ty or favorite politi­cian. Yet we all know that Jamaica has some of the most cor­rupt, incom­pe­tent politi­cians liv­ing par­a­sit­i­cal­ly off the Jamaican people.

You do not dis­par­age all judges, and God knows some hor­ri­ble ones should be kicked out of the pro­fes­sion. Corrupt judges con­tin­ue to return mur­der­ers to the streets under the pre­text of lim­i­ta­tions in the bail act, even when the killers com­mit numer­ous homicides.
The sys­tem allows judges to return vio­lent mur­der­ers to the streets to kill inno­cent Jamaicans even though the bail act clear­ly states that a judge may deny bail if the accused is a flight risk, may re-offend, or may tam­per with witnesses.
Jamaican judges can be count­ed on to return vio­lent killers to the streets after the police arrest them for com­mit­ting vio­lent crimes. Nobody wants to ask, much less answer, how much mon­ey is chang­ing hands between killers, their lawyers, and the cor­rupt judges? I am ask­ing that ques­tion now, and I dare any­one to chal­lenge me on the legit­i­ma­cy of that assertion.
Take, for exam­ple, the case of Tuwaine Morrison, who was arrest­ed on mul­ti­ple charges of armed rob­bery. This mis­cre­ant was a known mur­der­er, yet a moron act­ing as a real judge released him on bail, where­after he mur­dered some­one, threat­ened oth­ers, and attempt­ed to grab an offi­cer’s gun to kill the arrest­ing officers.
This blight on soci­ety, giv­en a chance, would have exter­mi­nat­ed the offi­cers who arrived to arrest him. Thankfully, the offi­cers weren’t hav­ing any of it, and the coun­try will nev­er have to wor­ry about him any­more. But he is just one, and a dozen more are born to take his place as soon as one is exterminated.
There is absolute­ly no rea­son that the leg­is­la­ture would not take the seri­ous step to end the car­nage in our coun­try by estab­lish­ing clear laws that the coun­try will no longer stand for the may­hem and lawlessness.

Why is there no law that makes the unlaw­ful killing of anoth­er per­son pun­ish­able with a manda­to­ry thir­ty-year or life with­out parole sentence?
I’ll tell you why. Both polit­i­cal par­ties are filled with crim­i­nal­ly mind­ed individuals.
Every per­son with an ille­gal gun intends to use it to com­mit ille­gal acts, includ­ing the unlaw­ful tak­ing of life. Therefore the penal­ty for hav­ing an unreg­is­tered gun should be a manda­to­ry twen­ty years in prison.
The back­ward and regres­sive mind­set in draft­ing leg­is­la­tion that con­sid­ers the rights of crim­i­nal offend­ers is an insult to crime vic­tims. Committing a vio­lent crime is a choice; no def­er­ence should be giv­en to those who make that choice.
Let me be clear; there are cir­cum­stances under which some­one com­mits a crime unin­ten­tion­al­ly, and as such, there should be carve-outs in the law that makes room for those instances with mit­i­gat­ed sentences.
For exam­ple, two men engaged in a fist fight one punch­es the oth­er, who falls, hits his head, and dies. There was no inten­tion to com­mit mur­der, but they were still engaged in ille­gal activ­i­ty, so he must pay the price, not for mur­der but for a less­er offense.…say manslaughter.
That is a sit­u­a­tion in which a judge should have the abil­i­ty to mit­i­gate the sen­tence based on the cir­cum­stances of the case and that there was no dead­ly weapon involved.

The coun­try can­not afford to con­tin­ue along the path of appeas­ing for­eign-fund­ed, for­eign-based crim­i­nal rights lobby.
Amnesty International, Jamaicans for Justice, and the oth­er vul­tures who con­tin­ue to exist on the car­cass­es of dead Jamaicans.
No one elect­ed those for­eign-fund­ed vul­tures to lead Jamaica. The peo­ple elect­ed Andrew Holness and the Jamaica Labor Party major­i­ty to do the hard work of restor­ing the coun­try to a nation of laws. Mister Holness can­not con­tin­ue to com­plain about the PNP.
The People’s National Party is an incon­se­quen­tial crim­i­nal sup­port­ing move­ment; as such, Holness must lead with the large man­date the peo­ple gave him to effec­tu­ate change or step aside.
Where is the change?
No ratio­nal per­son expect­ed that peo­ple would be able to sleep with their win­dows or doors open. Certainly not with the bla­tant indis­ci­pline and law­less­ness that Jamaicans have been allowed to get away with, cou­pled with the pover­ty and want.
Nevertheless, the Prime min­is­ter and his par­ty can­not make the case that the crime num­bers are trend­ing in the right direc­tion under the lead­er­ship of Horace Chang and Antony Anderson.
Horace Chang is use­less, but I believe that the Police Commissioner would like to see the changes I con­tin­ue to demand. Still, the admin­is­tra­tion has been gross­ly incom­pe­tent, almost to the point of crim­i­nal com­plic­i­ty with the criminals.
How else could one char­ac­ter­ize what’s hap­pen­ing when a scofflaw dri­ver is allowed to dri­ve while ignor­ing 120 traf­fic tick­ets? Commissioner Anderson has also seen the light of the judges’ com­plic­i­ty with the vio­lent mur­der­ers, he can­not speak out, but I can.
All this is for the Andrew Holness gov­ern­ment to address, yet noth­ing is com­ing out of Gordon House to address Jamaica’s slide into the abyss of failed state­hood. We are all well aware that the Opposition PNP can­not be count­ed on to lead on crime; this is a polit­i­cal par­ty with peo­ple in it who are moti­vat­ed sole­ly by the desire to hold pow­er, noth­ing else.
These peo­ple would like to see the coun­try burned to the ground so they may rule over the ashes.
Despite this, the gov­ern­ing Labor par­ty is [not] giv­ing the peo­ple any rea­son [not] to turn to the failed, out-of-ideas People’s National Party and return them to power.

The streets are awash in guns that take the lives of Jamaicans of all walks and stripes dai­ly. I under­stand the sil­ly adage that peo­ple are get­ting killed every day. The idea that we are help­less vic­tims-to-be, unable to act as we await our turn in this dan­ger­ous game of Russian roulette, is the men­tal­i­ty of indo­lent, intel­lec­tu­al­ly chal­lenged midgets. That mind­set should be dis­card­ed as swift­ly as it comes to mind; we are not help­less vic­tims; it is up to us to deter­mine the life we want to lead and the envi­ron­ment in which we lead it.
Those guns killed Police cor­po­ral Oliver Mullings Jr last Thursday in Trench Town, a per­pet­u­al cesspool that breeds the type of killers who kill for the sake of killing. The type of killer who opened fire at a police par­ty, killing cor­po­ral Mullings in a law­less com­mu­ni­ty that has been allowed to remain so for decades. The type of killers that the judges let loose to kill again. The type of killers that the human rights lob­by sup­port. The type of killers the human rights lob­by have noth­ing to say about when they mur­der the inno­cent but a lot to say when the police send them home.
The killers who live among the peo­ple who know them, shield them and ben­e­fit from the blood mon­ey they bring into their community.
Somewhere in that com­mu­ni­ty or some oth­er cesspool, the killers of this offi­cer are laugh­ing and drink­ing because there is no ret­ri­bu­tion, and there is no heavy ham­mer of jus­tice that comes down hard on them that they have no idea what hit them.
In anoth­er com­mu­ni­ty, the killers of 22-year-old Constable Brian Martin are enjoy­ing the same reprieve because the Government and its cronies in the crim­i­nal rights fra­ter­ni­ty have defanged the police.
How can we have a coun­try where cop-killers live to drink and laugh?
Now it’s not just the inno­cent cit­i­zens who are get­ting mur­dered mer­ci­less­ly; their pro­tec­tors are too shit scared to act.
Thanks to Bruce Golding, Portia Simpson Miller, and Andrew Holness.……
A day of reck­on­ing is com­ing when there will be no safe place for any politi­cian, dirty judge, or any oth­er who enhances and facil­i­tate the law­less­ness hap­pen­ing in our coun­try; that day is clos­er than you think.

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Mike Beckles is a for­mer Police Detective, busi­ness­man, free­lance writer, black achiev­er hon­oree, and cre­ator of the blog mike​beck​les​.com.