From time to time you have seen me rail against what passes for a justice system . It has become one of the most criminally complicit systems to operate anywhere in the western hemisphere. The tragedy facing the average Jamaican is that they had gone all in on their support for the system placing immense trust in the judges more so . Unfortunately this has been a bad investment and the people are now beginning to wake up to the fact that this system is radically broken and only serves the interest of the wealthy and well connected.

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The sys­tem which exists absolute­ly work for the crim­i­nal under­world. It works for crim­i­nal defense lawyers. It works for the polit­i­cal class which sits atop the gar­ri­son cul­ture and of course the periph­er­al indus­tries which has sprung up around the death indus­try. That was borne out on Wednesday in an Observer arti­cle writ­ten by Attorney at law Linton P Gordon. Gordon’s arti­cle though cor­rect on the law revealed an incred­i­ble tone-deaf­ness of what peo­ple are com­plain­ing about that could only be made pos­si­ble by the insu­lar space he and oth­ers like him occu­py despite the rag­ing debate.
In an arti­cle ref­er­enc­ing the recent acquit­tal of Patrick Powell of the charge of mur­der Gordon wrote: Whether we like it or not, the jus­tice sys­tem worked perfectly.

I have con­sis­tent­ly spo­ken to the rapa­cious nature of crim­i­nal defense lawyers. In Jamaica it is even more evi­dent con­sid­er­ing the close asso­ci­a­tions between dan­ger­ous crim­i­nals and crim­i­nal defense lawyers. It must nev­er be for­got­ten that lawyers, even crim­i­nal defense lawyers are offi­cers of the courts.
In most cas­es the lines between lawyers and their clients are indiscernible.
In his arti­cle Gordon states what most Jamaicans who ever set foot in an ele­men­tary school already knew.

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Whether we like it or not, the jus­tice sys­tem worked perfectly.
For whom?

Following on the collapse of the case, and the inevitable verdict of acquittal in favour of the accused Patrick Powell, there have been widespread discussions and emotional outbursts as to how the case came to an end. Several of the discussions lack an understanding and appreciation of the process by which a person is tried in our courts. They also lack an understanding of the respective roles of the defence and the prosecution in a trial.

In our system of law, it is the duty of the Crown, ie the prosecutor, to prove the case brought beyond a reasonable doubt. That is to say, a judge or jury should only convict an accused person if they are sure beyond a reasonable doubt that the person is guilty as charged. To reach this stage of a guilty verdict the prosecution must adduce credible evidence, so that having heard the total case of the prosecution, the jury will be convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that Powell, in this case, is guilty. The prosecution therefore faced an insurmountable barrier to prove their case beyond a reasonable doubt when the main witness stated that he could not identify the person who did the shooting.

Whether we like it or not, given that the prosecution was relying on this witness primarily, when the witness gave evidence of not being able to identify Powell as the shooter, the prosecution’s case was all but destroyed. The prosecution, from what is learnt, had no other evidence, forensic or otherwise, to place the then accused at the scene of the shooting, nor to identify him as the person who did the shooting. This is the harsh reality of what happened to this case and we must accept that the judge and prosecutor did what was professionally required of them. Indeed, the judge had no choice but to direct the jury to return a verdict of not guilty after the prosecution offered no further evidence, given that the evidence on record so far was not sufficient to convict the accused. We must also remember that an accused has no duty to prove his innocence. Powell therefore could not have been called upon to prove that he was not present at the scene of the shooting or that he was not the one who did the shooting. An accused person is entitled to remain silent from beginning until the end as there is no duty on him to prove his innocence.

Given what is said so far, it is wrong for people to seek to condemn the justice system as being defective. The justice system worked perfectly and properly in the X6 case. If anything went wrong, it was not with the justice system, but with the investigation of the case and evidence that was available. The main witness denied giving or signing a statement that was put to him as his statement. As in several cases that come before the court, we will never know for sure whether the denial is a truthful denial or if it’s a denial that is not factual. At the end of the day, we should respect the workings of our justice system and avoid emotional outbursts when results are rendered with which we are not happy. It is better for a thousand guilty individuals to escape conviction than for an innocent man to be convicted and punished based on emotions rather than facts and evidence.

Ours is a well-established, tested and reliable system by which we establish guilt in our courts. The system works fairly well in this country. If we replace it with subjective beliefs and emotionalism we will be submitting to the tyranny of those “in the know”, and several of us not “in the know” will find that our rights will be abrogated and we will be accused, convicted and punished by those “in the know” and not by a system of justice that we have now which is grounded in law. Our justice system worked properly and rendered the correct verdict based on the evidence available in the X6 case. It is therefore wrong to direct dissatisfaction with the verdict at our justice system.

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Linton Gordon did not miss the let­ter of what is being borne out in the pain and dis­gust of the peo­ple, he got that . He recit­ed the let­ter of the law.
What he missed is the spir­it of the pain. !!!~!
There is the let­ter of the law , and then there is the spir­it of the law. Linton Gordon is a lawyer he nailed the let­ter down. What he missed is the spir­it of the law , the rea­son why the laws were passed in the first place.
The laws are made for the peo­ple , peo­ple are not made for the laws . The peo­ple have every right to com­plain , and mil­i­tate against the laws if their inter­est are not being served.
This small fact seemed to have elud­ed Gordon.
What I find par­tic­u­lar­ly galling is this nar­ra­tive that the flawed jus­tice sys­tem is above being crit­i­cized. I heard that very same argu­ment dur­ing the X6 tri­al , before the case was tossed of course.
The tri­al judge seemed to believe that there is some­thing sac­ri­le­gious about crit­i­ciz­ing the sys­tem . This is the very same argu­ment being prof­fered by Linton Gordon.
What is clear is that the tri­al judges and their cohorts with­in the crim­i­nal defense space are yet to receive the memo that the peo­ple are onto them and their schemes.

It is ridicu­lous to sit in ivory tow­ers and speak in grandiose terms about a jus­tice sys­tem which has turned out to be a shit-stem.
Reciting the let­ter of the law when peo­ple are cry­ing out that the very same laws are not work­ing does noth­ing to ame­lio­rate the con­cerns and pain of the people.
We know what the laws are , we are say­ing that the sys­tem as it exist is not working.
Ten times ten is equal to a hun­dred , yet if we arrived at the tens incor­rect­ly or through less than legit­i­mate means , it mat­ters not that the sum total is cor­rect the results will always be ques­tion­able, always be flawed.

Arguing that the sys­tem worked per­fect­ly is a poke in the eye of the fam­i­ly of Khajeel Maias. It is bla­tant dis­re­spect to the dead 17-year-old vic­tim and all of the oth­er Jamaicans who have been vic­tim­ized by the jus­tice sys­tem after being vic­tim­ized by crime.
The sys­tem itself has been ren­dered irrel­e­vant as is evi­denced by the crime statistics.
It has been ren­dered bro­ken by the Kern Spencer light bulb tri­al in which a par­ti­san polit­i­cal res­i­dent mag­is­trate moved every foun­da­tion pil­lar to free a politi­cian accused of a crime in a clear cut case in which he should have been impris­oned. Lets stop with the cha­rade that there is a jus­tice sys­tem there isn’t, where else in the west­ern hemi­sphere could a res­i­dent mag­is­trate over rule the law to set a crim­i­nal sus­pect free with­out a jury even hav­ing heard the case against him?
It has been ren­dered bro­ken in the fact that no politi­cian has ever been impris­oned despite the bil­lions and bil­lions of dol­lars of theft com­mit­ted by mem­bers of the past administration.

It has been proven bro­ken by the fail­ure of the sys­tem to pros­e­cute polit­i­cal thugs. Those in the gar­risons as well as those in the parliament.
It is a bro­ken sys­tem which has politi­cians who are not allowed to trav­el to the United States sit­ting in the parliament.
There is so much to be said about the bro­ken down decrepit sys­tem which keeps mur­der cas­es in the sys­tem until wit­ness­es are frus­trat­ed, dead , or just does­n’t care anymore.
The jus­tice sys­tem is a bro­ken sys­tem, which serves the inter­est of crim­i­nals and their defense attor­neys it serves the inter­est of cer­tain judges out­side what many Jamaicans are pre­pared to believe.

So of course the sys­tem worked per­fect­ly as far as Linton Gordon and oth­ers are con­cerned . Their inter­ests are guar­an­teed under this cha­rade which pass­es for a crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem, it caters to the needs of depraved mur­der­ers and those who work for them are or oth­er­wise asso­ci­at­ed with them.
Maybe it’s time this lawyer begin by shed­ding the clown suit he is wear­ing and maybe , just maybe, he will begin to under­stand what the man on the street sees.
Word of warning,this igno­ble sys­tem is even­tu­al­ly going to come crash­ing down soon­er or later.

I am angry though totally not surprised that coming upon a year since the Jamaica Labor Party (JLP) took over the government it has not figured out a way to deal with crime.

There is no excuse for the Administration , it has had more than ample time to fig­ure out at least that there will nev­er be pros­per­i­ty of any kind for the Jamaican peo­ple unless they are reori­ent­ed away from the accep­tance of crim­i­nal­i­ty as a way of life onto a path of sus­tain­abil­i­ty through hard work , edu­ca­tion and their entre­pre­neur­ial spirit.
The (JLP) is not a par­ty of total dunces , so there can be no legit­i­mate claim of bring­ing pros­per­i­ty to the peo­ple in this cesspool of mur­der and mayhem.
There are peo­ple with­in the par­ty who fun­da­men­tal­ly under­stand the cumu­la­tive neg­a­tive effect crime has on societies.
According to a study done by (uc​.davis​.edu) ear­ly life expe­ri­ences appear like­ly to have an espe­cial­ly strong influ­ence on the devel­op­ment of crim­i­nal­i­ty because indi­vid­u­als acquire their traits sequentially.
This makes it all the more impor­tant that a way be found toward reori­ent­ing the nation away from this love affair it has with crime and crime figures.
Jamaica has had more than enough warn­ings that this can­cer of crime is not get­ting bet­ter . In fact the Island’s crim­i­nals in 2010 showed what they had pre­vi­ous­ly not demon­strat­ed , that is that they are not afraid to chal­lenge the very legit­i­ma­cy of the state.
That oppor­tu­ni­ty should nev­er have been wast­ed. A deci­sive blow should have been dealt the crim­i­nal under­world . It was not done.
The peo­ple’s nation­al par­ty did not sup­port an exten­sion of the lim­it­ed state of emer­gency the JLP admin­is­tra­tion want­ed. The PNP has dozens of gar­risons and hun­dreds of crim­i­nal thugs under arms.

The (JLP) admin­is­tra­tion could have gone ahead and got­ten that approval from the Governor General if it want­ed to, let’s remind our­selves of that fact. The admin­is­tra­tion chose not to for pure­ly polit­i­cal purposes..
The larg­er issue how­ev­er was not about who sup­port­ed an exten­sion of a lim­it­ed state of emer­gency as against who did not.
The larg­er issue is about the fail­ure of both par­ties to come togeth­er and face up to the fact that the gar­ri­son sys­tem they both sup­port­ed was indeed an exis­ten­tial threat to the country.
Instead both par­ties went to their respec­tive cor­ners hard­ened in their desire to con­tin­ue with their nar­row par­ti­san ambi­tions to place per­son­al and par­ti­san gain over the wel­fare of the country.
This con­firms what most peo­ple already knew, that both par­ties are part of the prob­lem and are unlike­ly to be a part of the solution.

We sow an act and reap a habit: We sow a habit and reap a char­ac­ter: We sow a char­ac­ter and reap a des­tiny. William Black (1893.
The root caus­es of crime [are] pover­ty, unem­ploy­ment, under­em­ploy­ment, racism, poor health care, bad hous­ing, weak schools, men­tal ill­ness, alco­holism, sin­gle-par­ent fam­i­lies, teenage preg­nan­cy, and a soci­ety of self­ish­ness and greed. Patrick V. Murphy (1985) for­mer NYPD Commissioner.
The chal­lenge for the admin­is­tra­tion has always been and still remain how to craft a way for­ward in light of the exist­ing real­i­ties while deal­ing with the exis­ten­tial threat the nation faces as a result to the wors­en­ing crime situation.
It has had ample time to craft a seri­ous strat­e­gy while in oppo­si­tion (crit­ics go to hell), it clear­ly did not do so.
Selling pros­per­i­ty to peo­ple in a cesspool of crime and inse­cu­ri­ty is like sell­ing bas­kets to peo­ple who are in des­per­ate need of con­tain­ers to hold water.
Crime on the Island is not a thing which can be set to the side. It is an ever increas­ing phe­nom­e­non which will ulti­mate­ly enve­lope the coun­try and all with­in it . Grill for­ti­fi­ca­tions have seri­ous limitations.
There is no solu­tion to the Island’s crime prob­lem which will not result in dirty hands. There is no solu­tion which will not elic­it howls of con­dem­na­tion from mon­day morn­ing quar­ter­backs and grand­stand­ing pontificates.

Jamaica is not a devel­oped country.
Applying beau­ti­ful wall­pa­per to brit­tle old walls does not a house make. It cre­ates a safe­ty haz­ard for prospec­tive occu­pants of that house. Crumbling walls cre­ates a seri­ous haz­ard for peo­ple liv­ing with­in those walls.
People liv­ing in a coun­try with a faux sense of secu­ri­ty are prone to hav­ing seri­ous wake­up calls , or prob­a­bly not wak­ing up at all.
The Country has been mis­led for decades., Jamaica has been led by a few peo­ple most of whom attend­ed the same University which is by and large a caul­dron of left wing ideology.
They make the rules, they con­trol all of the power.
Defense Attorneys dou­ble as Legislators, who head Garrisons, the Garrisons are kept in place by hood­lums who kill, extort and ter­ror­ize cit­i­zens into submission.
The lawyer/​politician/​member of par­lia­ment all in the body of one per­son is friend to the judge who is hear­ing the case which he is defend­ing the mur­der­ing thug from the garrison.

The attor­ney and the tri­al judge drink at the same spot. They are part of the same lit­tle pen­ny-mil­lion­aire club. They coex­ist with­in the same small space.
What made you think you were about to receive jus­tice when your kid is gunned down by some­one with a lit­tle mon­ey to spread around?
What made you believe you mattered?
The aver­age per­son has­n’t mat­tered since the Island sup­pos­ed­ly gained its inde­pen­dence. They do not mat­ter now.

Criminal defense lawyers and peo­ple who head gar­risons are not going to all of a sud­den become ratio­nal law and order legislators.
The likes of KD Knight, Delroy Chuck, AJ Nicholson, Mark Golding, etal were nev­er going to be stal­warts fight­ing for the demise of criminality.
Granted that there are many more with­in both polit­i­cal par­ties who sure­ly will not sup­port strong leg­is­la­tion to reduce crime we also under­stand that as a rule the People’s National Party has zero inten­tion of root­ing out crime from the country.

The small city-state of Singapore is held up by many in Jamaica as a place mod­eled after the Jamaican sys­tem of gov­ern­ment. Singapore accord­ing to wikipedia is not­ed for its effec­tive, prag­mat­ic and incor­rupt gov­er­nance and civ­il ser­vice, which togeth­er with its rapid devel­op­ment poli­cies, is wide­ly cit­ed as the “Singapore model”.
While Jamaicans are quick to talk about the eco­nom­ic gains made by Singapore with­in a short span of time what they neglect to talk about is the strict laws which gov­ern the small city state nation. There is a manda­to­ry death penal­ty for mur­der, as well as for cer­tain aggra­vat­ed drug-traf­fick­ing and firearms offences.
Amnesty International always quick to point out per­ceived faults of small devel­op­ing nations, argues that Singapore’s sys­tem con­flicts with the pre­sump­tion of innocence.
What is impor­tant is that accord­ing to Transparency International Singapore has been rat­ed one of the least cor­rupt coun­tries in the world.
Additionally the World Justice Project’s Rule of Law Index ranked Singapore among the top coun­tries sur­veyed with regard to “order and secu­ri­ty”, “absence of cor­rup­tion”, and “effec­tive crim­i­nal justice.wikipedia.

There is much hand-wring­ing in cer­tain quar­ters regard­ing the actions being under­tak­en by Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte. Nicknamed “the pun­ish­er” for his hard-line approach to tack­ling crime while he was may­or of Davao city in the country’s south, Duterte had made fight­ing drug crime one of the main plat­forms of his elec­tion campaign.
Call Duarte what­ev­er you want, but there is no deny­ing that he rec­og­nizes the ram­pant crim­i­nal­i­ty which is utter­ly destroy­ing the very fab­ric of his country.
Duarte assured the police he would defend them if they were faced with charges of vio­lat­ing human rights while car­ry­ing out his anti-drug campaign.

No one has this kind of balls in our crim­i­nal­ly com­plic­it country.
Whether one endors­es Duarte’s meth­ods is not the issue . The issue is that President Rodrigo Duarte under­stands the exis­ten­tial threat crime and cor­rup­tion pos­es to the Philippines and he is tak­ing a stand.
Whether one agreed with the meth­ods of Los Pepe in Colombia in that nation’s strug­gles against becom­ing a nar­co state does not mat­ter. What mat­tered is that the actions of los pepes saved Colombia from the chok­ing ten­ta­cles of nar­co ter­ror­ism which seri­ous­ly threat­ened the exis­tence of that country.
Allowing a few grandiose unex­posed pen­ny mil­lion­aires who all attend­ed a small third world col­lege to cause the death of an entire coun­try much larg­er than Singapore should nev­er be tolerated.
President Duarte told the Judiciary in his coun­try “I will impose “mar­tial law” if you infringe upon my plan to erad­i­cate drugs and cor­rup­tion our country —
Jamaican judges, legal schol­ars, and it’s elites should nev­er be allowed to stop con­crete mea­sures to seri­ous­ly send a clear mes­sage that crime will not be tolerated.
Unfortunately this gov­ern­ment does not have the balls to do it.
So the peo­ple will even­tu­al­ly have to do it on their own sadly.……

For years since the INDECOM Act was passed this writer has said that the law is bad , it is costing lives, it is driving crime upward.
Many good people have pushed back at my arguments understandably , they were just happy that there was now some real oversight of what they saw as an out of control police force.

Why Would Jamaica’s Security Forces Stick Their Necks Out .….….…

The truth is that among the good peo­ple, were some who weren’t as right­eous. They want­ed as much shack­les on the Police force as pos­si­ble. Without minc­ing words , it’s impor­tant that we call it as we see it.
There is no deny­ing that the police depart­ment has done much to bring onto itself some of the pick­le it has found itself in. But we also know that the polit­i­cal direc­torate has done even more to ren­der the force impotent.
https://​mike​beck​les​.com/​m​o​r​e​-​p​e​o​p​l​e​-​l​e​n​d​i​n​g​-​t​h​e​i​r​-​v​o​i​c​e​s​-​t​o​-​t​h​e​-​c​a​l​l​-​t​o​-​r​e​v​a​m​p​-​r​e​v​i​e​w​-​r​e​-​a​u​t​h​o​r​i​z​e​-​t​h​e​-​i​n​d​e​c​o​m​-​a​ct/
They cre­at­ed with­in the JCF the pos­si­bil­i­ty for the chil­dren of their friends in cer­tain cir­cles, to enter the depart­ment and attain the rank of assis­tant com­mis­sion­er of police with­out ever mak­ing an arrest or hav­ing the slight­est idea how to fill out a charg­ing affidavit.
The sto­ries my sources relate to me are many. People giv­en posi­tions of lead­er­ship yet hav­ing to ask the peo­ple they are lead­ing how to do the leading.
Owen Ellington was an enabler of this pol­i­cy. Many used these assis­tant Superintendent posi­tions as rest stops to con­tin­ue their stud­ies then move on after they receive their grad­u­ate degrees.
Of course the aver­age “Grunt” who play by the rules, can­not get time off to attend a sem­i­nar much less attend college.

It was dif­fi­cult for some­one like me who sup­port law enforce­ment to be heard amidst all the noise ema­nat­ing from the hoopla, that final­ly some­thing was being done to the wicked evil police.[sic] Speaking of the INDECOM Act.
Now, nev­er mind that over­sight is always need­ed , the police already had over­sight. Oversight which was far more effec­tive but far less acri­mo­nious . Oversight which was car­ried out by police and civil­ians com­bined that did not endan­ger police.
The prob­lem was nev­er a lack of over­sight for police as many believed . It was a fail­ure of recruit­ment and effec­tive back­ground checks.
https://​mike​beck​les​.com/​f​a​c​t​s​-​o​n​-​t​h​e​-​s​i​d​e​-​o​f​-​t​h​o​s​e​-​o​p​p​o​s​e​d​-​t​o​-​i​n​d​e​c​om/

It must be under­stood that when a police offi­cer goes out and join with oth­er crim­i­nals to rob and harm cit­i­zens that’s not a mat­ter for over­sight. When police offi­cers catch them they are treat­ed like every oth­er crim­i­nal. When Cops com­mit crimes that’s not some­thing which requires an INDECOM type investigation.
It is a fail­ure of recruit­ment, train­ing, super­vi­sion among oth­er things.
To con­flate the entire­ty of what police offi­cers do when they fall afoul of the laws is to ignore facts and embrace demagoguery.

Just As Oversight Was Warranted For The Police It Is Warranted For INDECOM.…

THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NO MERIT TO THE ARGUMENTS MADE BY TERRENCE WILLIAMS, THAT IF OFFICERS DO THEIR JOBS PROPERLY THEY HAVE NOTHING TO WORRY ABOUT !!!!

When Terrence Williams say police offi­cers have noth­ing to fear if they do their jobs with­in the laws he is speak­ing as an igno­rant bystander who was giv­en much pow­er by a bunch of igno­rant law­mak­ers who did not do due dili­gence before they passed a bad law .
Scenario # 1
Police go into gar­ri­son com­mu­ni­ty and con­front heav­i­ly armed men.
Men lay down fire.
Police take cov­er return fire.
Criminal gets killed , friends lay down cov­er­ing fire and retrieve the weapon.
By the time the police take con­trol of the scene the oth­er shoot­ers escape with the weapons.
The police are left with a dead man and no gun.
Community comes out on Don’s orders and cries murder.
Cops have body no gun.
Police gets charged , sus­pend­ed , five years with­out any income, .
Who feeds his family?
Who pays his legal bills?
Were these offi­cers in the wrong?
https://​mike​beck​les​.com/​f​i​g​h​t​i​n​g​-​w​i​t​h​-​p​o​l​i​c​e​-​o​f​f​i​c​e​r​s​-​c​i​t​i​n​g​-​t​h​e​-​i​n​d​e​c​o​m​-​a​c​t​-​i​s​-​s​i​l​l​y​-​a​n​d​-​d​a​n​g​e​r​o​us/

Scenario #2
Police offi­cer tries to write a taxi dri­ver a tick­et after who refus­es his com­mand to move from an ille­gal­ly parked position.
Driver refus­es to hand over his dri­ver’s licence and starts to fight the officer.
Crowds quick­ly con­verge , egging the offend­er on.
The offend­er strug­gles with offi­cer and tries to dis­arm him of his weapon.
Officer man­ages to pull his weapon and neu­tral­izes the threat to his life.
Crowd alleges murder.
Media sells the sto­ry as “cop kills unarmed hard work­ing cab­bie”
Officer is sus­pend­ed with­out pay , los­es the weapon he has to pro­tect his life. Charged with Murder on con­coct­ed lies.
Loses his salary so he is unable to find legal fees to secure qual­i­ty defense.
Unable to feed his fam­i­ly, unable to pay his mortgage/​rental.
Was this offi­cer in the wrong?

INDECOM Boss Understands The Value Of Media-whoring.….

The stark real­i­ty is that this whole notion that police offi­cers doing the right thing has noth­ing to fear from this mon­strous crim­i­nal empow­er­ment law is ridiculous .
I say to the rank and file police offi­cers , as long as your free­doms are threat­ened and they refuse to see what you face shoul­der your weapons.
Let the bod­ies pile up . Let Terrence Williams go out and deal with it.
Committee chair­man Wykeham McNeill said that “if the prob­lems between both par­ties are not resolved the coun­try could see ris­ing crime rates”.
I won­der what rock this idiot has been liv­ing under,?
The coun­try could see ris­ing crime? This inane and total­ly moron­ic state­ment typ­i­fies what many of us already knew , these guys are woe­ful­ly obliv­i­ous of what is hap­pen­ing around them. When was crime not rising?

Conversely , here’s what Juliet Holness wife of the Prime Minister and mem­ber of par­lia­ment had to say.

“When you speak to offi­cers they tell you: They don’t give a darn what we are say­ing to them and what an MOU says because at the end of the day ‘my pay is what will be affect­ed. I am the one who will have to sit down at home until this is resolved and pos­si­bly I will have to find addi­tion­al mon­ey to pay an attor­ney, so it is safer for me to col­lect my pay and shut up my mouth and don’t stick my neck out if I see any­thing going wrong and go to my home because of INDECOM’.”

Jamaica Got To Where It Is By Ignoring Facts And Embracing This.….

It was utter dis­re­spect of the police , mil­i­tary and the men and women of the cor­rec­tion­al depart­ment why the gov­ern­ment of Bruce Golding with the acqui­es­cence of the oppo­si­tion PNP passed this mon­strous law on the demand of Jamaicans for Justice Carolyn Gomes and the pha­lanx of oth­er peo­ple who make a liv­ing on the blood of dead cops.
Then they gave a National hon­or to Gomes. That National Honor is a mill­stone around the neck of Carolyn Gomes .
It is tar­nished with the blood of dead cops. It ought to be like a dead weight tied to a drown­ing man around the neck of Carolyn Gomes. It should haunt her for as long as she live.-

Imagine the arro­gance of draft­ing leg­is­la­tion which will sig­nif­i­cant­ly impact the lives of peo­ple who are tasked with plac­ing their lives on the line for the pro­tec­tion of oth­ers with­out ask­ing their opinion.
Imagine the sense of elit­ism which pre­cedes the notion of draft­ing and pass­ing leg­is­la­tion sole­ly on the say-so of a spe­cial inter­est group.
Well this is Jamaica at it’s best, lazy, incom­pe­tent, dolts mas­querad­ing as lawmakers .
In this medi­um I point­ed out that the law can­not ade­quate­ly serve the pur­pose which it was sup­posed to pri­mar­i­ly because the mem­bers of the secu­ri­ty forces did not get to add their input.
We made it clear that the law would cost lives.
It has.
We made it clear the law would embold­en criminals.
It has.
We made it clear that the law would increase crime .
It has.

Committee mem­ber Fitz Jackson added that INDECOM reports to the Parliament and as such the PAAC, in its full report to the House of Representatives should pro­pose an inter­ven­tion strat­e­gy to address the senior cop’s con­cern. “None of us are God unto our­selves,” Jackson said not­ing that the INDECOM Commissioner has to be account­able to the Jamaican Parliament.

In our relent­less push to bring this to the atten­tion of the Jamaican peo­ple I have con­sis­tent­ly said that the very idea that INDECOM would agree to a mem­o­ran­dum of under­stand­ing between the agency and the police depart­ment is a tac­it under­stand­ing at the min­i­mum that the law is bad.
That some­one of the char­ac­ter of Terrence Williams would want to be par­ty to a MOU is a seri­ous sign that he wants the grow­ing real­iza­tion that the laws is inher­ent­ly bad to go away.

https://​mike​beck​les​.com/​s​e​n​i​o​r​-​c​o​p​s​-​b​l​a​m​e​-​i​n​d​e​c​o​m​-​b​o​s​s​-​s​t​a​n​d​-​o​f​f​-​p​o​l​i​ce/
As I said then it is appease­ment to those who are call­ing for the repeal of the law.
As I said then and con­tin­ue to believe today a MOU can­not fix this hor­rif­ic law. The Law should be repealed.
That the Public Administration and Appropriations Committee (PAAC) of Parliament hear­ing tes­ti­mo­ny of the rela­tion­ship between the two agen­cies now rec­og­nizes that a MOU can­not fix these struc­tur­al issues is encouraging.

What is need­ed now is lead­er­ship at the high­est lev­el. As the chief of defense staff said the law was enact­ed with­out zero input from the secu­ri­ty forces . Acknowledging what I have been say­ing for years. This INDECOM laws is a fraud­u­lent one sided piece of leg­is­la­tion which should nev­er have been passed.
Sure there has to be vig­i­lant over­sight of those in whom we have invest­ed great pow­er, politi­cians , police and all oth­ers. What we can­not do is ask peo­ple to risk their lives and limb to pro­tect us then imprison and ruin them when they act.
No one’s inter­est is served by the INDECOM act except Terrence Williams and criminals .
The Act must be repealed.

DEPUTY Commissioner of Police Glenmore Hinds yes­ter­day blamed much of the long-stand­ing ten­sion between the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF) and the Independent Commission of Investigations (INDECOM) on Commissioner Terrence Williams.

The high-rank­ing police­man also con­tra­dict­ed the pleas­ant pic­ture paint­ed by Williams to Parliament about the rela­tion­ship between the police and INDECOM. Williams had assured the Public Administration and Appropriations Committee (PAAC) of Parliament, when he appeared before it sev­er­al months ago, that the rela­tion­ship between INDECOM and the police was “excel­lent”. PAAC mem­ber Fitz Jackson asked Hinds, in a can­did dis­cus­sion yes­ter­day, to direct­ly address Williams’ assertion.

“The work­ing rela­tion­ship is good, but in the best of rela­tion­ships there are going to be dis­agree­ments. We try from the lead­er­ship posi­tion to indi­cate to the mem­bers that both organ­i­sa­tions are indis­pens­able to the secu­ri­ty of the country…I would not say it’s excel­lent; it’s good,” Hinds stated.

He explained fur­ther why agree­ments aris­ing out of meet­ings between heads of the JCF and INDECOM often do not see the light of day.

“The major issue we have is with the com­mis­sion­er of INDECOM. They can’t come to any agree­ment that is going to bind INDECOM unless he (Williams) agrees to it. So it is not disin­gen­u­ous of me to say that it is a good rela­tion­ship, although there are sev­er­al issues on the ground and it’s how INDECOM oper­ates, not the law, but how some per­sons in INDECOM, more so the com­mis­sion­er, applies his remit,” ACP Hines told the par­lia­men­tary committee.

Pointing to some of issues frus­trat­ing the rela­tion­ship between the JCF and INDECOM, Assistant Commissioner of Police Novelette Grant stressed that the way the police are being asked to account for their actions on the job is oner­ous. “That is the crux of the mat­ter. There is a per­cep­tion that mem­bers of the con­stab­u­lary are unwill­ing to account; that’s far from the truth. If you make the process oner­ous, then peo­ple start to weigh whether or not they can afford that process,” she said.

Meanwhile, chief of defence staff of the Jamaica Defence Force Major General Antony Anderson argued that leg­is­la­tion from oth­er juris­dic­tions, which Jamaica referred to in the craft­ing of the INDECOM Act, includes pro­vi­sions for over­sight bod­ies to gain the trust and con­fi­dence of the pub­lic and the agen­cies which they are overseeing.

He lament­ed that this was nev­er a part of the dis­cus­sion when INDECOM was being created.

“That is what has been miss­ing from the way we have been doing this here. When that philo­soph­i­cal posi­tion is not there, then there is no need to take any action to make the police con­fi­dent that they are going to be dealt with fair­ly, or any­one else. As long as it match­es the let­ter of the law, that’s good enough. Unfortunately, it is peo­ple we are deal­ing with and the peo­ple who are being over­seen are peo­ple who go out every day and risk their lives to pro­tect oth­er peo­ple,” he said.

Anderson said it is impor­tant to bring that bal­ance to the appli­ca­tion of the law in order to reas­sure the secu­ri­ty forces, as well as the public.

Permanent Secretary in the National Security Ministry Diane McIntosh said the mem­o­ran­dum of under­stand­ing (MOU) which the JCF and INDECOM are to sign with­in anoth­er week should address some of the difficulties.

But PAAC Chairman Wykeham McNeill said the issues were too deep-root­ed to be resolved by an MOU. He insist­ed that the com­mit­tee itself need­ed to take action.

The PAAC sub­se­quent­ly agreed to express its “grave” con­cern to Parliament to have the mat­ter referred to the Internal and External Affairs Committee. That com­mit­tee is expect­ed to exam­ine all the doc­u­men­ta­tion and rec­om­men­da­tions that have been pre­pared to date by all the par­ties on mea­sures to improve the rela­tion­ship between the police and INDECOM.
http://​www​.jamaicaob​serv​er​.com/​n​e​w​s​/​U​n​d​e​r​-​f​i​r​e​-​S​e​n​i​o​r​-​c​o​p​s​-​b​l​a​m​e​-​I​N​D​E​C​O​M​-​b​o​s​s​-​f​o​r​-​s​t​a​n​d​-​o​f​f​-​w​i​t​h​-​p​o​l​ice — — –_​78523

As the full shame of the Patrick Powell acquittal hits conscientious Jamaicans both at home and abroad, absent the discussion are the voices of the people who made that travesty possible.

The Island’s Commissioner of Police said he is sat­is­fied that his offi­cers did the best job they could as far as the Investigations are con­cerned. He point­ed to the Prosecuting Attorney’s state­ment laud­ing the work of the police.
I long gave up on Commissioner Williams as a cred­i­ble part of the solu­tion required to stem the tide of crime on the Island. To be fair to him how­ev­er this mur­der hap­pened before he became Commissioner of Police.
As a serv­ing mem­ber of the Police depart­ment dur­ing the 80’s to the ear­ly 90’s I under­stood the val­ue of being cre­ative , in many cas­es using noth­ing to cre­ate some­thing. Usually by just allow­ing myself to thing. Oh for the pow­er of the mind.

Nevertheless, this Commissioner of Police has had more than ample time to del­e­gate to one of the sev­er­al Deputy Commissioners or Assistant Commissioners to vet the case to see how it could be strength­ened. Granted of course that they would have had an idea what to do.
The Present Assistant Commissioner of Police who has port­fo­lio for crime Élan Powell and I served togeth­er as young offi­cers. The Constant Spring CIB was one of the best places any young Detective could learn the art of Investigations, work­ing with peo­ple like Rudolph Dwyer , Anthony Hewitt, Garnett Daley, and Noël Asphall.

Neither of these guys by them­selves were com­plete (who is) but hav­ing had the oppor­tu­ni­ty to learn what they had to impart in total­i­ty was invaluable.
Powell fan­cied him­self a schol­ar of sorts, inso­far as the depart­ment he heads is con­cerned that sense of com­mon sense and just good old fash­ioned inves­tiga­tive tech­niques have not trick­led down. Or to be char­i­ta­ble still remain to be seen.
It real­ly does not require rock­et sci­ence to do a bet­ter job today even with the lack of resources which still plague the department.
If of course the stat­ed goal is to do a bet­ter job.
The idea that Commissioner Williams and the pros­e­cut­ing attor­ney believes they did a great job is exact­ly the prob­lem with what is intrin­si­cal­ly wrong with the system.

In anoth­er few days no one will be talk­ing about the fact that Patrick Powell walked out of a court­room with­out hav­ing to account for the death of Khajeel Mais.
It will be the prover­bial nine day won­der, for many it was expect­ed , after all only the very poor go to Prison in the country.
That is well known to most peo­ple, it is a sig­nif­i­cant dri­ver of crime on the Island.
Politicians on both sides are duplic­i­tous­ly silent, so too is the legal fra­ter­ni­ty. Why you ask ? This is their cre­ation , the polit­i­cal class is quite hap­py to sit tight and wait out this 9 day won­der, soon no one will be talk­ing about this.
After all peo­ple get killed in Jamaica dai­ly , they sim­ply wash the blood away and com­mence set­ting up the sound sys­tems for the wake. Roll out the jerk drums and posi­tion the food carts, mur­der is busi­ness , this is how peo­ple eat.

In fact there are now calls from the dance­hall com­mu­ni­ty for the free­ing of one of their own Vybz Kartel after Patrick Powell was freed. Hey why not ?
I say sim­ply open the prison and jail doors and let every­one out. After all why both­er lock­ing up any­one if the process is going to be selec­tive about who gets prosecuted ?
A total­ly legit­i­mate call from the dance­hall com­mu­ni­ty . If the laws do not apply to one it should not apply to anyone.
The loop­holes in the law which allows a com­plain­ing wit­ness to says one thing in a writ­ten Affidavit, and then recant after being paid off or threat­ened have always been there.
That a wit­ness cru­cial to the pros­e­cu­tion could thumb his nose at the process with­out con­se­quence was always there.
That state­ments are not done using audio and video record­ing devices is beyond mal­prac­tice, it’s malfea­sance . How about this notion that the Police have done all they could mis­ter Commissioner ?
You can record any­thing on a sim­ple smart­phone . I would be hap­py to donate a cou­ple of video cam­eras to enhance the process.

That a mur­der sus­pect could refuse to turn over a poten­tial kill weapon when ordered to do so is out­side the bounds of out­ra­geous it is ulti­mate insanity.
The specifics in the Khajeel Mais Murder case are such that even if Patrick Powell beat the case of mur­der against him (which he should­nt) there is enough which should con­vict him and cause him to spend decades in prison.
♦ Lying to the American Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) is a seri­ous crime. Many Americans, includ­ing politi­cians have found them­selves in prison for hav­ing for­got­ten that fact.
♦Refusing to hand over a weapon which forms part of a crim­i­nal Investigation ‚( much less a homi­cide inves­ti­ga­tion) should elic­it a penal­ty of at least ten years in prison.
♦ Any evi­dence of wit­ness tam­per­ing of any kind should elic­it a min­i­mum penal­ty of five years imprisonment.
The dumb politi­cians on both sides of the divide bang on desks while hurl­ing insults and mind­less jokes at each oth­er in the Parliament instead of fix­ing these sim­ple prob­lems. There is a rea­son for their inac­tion , if these loop-holes are plugged some of them would cer­tain­ly be in jail.
They won’t be fixed because the peo­ple are con­tent with their liv­ing con­di­tions. They have resigned them­selves to the idea of sub­sa­ha­ran type exis­tence while telling them­selves they are on the path to a Scandinavian type out­come, replete with the par­lia­men­tary style democ­ra­cy inher­it­ed from the for­mer British colonizers.

There is a cer­tain type of grandiose idio­cy which becomes evi­dent when so many of them are allowed to express them­selves . It gen­er­al­ly leaves some­one like myself an eter­nal opti­mist con­vinced that there is not much hope for a turn­around because too many do not see the need to.
Then there are those who are actu­al­ly aware that the coun­try is in deep trou­ble but are inca­pable of under­stand­ing that the con­cepts they cling to will do noth­ing to fix the problem.
This is what Liberalism has done to a peo­ple . This is the result of social­ist lan­guage which teach­es that peo­ple are enti­tled to things they haven’t earned.
A Utopian con­cept of a com­mu­nal shar­ing of the pro­ceeds of the hard work of oth­ers while oth­ers sim­ply take what they haven’t earned.
That same con­cept has been applied to deal­ing with the exis­ten­tial threat seri­ous crime poses.
The huge cracks in what the Island once thought of as a jus­tice sys­tem has been exposed as a gap­ing chasm. No longer can there be any real plau­si­ble con­tention that there is a jus­tice sys­tem on the Island, with­out evok­ing howls of sar­cas­tic laugh­ter from peo­ple in the know.

I received the news pretty much how news is received today. I picked up my hand held device and it was a trending topic on several social media platforms .
X6 KILLER FREED
https://​mike​beck​les​.com/​j​a​m​a​i​c​a​n​-​p​o​l​i​c​e​-​s​t​i​l​l​-​h​a​s​-​n​o​t​-​r​e​l​e​a​s​e​d​-​n​a​m​e​-​o​f​-​s​u​s​p​e​ct/

A dear friend in-boxed me in obvi­ous anger .I told him I would have some­thing to say but not at the moment. Frankly I was stunned ‚sad, dis­ap­point­ed ‚but most of all I was angry.Sure I was angry that any­one who mali­cious­ly and will­ful­ly kill anoth­er human being could walk free from a house of jus­tice with­out con­se­quence, with­out being held to account. Sure I was angry that the par­ents of the mur­dered boy were not even giv­en the dig­ni­ty of the pre­tense that there would be jus­tice for them.

Yes I was angry but I was deeply sad at the sys­tem which had so shame­less­ly and brutish­ly said to the par­ents of Khajeel Mais ” you do not count”.
Every year , hun­dreds of Jamaicans are killed by oth­er Jamaicans .
No the coun­try is not in a declared state of war . But for all intents and pur­pos­es it does not mat­ter because each year in that tiny plot of land one of the world’s most pop­u­lous places, peo­ple turn on each oth­er with brutish mur­der­ous rage and sav­age­ly snuff out each oth­er’s lives with fright­en­ing dispatch.

So what was it which made this one mur­der so dif­fer­ent for me?
Frankly I don’t know , as the father of four boys at the time it pained my heart that any par­ent could lose their child that way.
That a boy rid­ing in a taxi­cab could have his brains blown out and no one arrest­ed seemed a bridge too far.
How could that kind of killing be rec­on­ciled with the catchy nar­ra­tive” jume­ka no prob­lem”?

Even with­in the con­text of the mur­der may­hem and irrec­on­cil­able non­sense of “every­thing irie mon jume­ka nice nu rass “the killing of 17 year-old Khajeel Mais shocked many.
I was stunned that this was not a shoot­ing where no one knew the killer , accord­ing to news reports the dri­ver of the cab and the shoot­er got into a heat­ed exchange after the cab­bie hit the shiny high end sport util­i­ty vehi­cle. Many Jamaicans will tell you that they too would like to shoot a taxi dri­ver as one blog­ger said recent­ly. They are usu­al­ly obnox­ious and rude and quick to threat­en or even fight oth­er motorist. They even fight the police but it just does­n’t seem with­in the realm of nor­mal­cy to sim­ply pull out a gun and start blaz­ing away.

At the time of the shoot­ing I found it odd that the police was so tight lipped about the whole inci­dent. People on the streets knew who the alleged shoot­er was and they named him . Yet the Police depart­ment whose col­lec­tive lips are usu­al­ly greased light­ning had noth­ing to say. This added to the sub­terfuge . Now the peo­ple cre­at­ed their own nar­ra­tive. This was a cover-up !

Stunned by the brazen­ness of the shoot­ing and the del­i­ca­cy with which the police was han­dling the infor­ma­tion I con­clud­ed that the shoot­er was know to them and he was no ordi­nary “dutyy fut bway pon di kana”.
I became per­son­al­ly immersed in want­i­ng to get to the bot­tom of this par­tic­u­lar case and so I cre­at­ed my own Blog on this case alone . I had seen too many instances of injus­tice as a police offi­cer and in the years after I depart­ed the force, it became clear­er by the day that the coun­try was slid­ing deep­er and deep­er into the abyss of anar­chy from which it will not be able to extri­cate itself . Chatt​-​a​-box​.com was born.
https://​mike​beck​les​.com/​a​l​l​e​g​e​d​-​k​i​l​l​e​r​-​o​f​-​k​h​a​j​e​e​l​-​m​a​i​s​-​c​h​a​r​g​ed/

From the begin­ning of the killing of young Khjeel Mais some­thing seemed bla­tant­ly amiss. The police seemed reluc­tant to divulge the name of the shoot­er even though every­one in the streets knew who he was. They also knew that he had fled the Island for the United States . They knew that there were also sup­posed back door deals between his lawyer Patrick Atkinson to have him return to the Island to face charges.

Now lets begin with first under­stand­ing that from the Police ‘s own account­ing Mister Patrick Powell whom they reluc­tant­ly named was a reg­is­tered firearm hold­er. After Powell returned to the juris­dic­tion he was charged.
Now here is where this whole thing revealed for all the world to see that the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem on the Island is real­ly a crim­i­nal’s sys­tem of justice.
The police report­ed that Powell refused to hand over to the inves­ti­gat­ing offi­cers, the kill weapon for test­ing. Let that sink in !!!
Despite this egre­gious dis­re­spect­ful act of thumb­ing his nose at the rule of law Patrick Powell was grant­ed bail in a Kingston crim­i­nal court.

Not only had he fled the juris­dic­tion which is a crit­i­cal com­po­nent for refus­ing bail. He refused to com­ply with the law to sur­ren­der his gun to the police as he should, as a sus­pect under inves­ti­ga­tion for a vio­lent crime in which his weapon was alleged­ly the weapon used in the com­mis­sion of said crime.
From the killing occurred tongues start­ed wag­ging that Powell was a so-called busi­ness­man with con­nec­tions to both polit­i­cal par­ties. More impor­tant­ly the alle­ga­tions were that he placed a call to a well known senior police offi­cer . It was report­ed that there was a meet­ing between Powell and the offi­cer and his gun has not been seen since.

Patrick Powell Will Get A Fair Trial, His Right To A Fair Trial Cannot Be Guaranteed At The Expense Of The Aggrieved Family’s Right To Free Speech In Their Pursuit Of Justice…

Now I would like to believe that if some­one is a reg­is­tered firearm hold­er and he alleged­ly uses that weapon to com­mit a crime he has a duty to turn the weapon over to the police when ordered to do so. I also believe it is also the law that all ammu­ni­tion in his pos­ses­sion, per­son­al or con­struc­tive must forth­with be turned over to inves­ti­ga­tors as well. Then again I have not been a cop for well over two decades.

https://​mike​beck​les​.com/​k​h​a​j​e​e​l​-​m​u​r​d​e​r​-​t​r​i​a​l​-​c​i​r​c​u​s​-​c​o​l​l​u​s​i​o​n​-​e​q​u​i​t​a​b​l​e​-​d​i​s​p​e​n​s​a​t​i​o​n​-​j​u​s​t​i​ce/
Failing to do so con­sti­tutes a crime. However Mister Powell was not charged with that crime. We under­stood also that the senior police offi­cer’s house was also searched but the weapon was not found. Whether or not this par­tic­u­lar offi­cer had any part of the grand col­lu­sion of crim­i­nal­i­ty we may nev­er know but the fam­i­ly of Khajeel Mais was bru­tal­ly gang raped by a mali­cious and vis­cous sys­tem of cul­pa­ble criminality.

Here’s why !
The Prosecution’s main wit­ness gave a wit­ness state­ment to police at the time of the shoot­ing . At the time of the shoot­ing I can tell you with­out equiv­o­ca­tion that there would be no rea­son for the wit­ness mis­ter Wayne Wright  the dri­ver of the cab to be under duress when he gave his affi­davit to police.
There was also no rea­son for the police to frame any­one as they were a dis­in­ter­est­ed par­ty mere­ly car­ry­ing out a function.
According to the tes­ti­mo­ny Wayne Wright told police that he knew Patrick Powell o/​c nig­ga Charley for over eight years.
In fact a Jamaica Observer news team also vis­it­ed Wright at his home some­time after the inci­dent and he reit­er­at­ed that he had no idea why Powell decid­ed to shoot at him? He told the news team Powell decid­ed to pay the price for killing the young man.

Much hap­pened after the accused Patrick Powell was charged with mur­der. We do not what , where , when or with whom. What we do know is why?
Patrick Powell decid­ed that he was not going to prison and the sys­tem said hell no you wont go.
Amidst the unjus­ti­fied adjourn­ments with the flim­si­est of rea­sons , with the fam­i­ly cry­ing sim­ply to have their day in court the cased commenced .
No soon­er had it begun that it became patent­ly clear that the sys­tem had col­lud­ed togeth­er. Police. Shooter. Defense-Attorneys. Prosecution-wit­ness. Judge. Prosecutor. Politicians, all wit­ting­ly and unwit­ting­ly, gang-raped the still griev­ing fam­i­ly of the slain schoolboy/.

How could a Judge order the fam­i­ly who uses the only means they had , social media to cry out for jus­tice to cease and desist because the alleged killer’s right to a fair tri­al may be compromised?
The very same court allowed the defense coun­sel to sav­age the char­ac­ter of the vic­tim­ized boy mak­ing him out to be worth­less and unde­serv­ing of the only thing he had, his life.
The pros­e­cu­tion wit­ness became hos­tile to the pros­e­cu­tion, a clear sign that he was either paid or threat­ened to lie or both.
I wrote, declare him a hos­tile wit­ness his state­ment should still stand. They did but then the pros­e­cu­tion told the court they could not over­come the crit­i­cal issue of identification.

There was no prob­lem with iden­ti­fi­ca­tion when he gave his affi­davit to police. The inci­dent did not hap­pen at night . He said he knew the shoot­er for over eight years. Clearly he is lying. But who cares this boy is a nobody. Forget that after he alleged­ly shot the boy he took a flight out of the coun­try. Forget that his reg­is­tered firearm just hap­pen to be unavailable.
It is a grave trav­es­ty that these sim­ple loop­holes could be allowed to impact a clear cut case of mur­der and an alleged guilty mur­der­er walk free.
Sure every­one is mad as hell but where was every­one when some of us were talk­ing about the loopholes .
Why are the laws not updat­ed to make it so that if a Wayne Wright ever changes his state­ment he goes to prison, and the ini­tial state­ment stand in pros­e­cut­ing a Patrick Powell.
Why are the laws not changed to make it so that if a wit­ness to a mur­der is killed before he’s able to tes­ti­fy the accused sees his charged upgrad­ed to death penal­ty status?
Why are mur­der­ers out on bail? Why are we all angry now but we chas­tised those who con­stant­ly beat the drums ask­ing for bet­ter law-mak­ers, bet­ter law-enforce­ment, bet­ter laws, bet­ter judges, bet­ter pros­e­cu­tors, a bet­ter sys­tem of justice.

How can we be angry now when we spent our time talk­ing about word puz­zles and naked ladies . What is dif­fer­ent about Khajeel that makes us feel this wretched sense of deep loss.
Since the death of Khajeel Mais I lost my son he was a good boy . No he was an excel­lent boy, he did not die like Khajeel , but like Khajeel par­ents my son isn’t com­ing back home either.
I am so sor­ry for your loss. I write this with tears in my eyes not because peo­ple do not die every­day. But I cry with you because of what the entire sys­tem col­lud­ed to do to you .
This is a most shame­ful , barefaced and dis­grace­ful smack in the face for a Jamaican fam­i­ly by a sys­tem which is sup­posed to pro­tect them.
If this does not con­vince every­one that the sys­tem needs to be over­turned and built from the ground up I don’t know what will.
PS : The state­ment of the Commissioner of Police Dr Carl Williams after the ver­dict , that the police did all they could is unwor­thy of my time as such I will sim­ply not respond that.

“Welcome to the next Medellin” said a friend to me this morning. We were discussing the murder trial of Patrick Powell playing out in a Kingston courtroom as well as the killing of a man who refused to pay his fare on a bus just this week. Killings are nothing new , in fact it has become so commonplace that there is hardly any response to them anymore. Jamaicans have come to accept death as nothing to be sorrowful about and have moved on to how the culture of killings may be exploited for financial gain .

The Medellin ref­er­ence was jar­ring­ly poignant because it has been a ref­er­ence I have used in speak­ing to what has been allowed to devel­op in Jamaica arguably for decades but which has sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly tak­en shape over the last two decades.

We can have a dis­cus­sion about crime in the abstract . You know, we can look at crime aca­d­e­m­i­cal­ly as some like to do from the halls of acad­e­mia , churn­ing out hypothe­ses devel­oped in places far away geo­graph­i­cal­ly or may be right there on the ground but are far removed from reality.
Alternatively we may dis­cuss it prag­mat­i­cal­ly and address the hard truths of what must be done if the direc­tion of the coun­try is to be altered.
Before we do that how­ev­er the crit­i­cal ques­tion of whether or not the desired end game is a crime free coun­try must be answered.

It is fun­da­men­tal that-that ques­tion be placed on the table when­ev­er the ques­tion of crime is being dis­cussed. There is a gen­er­al con­sen­sus among many Jamaicans both at home and in the dias­po­ra that crime is big busi­ness in our coun­try and as such the dif­fi­cult being expe­ri­enced in craft­ing and imple­ment­ing seri­ous anti-crime strat­e­gy may be attrib­uted to that. They point to the mas­sive increase over the years of Security com­pa­nies, funer­al par­lors, and the sec­ondary indus­tries which have sprung up around the mor­bid death culture.

There is much we can point to that has got­ten the Island to the place it is, poised teth­er­ing on the brink of becom­ing a failed state, obvi­ous to all except some liv­ing in it.
One of the great fail­ures of the Jamaican peo­ple has been they they appor­tion respon­si­bil­i­ty for violence.

SCENARIO #1
A man jumps over the wall to some­one’s home to steal some man­goes from a tree laden with ripe fruits in the front yard.
Sure the man is hun­gry we all need sus­te­nance to survive.
Out comes the home­own­er and chal­lenges the offender .
The offend­er takes umbrage and gets into a phys­i­cal con­fronta­tion with the homeowner.
The home­own­er in defense of his life and prop­er­ty pulls a weapon and kills the offender.

THE NARRATIVE
The Media and the ever present crowd which just hap­pen to always be around to wit­ness these events[sic] argues that the man was a good yute who would­n’t hurt a fly.
They demon­strate while dem­a­gogu­ing the home­own­er as a wicked per­son who killed the good yute who was starv­ing and only want some­thing to eat.
The hon­est home­own­er is demo­nized and threat­ened , his life and that of his fam­i­ly is now at risk .
He is forced to flee his home in order to pro­tect his life and that of his family.
His prop­er­ty is tak­en over by thugs.

SCENARIO#2

Same man pass­ing home sees ripened man­goes on tree in front yard.
He is hun­gry so he decides to open the gate . Sure it’s risky but a hun­gry man has to take chances.
He knocks on the grill and the home­own­er comes out onto the verandah/​porch. He tells the home­own­er that he was pass­ing and hav­ing seen the man­goes and being hun­gry he decid­ed to ask for a few mangoes.
The home­own­er sizes him up at first then decides to let him in where he is treat­ed to a meal . before he leaves the home­own­er gives him some mon­ey, allowed him to have some man­goes and offered him the oppor­tu­ni­ty to come and do some work around the house once a week so he can earn a lit­tle money .
He walks away filled, some mon­ey in his pock­et and with some man­goes . Let alone the prospect of a part time job.
But most impor­tant­ly he walked away !

Oh even when this kind home­own­er does all that, the young man turns up for work and is treat­ed well. The home­own­er leaves him in his house when he trav­els abroad .
On his return he brings all kinds of for­eign stuff for him as he does for his family.
Nevertheless the young man nev­er sat­is­fied steals the man’s car. And ulti­mate­ly brings his friend lets him into the house where he kills the homeowner.
The nar­ra­tion above are pure­ly fictional. 
This para­graph isn’t . I can­not tell you how many sit­u­a­tions I attend­ed to in which this syn­op­sis char­ac­ter­ized the sto­ry of mur­der which brought us to that home,.

Much of the prob­lems in our coun­try began because of the cul­tur­al sense that they should not have to ask for any­thing . They should be allowed to take what they want­ed and when chal­lenged sim­ply kill the owner.
Complicit in the cre­ation of that nar­ra­tive was the Media, which for years wit­ting­ly and unwit­ting­ly served as a well lubri­cat­ed con­duit for the anti rule of law nar­ra­tive. Sacrificing Journalism upon the altar of sen­sa­tion­al­ism, in order to receive a few “raaaay” even when they knew that what they were report­ing could not pos­si­bly be true.

They absolute­ly knew that the hun­dreds of wit­ness­es who turned out demon­strat­ing Police bru­tal­i­ty could not have been in the bed­room of John Brown when he was killed at 3;30 in the morn­ing. But jour­nal­is­tic integri­ty nev­er kicked in when they offer them micro­phones to lie , even though they knew they were lying.
Much the same way they pro­filed demon­stra­tors demon­strat­ing police bru­tal­i­ty signs in a case where a bus-dri­ver killed a pas­sen­ger who refused to pay his fare and attacked the dri­ver and con­duc­tor. It nev­er mat­tered to the media that there was no police involved in the shoot­ing they por­trayed it as such anyway.
No jour­nal­is­tic integri­ty. For years the media facil­i­tat­ed this fraud on the coun­try with­out being held accountable.
The Media’s sub­tle injec­tion of the word “alleged­ly” into every sto­ry com­ing from law-enforce­ment, not only aid­ed and encour­aged crime it actu­al­ly embold­ened lead­ing crim­i­nals with­in the grit­ty inner city com­mu­ni­ties to increase and uti­lize the con­cept of pro­fes­sion­al mourn­ers to chal­lenge every police shoot­ing label­ing them executions.

The fall­out from that is a balka­nized police force which under­stood that offi­cers had no sup­port and were on their own . Many good offi­cers left. Those who stayed dropped their hands. Others sim­ply chose to join the criminals.
So how did we real­ly get here?
After 1962 Jamaica was forced to fig­ure things out for itself. Sure there was rem­nants of the old colo­nial past, but as the 70′ stepped in most of the white planters had long exit­ed the stage or had sim­ply died out.
Left in their place were the mulat­toes and the new­ly mint­ed edu­cat­ed blacks. (I like to refer to them as the new neva si cum si)
This band of hyp­ocrites were quite vocif­er­ous against the dic­tates of the colo­nial mas­ters when they were sub­ject­ed to their . However once they became the new back­ra mas­sa they dou­bled down on the very same things they crit­i­cized the Colonial mas­ters about. The taste of pow­er was way too sweet to be let go , who need­ed a nation of laws?
Who need­ed a nation where lead­ers would be the every-man?

Now they were the boss­es why would they want a pro­fes­sion­al police force which could hold them accountable?
In fair­ness to them this was not con­fined just to Jamaica or even parts of the caribbean region. Drastic instances of the same abuse of pow­er in parts of Africa after the col­lapse of the British Empire pro­duced dev­as­tat­ing con­se­quences for the peo­ple out­side the tight spheres of pow­er. Blacks unac­cus­tomed to pow­er and the trap­pings in those nations refused to let go so dic­ta­tor­ships emerged every­where. So too did they appear in Latin and South America and in parts of Asia.

The new­ly mint­ed rul­ing class did not care too much about how many bod­ies piled up in polit­i­cal bat­tles as long as they can nav­i­gate the streets of the city in their ill-got­ten dark­ly tint­ed cars to their lux­u­ri­ous enclaves in the pris­tine set-aside com­mu­ni­ties of Cherry Gardens Norbrook and Jack’s hill.
In Jamaica they main­tained a sem­blance of democ­ra­cy by hold­ing elec­tions but ensur­ing that bal­lot box­es were stuffed with enough votes to guar­an­tee the out­comes they desired.
Not out­right dic­ta­tor­ships but a Dog of a dif­fer­ent name is still a Dog.
As I have said con­sis­tent­ly in this medi­um, the thing which pissed me off the most about being a police offi­cer there for the decade I served was inter­act­ing with the self appoint­ed bourjois‘.
Fake accents and the sense that the peo­ple who lived just down the road in the ghet­tos were “oth­er”.
Nothing made me more nau­seous than them ask­ing me “where were you trained” when I vis­it to deal with their reports ? As if a Jamaican police offi­cer speak­ing eng­lish and not a bro­ken mix of ebon­ics and eng­lish was an outlier.

Remember that Medellin comparison ?
Colombia could have tak­en hold of Pablo Escobar , Carlos Lehder and the mem­bers of the Medellin car­tel long before they got into cocaine pro­duc­tion and export.
They could have tak­en care of the Cali Cartels from the begin­ning when they start­ed set­ting up coca plan­ta­tions and cocaine labs in the jun­gles of Colombia.
In fact Pablo Escobar was an exporter of uncus­tomed elec­tron­ic goods into the coun­try long before he decid­ed to get involved in drugs.
Dirty pub­lic offi­cials above the police tied the hands of the Colombian police and gave infor­ma­tion about indi­vid­ual offi­cers and their fam­i­lies to ordi­nary thugs ‚. Police were forced to look away.

Long before the burn­ing of police sta­tions . Before the mas­sacre of police offi­cers. Long before zones of car­tel exclu­sion for law enforce­ment. Long before the down­ing of air­lines and attacks on the nation’s high­est courts , Colombia could have act­ed against these monsters.
Long before the sense­less killing of tens of thou­sands of inno­cent Colombians, the Colombian Government could have put an end to the shenani­gans of those com­mon thugs.
Because of the inac­tion of the Government . Because of the refusal of the Colombian Government to act for the good of the coun­try. Even if the many, or even the inno­cent can­not grasp it con­cep­tu­al­ly, a nation deserves to have a future, not as a nar­co state, not as a crim­i­nal state.
Many in Colombia were com­plic­it, many were sim­ply trapped,needing a way out.
Many in Jamaica are com­plic­it but as it was in Colombia, so too are many trapped need­ing a way out.

And then came Los Pepes !!!!!
To be continued.….….….….….….…..

Evolving democracies are constantly required to update it’s laws to keep up with the ever changing times.
With the rapid pace of technological advancement, the possibilities the internet offers for law breaking it is particularly important that laws are constantly updated and old outdated ones discarded.
Since Jamaica fancies itself an evolving democracy it is paramount that it comport itself as such . Whether it is doing enough to update it’s old archaic laws is a legitimate subject of debate. As we have seen even when lawmakers do decide to take legislative action , it is generally poorly thought through , devoid of critical empirical data and so the country ends up with bad laws which have devastating negative consequences for the country as has the INDECOM Act.

X6 TRIAL

The tri­al of Patrick Powell has com­menced in a Kingston court­room . Powell is charged with the mur­der of Khajeel Mais a 17 year old Kingston College stu­dent who was rid­ing in a taxi-cab which hit Powell’s sport util­i­ty vehicle .
The infor­ma­tion alleges that Powell embarked from his vehi­cle fir­ing a weapon which killed Mais .
That is the case for the court. The case has been lan­guish­ing since young Mais was killed in 2011.
Thus far Patrick Powell who fled the juris­dic­tion after the shoot­ing is still out on bail.
To date accord­ing to the police, Powell a sup­posed legal firearm hold­er at the time, still has not hand­ed over the kill weapon to the police as is required by law.
Despite hav­ing board­ed a flight and left the coun­try after the shoot­ing ♦ Despite hav­ing stead­fast­ly refused to turn over the kill weapon to the police he was grant­ed bail.
The fam­i­ly was forced to resort to a social media cam­paign just to get the case heard. Of course a judge quick­ly ordered the fam­i­ly to cease and desist from any protest on social media because it may jeop­ar­dize Powell’s right to a fair trial .
You sim­ply can­not make these things up.

Now that the tri­al has final­ly start­ed, the chief wit­ness in the case Wayne Wright the dri­ver of the taxi­cab, has demon­strat­ed in the court­room exact­ly what the fam­i­ly has sus­pect­ed all along.
That despite the protes­ta­tions of Patrick Powell’s lawyers and the acqui­es­cence of the tri­al judge, it is they who are being denied a fair shake in that courtroom.
The chief pros­e­cu­tion wit­ness now absolute­ly con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed, has been open­ly hos­tile to the pros­e­cu­tion , deny­ing that he ever saw who fired into his cab.
Denying that he told the police that he knew the shoot­er Patrick Powell whom he said he knew as “Nigga” for eight years.
The Jamaican media will not say it but I will . Clearly this wit­ness who almost got killed in that shootout was paid off. By whom is the real question .

From my expe­ri­ence as an inves­ti­ga­tor, there is absolute­ly no way that the Police could know that the wit­ness Wayne Wright knew the defen­dant Powell . Subsequently as long as his writ­ten state­ment giv­en to the police is in evi­dence, he stands to be treat­ed as a hos­tile wit­ness by the pros­e­cu­tion. Which I am informed has been done .
Or charge him with per­jury since there is no way that the Police inves­ti­ga­tors could pull Powell’s name out of the 2.8 mil­lion oth­er Jamaicans ‚and name him in the wit­ness state­ment unless being told he was the shoot­er by the wit­ness Wayne Wright.

The jamaican crim­i­nal courts are wont to give aid and com­fort to crim­i­nals even giv­en the most bla­tant and egre­gious instances of wit­ness tam­per­ing. There is every rea­son to believe that once again the scales of jus­tice are being tipped against the fam­i­ly of Khajeel Mais .
There are reme­dies in law to deal with this wit­ness whom clear­ly has been tam­pered with by the defense, or actors act­ing on his behalf.
Clearly the strat­e­gy is to either tam­per with this wit­ness through finan­cial coer­cion, or through intim­i­da­tion and fear.
Either way it is an out­ra­geous assault on the sys­tem of Justice and an affront to the dig­ni­ty and sense of fair­ness for the bereaved family.

Shockingly , because Powell was allowed out on bail even though he refused to turn over his weapon to the police they see this as a way to beat this mur­der case.
This shock­ing yet all too com­mon mis­car­riage of jus­tice began with shod­dy police inves­ti­ga­tion. Undue delay in bring­ing the case. Ridiculous and unwar­rant­ed delays in com­menc­ing the tri­al. An uncon­sti­tu­tion­al gag order by the tri­al judge on the fam­i­ly. Defense coun­sel’s crim­i­nal­iz­ing of the vic­tim . And now a vital pros­e­cu­tion wit­ness lying under oath with impunity.
This is the result of a crim­i­nal­ly com­plic­it jus­tice sys­tem which favors the mur­der­ers and vicious killers over decent law-abid­ing citizens.
This whole fuck­ing apple cart need to be overturned.

I have not agreed with much that Mark Shield the British Transplant who was hired years ago as part of the supposed modernization of the Jamaica Constabulary Force had to say over the years.
Truth be told I do not know Shields , he was brought into the department after I took my own leave. I was not opposed to the insertion of Mark Shields and the other transplants into the department because of their personalities or any other reason except .
I simply believed that we could have sought new ideas from sources who had them and integrate them into our circumstances without the negative white overseer imagery a British transplant inspired.

In the Daily Gleaner of Thursday October 20^th, Shields wrote a poignant let­ter to the Editor in which he laments what he sees as a deficit of will on the part of the Jamaica Constabulary Force to change.
In his let­ter Shields laments what he char­ac­ter­izes as” chal­lenges of weak man­age­ment process­es and a waste of resources for years, but there has not been suf­fi­cient will from with­in the organ­i­sa­tion to change”.
Shields argues Commissioner Carl Williams is doing an effec­tive job under the most dif­fi­cult cir­cum­stances. But insists” that until he is sup­port­ed by effec­tive man­age­ment struc­tures at all lev­els of the police ser­vice, his efforts will be futile”.

I dis­agree with his assess­ment that Williams is doing a good job, but I do agree that inef­fec­tive man­age­ment struc­tures at all lev­els are ren­der­ing his efforts futile.
Simply put , the JCF has been top heavy for years. There has been too many Deputy Commissioners, Assistant Commissioners and oth­er top lead­er­ship which were pro­duc­ing noth­ing mea­sur­able in my opin­ion dur­ing my stint and long after I exit­ed, to present day.
A leader leads , part of that lead­er­ship is to set goals and have strict sys­tems of account­abil­i­ty and mech­a­nisms for removal if tar­gets are not rea­son­ably met.
There are method­olo­gies avail­able today which weren’t avail­able to oth­er top tiered lead­ers of the past which can aid in get­ting the Commissioner’s mes­sage out if he believes there are polit­i­cal and oth­er struc­tur­al imped­i­ments to his success.

There are far too many peo­ple in top lead­er­ship posi­tions who are doing noth­ing to reduce crime. As a for­mer Member I have been mak­ing that argu­ment for years .
A police depart­ment can­not exist to pro­mote peo­ple to top posi­tions sim­ply so that they can attain and keep those posi­tions. Shields spoke to that arguing .
“Sadly, the JCF retains beliefs with­in the ranks of its senior offi­cers that they are there to serve them­selves first and the pub­lic some­where after that. The notion of hold­ing a posi­tion with an empha­sis on an indi­vid­u­al’s val­ue and role rather than rank has not changed”.

I absolute­ly con­cur . This par­tic­u­lar per­cep­tion seemed to be the pre­vail­ing nar­ra­tive which exist­ed in the 80’s to ear­ly 90’s when I served . People seemed to believe in attain­ing rank for the sake of attain­ing rank.
This process allowed for offi­cers to rise to top spots with­out the abil­i­ty to do actu­al polic­ing. They attained rank through cur­ry­ing favor , nepo­tism, news car­ry­ing, sleep­ing with the boss, servi­tude to the boss, among oth­er less than mer­i­to­ri­ous means.
Invariably they end up unable to per­form at their rank lev­els because they did not earn those ranks meritoriously.
The unin­tend­ed con­se­quences of this is that peo­ple who entered with the best inten­tions and demon­strat­ed with con­sis­tent effec­tive­ness, best prac­tis­es became demoralized.
Most left the depart­ment. Left in their wake were and are some of the peo­ple who had no clue what they were doing or how to do the job effectively.
The job of polic­ing was left to peo­ple total­ly unpre­pared to a large extent to do the job.
If you can­not do the job you can­not teach peo­ple to do it effec­tive­ly either.

Shields list­ed some rec­om­men­da­tions which this writer has made in this very forum for years. Quote: “There are a few rec­om­men­da­tions of what may be done to change course. None of them are new but mere­ly a regur­gi­ta­tion of ideas put for­ward by myself and oth­ers for over ten-years”:
See rec­om­men­da­tions here:http://​jamaica​-glean​er​.com/​a​r​t​i​c​l​e​/​l​e​t​t​e​r​s​/​2​0​1​6​1​0​2​0​/​l​e​t​t​e​r​-​d​a​y​-​j​c​f​-​n​e​e​d​s​-​w​i​l​l​-​w​i​t​h​i​n​-​c​h​a​nge

There is a strain with­in the Jamaican soci­ety which inar­guably has always seen itself above the laws.
It’s one of the issues I have con­sis­tent­ly point­ed to as part of the gar­den sal­ad of issues which has con­tributed to the cul­ture of crime in our country.
This Elitist cadre of peo­ple have always believed that the laws were only applic­a­ble to the low­er class of peo­ple. Some may incor­rect­ly believe that this was or is a col­or thing.
It has not been whol­ly so. Some of the peo­ple who actu­al­ly think that way have far more melanin in their skin than I have yet they bought into a cul­tur­al per­cep­tion which exist­ed and has been left there as a low hang­ing fruit to be utilized.

Some of the qual­i­fy­ing char­ac­ter­is­tics for this immu­ni­ty from the rule of law have been edu­ca­tion, polit­i­cal affil­i­a­tion and now even own­ing an ille­gal gun has become a qualifier.
The Police for its part has not grown up from it’s infan­cy . By refus­ing to nip cor­rup­tion and incom­pe­tence in the bud it by default cre­at­ed INDECOM , as a force against itself.
By refus­ing to change into a pro­fes­sion­al Agency which can deliv­er the ser­vices for which it is paid it has rel­e­gat­ed itself to being super­vised even more.
This is the rea­son I have said time and again that for the most part the top-tier of the Police depart­ment has been incom­pe­tent and needs to go.
As long as the JCF refus­es to be a grown-up it will for­ev­er be sub­ject to adult super­vi­sion, and not nec­es­sar­i­ly adults who have it’s inter­est at heart .
We have seen what this kind of super­vi­sion looks like.…

“Let us walk hand in hand and help break down the bar­ri­ers in those zones of exclu­sion that cre­ate havens for criminality.”

These inspir­ing words from the 2011 prime minister’s inau­gu­ra­tion speech seem to have been for­got­ten by every­one, even the speaker.

The recent March Pen mas­sacre remind­ed many of sim­i­lar inci­dents that took place on Barnes Avenue in south St Andrew in 2005 and Lauriston in St Catherine in 2011.

“October 5, 2005 is not a date that Randall Brown will for­get. Residents remem­ber the blood-cur­dling screams of his 10-year-old niece, Sasha Brown, as she called out to her neigh­bours for help as fire rav­aged the house she was locked in. The house was shot up and set on fire by masked gun­men. Gerald Brown, 60, his wife Dorcas, 50, and their daugh­ter Janice, 25, were killed along with Sasha.

http://m.jamaicaobserver.com/mobile/news/Massacre-at-Barnes-Avenue — -7-years-on_12707224)

“Church min­is­ter Charmaine Rattray and her 19-year-old daugh­ter were yes­ter­day morn­ing behead­ed by gun­men who invad­ed their Lauriston home.

“The two were attacked just after dawn by the men armed with guns and machetes and who kicked open the door to their home as they slept. The women’s heads were tak­en from the scene by the cul­prits, who had inflict­ed numer­ous chop wounds to the vic­tims’ bodies.

“Residents lis­tened and cow­ered help­less­ly as the women’s hor­ri­fied screams pierced the morning’s silence.” (

http://m.jamaicaobserver.com/mobile/news/Two-women-beheaded_9264403)

“Sombre was the gen­er­al mood yes­ter­day at 7 March Pen Road… where five per­sons, includ­ing three chil­dren, were shot, killed and their homes torched ear­ly last Sunday morning.

“Two of the chil­dren killed, accord­ing to a fam­i­ly mem­ber who request­ed that his name not be used in this sto­ry, were mur­dered exe­cu­tion style. He toldThe Gleaner that the two chil­dren, aged nine and 14 years, were tied up by the hood­lums and then shot.

“ ‘You hear like dem a kick off di gate. When dem kick off di gate, you hear explo­sion, [shots] fir­ing non-stop and a bare peo­ple a scream… All in a mi mind, ‘mi a try come to the scream­ing, but mi couldn’t because it was a lot of them and dem a fire shot.’ ” (http://​jamaica​-glean​er​.com/​a​r​t​i​c​l​e​/​l​e​a​d​-​s​t​o​r​i​e​s​/​2​0​1​6​1​0​1​1​/​f​i​e​r​y​-​s​c​r​e​a​m​s​-​k​i​d​s​-​t​i​e​d​-​s​h​o​t​-​1​4​-​y​-​o​-​p​a​r​a​l​y​sed)

We have wit­nessed so many such acts of ter­ror­ism in this sup­pos­ed­ly blessed land that we have become numb. No one even seems to care any­more when even chil­dren get mur­dered in these ‘zones of exclusion’.

We can only judge our politi­cians by what they do and not what they say. In the after­math of the Barnes Avenue inferno

Nationwide radio had a vig­il. Not a sin­gle politi­cian from either side turned up. Not then prime min­is­ter, P J Patterson. Not then Opposition leader, Bruce Golding. Not then min­is­ter for chil­dren affairs, Portia Simpson Miller. Not then area Member of Parliament, Omar Davies.

Reducing crime in Jamaica is going to be an obvi­ous­ly com­plex long-term under­tak­ing. Showing you care about the vic­tims of crime, par­tic­u­lar­ly the chil­dren, is not.

When chil­dren are burned to death and heads chopped off, is it too much to expect our polit­i­cal lead­ers to demon­strate human decen­cy and compassion?

This time around, media pres­sure has forced our elect­ed heads to show some lev­el of con­cern for the fam­i­ly of the vic­tims. Both mum­bled the usu­al, “We must stop these das­tard­ly crim­i­nal acts.” And near­ly a week after the March Pen slaugh­ter, Opposition Leader Portia Simpson Miller actu­al­ly showed up at the site of the mur­ders. The prime min­is­ter has so far only promised that he will vis­it soon.

Andrew Holness has repeat­ed­ly stood before the nation and pro­claimed that “I am dif­fer­ent”. Well, actions speak loud­er than words. So far, his atti­tude towards the mas­sacre of our chil­dren by blood­thirsty crim­i­nals is indis­tin­guish­able from that of his predecessors.

Basic steps could cer­tain­ly reduce the fre­quen­cy of these acts of terrorism.

“ ‘There are law-abid­ing cit­i­zens there, but the bad roads and zinc fence, because of the struc­ture, it har­bours all dif­fer­ent types of peo­ple. It needs to be restruc­tured and organ­ised, and the Government needs to get the Jamaica Social Investment Fund (JSIF) involved,’ [Bishop Rohan] Edwards said.

“He said that JSIF did work on the main road, but ‘not for the com­mu­ni­ty, like they did for areas like Jones Avenue, Homestead, Central Village and others’.

“ ‘Pull down the zinc fences, the police have a prob­lem patrolling. They need to get atten­tion. Until they do that, it’s going to con­tin­ue to har­bour types of peo­ple that can cre­ate may­hem,’ Edwards said.” (‘Bad March Pen Memories — Recent killings take res­i­dents back to 2000 ‘Black Friday’’ [http://​jamaica​-star​.com/​a​r​t​i​c​l​e​/​n​e​w​s​/​2​0​1​6​1​0​1​4​/​b​a​d​-​m​a​r​c​h​-​p​e​n​-​m​e​m​o​r​i​e​s​-​r​e​c​e​n​t​-​k​i​l​l​i​n​g​s​-​t​a​k​e​-​r​e​s​i​d​e​n​t​s​-​b​a​c​k​-​2​0​0​0​-​b​l​a​c​k​-​f​r​i​day])

But no one seems to care enough to start the process.

And so we sit and won­der what Jamaican place name we will hear of next where lit­tle chil­dren are delib­er­ate­ly burnt to death and teenage girls’ heads are chopped off.

kob.​chang@​fontanapharmacy.​com
Story orig­i­nat­ed here: http://​www​.jamaicaob​serv​er​.com/​c​o​l​u​m​n​s​/​T​e​r​r​o​r​i​s​m​-​i​n​-​J​a​m​a​i​c​a​_​7​7​372