As the nation’s murder rate contine to gallop toward what could be unprecedented amounts of dead Jamaicans this year the security forces are trying to do the best they can.
They are placing their bodies between the marauding gunmen running around with the most sophisticated high powered weapons and the Jamaican people many of whom are totally undeserving of the risks they take.
It’s important that as the calls go out for a limited state of emergency we recognize that those calling for it from certain sectors of the country are only doing so because their bottom line is being threatened. Their concerns are not based on the loss of life but on the potential loss of dollars.

As more and more Jamaicans brave­ly raise their heads amidst the con­stant bar­rage of igno­rant bark­ing and obfus­ca­tion in sup­port of INDECOM, sup­port­ers of the irra­tional ‚poor­ly thought-out law are get­ting more des­per­ate as they seek to find legit­i­ma­cy for this irra­tional crim­i­nal sup­port­ing law.
Amidst the noise is a TRUMPIAN[sic] refusal on the part of the Island’s most stri­dent anti-police sup­port­ers to see facts as facts .
An Orwellian refusal to face the bleak real­i­ty that this bad law and it’s lead­er­ship’s media whor­ing is embold­en­ing the Island’s killers.

As we look on in hor­ror at the unchecked mur­der and may­hem, the streets reduced to wild west shootouts with­out fear of the police it becomes clear by the day that those who stand in stub­born oppo­si­tion to facts are indeed part of the problem.
At some point in time dur­ing this dis­course we have to begin the unsa­vory task of extrap­o­lat­ing from the smoke-screen and igno­rant push-back that many Jamaicans who pass as decent peo­ple are sup­port­ers of criminals.
This is true of Jamaicans both at home and abroad.

I can­not imag­ine any­one who would rea­son­ably be opposed to police oversight .
As a Jamaican who love my coun­try, not because of what I can derive from it but because I have already giv­en to it I sup­port over­sight of the Police department.
Oversight how­ev­er can­not be adver­sar­i­al to the point that offi­cers are exposed to finan­cial ruin , the loss of their careers, or being set up by man­u­fac­tured wit­ness­es which invari­ably lands them in prison.

This is not about just sup­port of police which we must do in a demo­c­ra­t­ic safe soci­ety. It is about the future direc­tion of the country,.
Will we stand silent­ly by and allow those who would ben­e­fit from a failed crim­i­nal state to shout us down.
For my part I will not spend a sin­gle minute of my time mak­ing a dis­tinc­tion between the false par­al­lel of stand­ing up for the rule of law and cor­rup­tion in the police department.

I stand with the rule of law because there is a bina­ry choice between sid­ing with the rule of law and our police officers(even in their imper­fec­tion) and sup­port­ing the maraud­ing killers who are killing with impuni­ty with­out consequence.
The choice is clear , either one sup­port the police, and con­tin­ue to demand a real fix of the depart­ment or we throw our sup­port behind the killers in the old adage of join­ing them because we can­not beat them.

Every sec­ond wast­ed talk­ing about oth­er things allows the mur­der­ous killers to be more estab­lished , more emboldened.
There is strong well arrayed oppo­si­tion to Jamaica ever becom­ing a coun­try of laws.
They are not who you think they are , they are pow­er­ful, they are monied, and they wield incred­i­ble polit­i­cal power.
They do not all stand on the cor­ner Guinness under one armpit , pants down their back­sides crush­ing weed in their palm.
Many of them are dressed in suits , they live in upscale neigh­bor­hoods and you refer to them as sir and look up to them as leaders.

Lord knows the Jamaican police need over­sight like pret­ty much every police depart­ment any­where. Placing the pow­er of life and death in the hands of any human being must be sub­ject to rig­or­ous scruti­ny . Yet those who risk life and limb for our safe­ty deserve every bit of sup­port we can give and they deserve cer­tain lat­i­tude to do the job we ask them to do.

This is the rea­son I have sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly called for the repeal of the INDECOM act.
Re-Debating every aspect of the act then reau­tho­riz­ing a bet­ter law which pro­tects police from friv­o­lous pros­e­cu­tion. A bet­ter law which inves­ti­gates impar­tial­ly and with­out ran­cor abus­es of pow­er by mem­bers of the secu­ri­ty forces will ulti­mate­ly result in a regen­er­a­tion of trust between decent law-abid­ing cit­i­zens and their police.
In that Law should be civ­il reme­dies for mem­bers of the secu­ri­ty forces who have been wrong­ful­ly accused.
In that law should be clear crim­i­nal penal­ties for those who would seek to wrong­ful­ly incrim­i­nate hard work­ing officers.

http://www.japarliament.gov.jm/attachments/341_The%20Independent%20Commission%20of%20Investigation%20Act,%202010,.pdf

The INDECOM Act is a knee-jerk law thrown togeth­er to bring police to heel with zero con­sid­er­a­tion for the hard work­ing police offi­cers and mem­bers of the Island’s mil­i­tary who brave all for the country.
What kind of coun­try shows no respect for mem­bers of it’s secu­ri­ty forces but gives a National hon­or to a lying agi­ta­tor who open­ly sup­port and defend crime syn­di­cates and flood kinder­garten and grade schools with homo­sex­u­al porno­graph­ic literature?

This is an exis­ten­tial fight. Jamaicans bury their heads to their own detri­ment. For those of you who are able to see through the smoke and obfus­ca­tion, events of 2010 in which mer­ce­nar­ies chal­lenged the state will be a cake-walk com­pared to what’s to come if exist­ing trends are allowed to remain.
There are many who are quite sat­is­fied with things the way they are .
Sorry to say it but pigs will not argue about mud , and Vultures are not offend­ed by stench of rot­ting carcasses.
You decide.

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The head­lines in the Jamaica DailyGleaner this morn­ing spoke vol­umes today Thursday September 29^th.
♦ Support grow­ing for lim­it­ed state of emergency.
♦Cops con­fi­dent in war against MoBay thugs — We have a lot of assets, but there could always be more, says Commish.
♦Montague: We are reap­ing the whirl­wind — Security min­is­ter cites social decay as he out­lines response to St James violence.
♦Last Chance’ — Stakeholders Warn Of Business, Tourism Fallout If Crime Not Curbed Next Month.
♦Queen Ifrica’s Grim Picture Of Montego Bay.
♦Editorial | Attack The Emergency With Emergency.
♦Devon Dick| Visit from a gunman?
♦Letter Of The Day | Stop The Speeches And Start Hunting.

These were the leads on the dig­i­tal ver­sion of the Daily Gleaner . Remarkably as the crim­i­nals push the enve­lope of what they can get away with the dither­ing and the sense of pre­tence continues.
Front and cen­ter to the debate of the exis­ten­tial threat faced by the nation and the ever slid­ing scale of what’s accept­able, is the talk about rights.

I fun­da­men­tal­ly respect the right of each and every one of those peo­ple to be dead right.
To those peo­ple, each and every one of you I do not advo­cate for you , I do not assume to speak on your behalf.
Now to the silent major­i­ty of ordi­nary Jamaicans like my fam­i­ly mem­bers and friends who have no con­nec­tion to crim­i­nals and their nefar­i­ous activ­i­ties I share your pain.
For the fam­i­lies of the police offi­cers and mem­bers of our nation’s mil­i­tary who are not involved in crim­i­nal­i­ty , I share your pain.
There is noth­ing I could pos­si­bly tell you that you do not already know. Nevertheless it is still impor­tant that you be remind­ed that you have the pow­er in your hands .How you uti­lize that pow­er is up to you.

Over the years you have seen the lev­el of crime in our coun­try grad­u­al­ly esca­late on a con­tin­u­ous upward tra­jec­to­ry . What you have not seen is a less­ing of those levels.
Regardless of what your polit­i­cal or oth­er lead­ers tell you, crime is not get­ting better.
The goal-post is being con­tin­u­al­ly moved on the lev­els of crim­i­nal con­duct. The Envelope is being pushed on what the crim­i­nal under­world is allowed to get away with.
Simply put, your elect­ed lead­ers , your busi­ness lead­ers, and even some of your reli­gious lead­ers are lying to you.
Political lead­ers are still putting guns into the hands of the young people.
Political lead­ers have turned their backs and allowed guns and ammu­ni­tion to flood the Island through Haiti and oth­er points of ori­gin with­out lift­ing a fin­ger to do any­thing about it.

Do not be fooled about what is hap­pen­ing even in the tourism sec­tor there is only an out­cry when their bot­tom-line is imperiled.
The steps being tak­en sup­pos­ed­ly in your inter­est are designed to pla­cate you rather than to solve the problems.
Your polit­i­cal lead­ers have no inten­tion of solv­ing crime in Jamaica . Look at the pro­lif­ic rise and expan­sion of the gar­risons in our coun­try, ask your­selves whether the PNP or the JLP is inter­est­ed in solv­ing the crime Problem in our country.
I point you to a Devon Dick Column in Thursday’s Daily Gleaner , read and decide for yourselves.

Crime is big busi­ness in our coun­try , it is, and has been ger­mane to who gets elect­ed to polit­i­cal office for decades. Business lead­ers from top to bot­tom bring in con­tra­band and stiff the coun­try of much need­ed revenue.
The Customs depart­ment has been a cesspool of graft , theft, and cor­rup­tion for decades. Lowly cus­tom offi­cers have owned some of the most pres­ti­gious homes and dri­ven lux­u­ry cars on their stipend salaries. No one both­ered to demand to know from what sources are those rev­enues derived. Jamaicans return­ing to the Island knows quite well where they get the mon­ey from.
Governments of both polit­i­cal par­ties com­mit the most egre­gious frauds and acts of cor­rup­tion, sub­ject­ing yet unborn gen­er­a­tions to lives of debt and impoverishment.
In response to your out­cry they empow­er a Contractor General law but gave the office no pow­er to pros­e­cute them. The con­trac­tor gen­er­al can bark all he wants, your thiev­ing politi­cians laugh with total dis­dain know­ing full well they are untouchable..

Literally every Government agency is a bureau­crat­ic cesspool of graft and extor­tion and a maze-like morass of incom­pe­tence . The RJD, Motor vehi­cle depart­ment. Passport depart­ment, every­thing depends on indi­vid­u­als abil­i­ty to pay or more appro­pri­ate­ly their abil­i­ty to be extorted.
No pub­lic sec­tor depart­ment is free from Corruption, Nepotism, and Extortion.
None !!!!
As such, lit­er­al­ly every pri­vate sec­tor enti­ty, every non gov­ern­men­tal orga­ni­za­tion has been taint­ed to some degree with the cor­ro­sive taint of graft , theft, and corruption.
What did you , all of you expect was going to hap­pen to your police department?
Did you think for a moment they would be the only pub­lic sec­tor work­ers untouched by the corruption?
Did you real­ly believe they cre­at­ed INDECOM to root out police cor­rup­tion? Or are you now rec­og­niz­ing that it was just anoth­er attempt at hol­low­ing out the already inef­fec­tu­al police department?
Look at the num­bers of cor­rupt cops suc­ces­sive Commissioners of police have root­ed out on their own, using the tools they have at their disposal.
Examine the num­bers of dirty cops the CCRB removed while they were the pri­ma­ry over­sight author­i­ty along with the depart­men­t’s own inter­nal mechanisms.
Now jux­ta­pose those num­bers with what INDECOM has accom­plished com­men­su­rate with it’s sup­posed mandate.

By INDECOM’s own admis­sion most of the cas­es it has sup­pos­ed­ly inves­ti­gat­ed result­ed in a con­clu­sion that offi­cers act­ed properly.
A cur­so­ry cost ben­e­fit analy­sis shows that resources used to fund INDECOM and the Public defend­er’s office could be bet­ter used to fund and improve the police’s inves­tiga­tive capabilities.
Which would reveal who the major orga­nized crime fig­ures are.
The major crime lead­ers in our coun­try to a large degree are indis­tin­guish­able from the major polit­i­cal play­ers in both polit­i­cal parties.
Therein ladies and gen­tle­men is the crux of your problem.

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MISTER PRIME MINISTER IT IS NOT OUTSIDE YOUR POWER, FIRE TERRENCE WILLIAMS AND SAVE THE LIVES OF THE INNOCENT JAMAICANS BEING MURDERED.
THE COUNTDOWN BEGINS NOW !!!

The single most topical issue dominating the news in Jamaica is crime. It has become such a grave concern that it now dominates all the news cycles and the media stories literally.
The single most oft-used term this writer has used to describe the fuel to the Island’s crime situation is the decision-makers’ pretentious nature.

Today we learned that a new tac­ti­cal police unit would be head­ing to Montego Bay to work toward elim­i­nat­ing the main per­pe­tra­tors of vio­lence in the crime-rav­aged city, accord­ing to the police.
Not exact­ly sure why this infor­ma­tion would be giv­en to crim­i­nals, how­ev­er accord­ing to the police hier­ar­chy, this team is dif­fer­ent from the oth­er for­ma­tions that are on the ground work­ing with the mil­i­tary to restore law and order to the city.
The police high com­mand announced, “This team has not hit the road since the 2010 oper­a­tion in west Kingston, and it has been giv­en the duty to tar­get the ‘big fishes”.
If my mem­o­ry serves me well, I believe the last time these police offi­cers were called on to risk life and limb for our coun­try, Portia Simpson Miller brought David Simmons from Barbados to dem­a­gogue, dis­re­spect, demean and seek to incrim­i­nate them.

Most impor­tant­ly, when the Nation finds itself engulfed in a pick­le, it turns to the police and mil­i­tary to bail it out from the clutch­es of the maraud­ing gang­sters while the Elitist deci­sion-mak­ers and oth­er shit for brains, sit in their gat­ed com­mu­ni­ties and pon­tif­i­cate about alleged breach­es of human rights.
Just yes­ter­day, there was a con­sta­ble in the news who clear­ly seemed to be hav­ing men­tal issues. According to the media, the offi­cer attempt­ed to jump from a build­ing in the town of Mandeville.

Shockingly, yet not sur­pris­ing­ly, the com­mand­ing offi­cer for the parish, Superintendent Vendolyn Cameron-Powell, in response to the inci­dent, respond­ed that the obvi­ous­ly dis­traught con­sta­ble is “known to cre­ate excite­ment when he becomes dissatisfied.”
It’s tough to grasp that any super­vi­sor in this day and age would be this crass, uncar­ing, or unlearned. However, it does not sur­prise me one bit; this is why I have had noth­ing but utter dis­dain for this police depart­men­t’s hierarchy.
However, that was not all; she went to cement fur­ther her own dis­qual­i­fi­ca­tion and lack of fit­ness for the job she holds.
Quote: “He is not suit­able to car­ry out the duties and respon­si­bil­i­ties of the Jamaica Constabulary Force. “He is not a fit can­di­date for (this) kind of job.”

Once again, the Jamaican state is in a ter­ri­ble state.
Once again, the Jamaican state has mem­bers of the mil­i­tary and the police force, putting their lives on the line in defense of the nation while oth­ers are in their beds at night.
Once again, the Police and the sol­diers go in and give all for their coun­try. They do not ask for much, and they are giv­en nothing.
Neither the Prime Minister nor the Leader of the Opposition nor any of the talk­ing heads in either of the polit­i­cal par­ties have moved to give the police the cov­er and the guar­an­tees they need to go in and do the job they are asked to do.

Just Yesterday, I spoke direct­ly to the Jamaican Prime Minister in this very medi­um. I implored him to be great, like Hugh Lawson Shearer the great Labor Party Prime Minister who stepped up to the plate when duty called. He did so to ensure that our nation was guar­an­teed the secu­ri­ty it need­ed and our coun­try was bet­ter for it.
The great­est imped­i­ment to crime-fight­ing in Jamaica is not the crim­i­nals who pull the trig­ger; it is the peo­ple who ben­e­fit from crime. Criminal Lawyers, and those who ben­e­fit from the pletho­ra of fringe groups who are sup­pos­ed­ly in the busi­ness of look­ing out for human rights abus­es.

National secu­ri­ty is the num­ber one pri­or­i­ty of any Government. Only in secure envi­ron­ments are the oth­er func­tions of gov­ern­ment best realized.
Once again, anoth­er Jamaican Administration is lean­ing heav­i­ly on the nation’s secu­ri­ty forces for its own survival.
Yet the Administration has not offered a sin­gle guar­an­tee to these brave, unselfish men and women who risk their lives. They get no guar­an­tees that they won’t be per­se­cut­ed and hound­ed to the point of los­ing their san­i­ty because of a tax­pay­er-fund­ed agency.

Remarkable, the com­mis­sion­er of Police, Dr. Carl Williams, is now awak­en­ing from his slum­ber and rec­og­niz­ing what I have said since the begin­ning of the INDECOM law. Speaking to Jamaican Media, the timid Williams echoed what he heard from his own offi­cers that they were unwill­ing to engage because of Terrence Williams’s persecution.

“I went out to St James on the week­end, and the police offi­cers told me that they have an excel­lent rela­tion­ship with the local INDECOM offi­cers, but the prob­lem is what is direct­ed from INDECOM headquarters.”
“We are not daunt­ed, because this is a call­ing and not just a job. We have tak­en an oath to make sure the safe­ty and secu­ri­ty of the peo­ple of Jamaica, and we go out to work every day to do just that, INDECOM or no INDECOM,” Williams stat­ed.

This medi­um takes great pride in call­ing out com­mis­sion­er Williams and is proud that he is seem­ing­ly begin­ning to get some guts.
Officers on the ground have repeat­ed­ly com­plained to this writer. They have con­firmed to Jamaican media their fear of doing their jobs only to be per­se­cut­ed for years, los­ing their careers, and end­ing up in finan­cial ruin…

“If that police­man is sus­pend­ed, he gets no pay; if he’s inter­dict­ed, a por­tion of his salary is cut,” police­men tell the media.
https://​mike​beck​les​.com/​j​a​m​a​i​c​a​-​w​i​l​l​-​i​n​v​a​r​i​a​b​l​y​-​a​d​o​p​t​-​c​o​l​o​m​b​i​a​s​-​m​o​d​e​l​-​e​r​a​d​i​c​a​t​e​-​m​u​r​d​e​r​-​s​c​o​u​r​ge/

Simply put, Terrence Williams must be fired for crime to be addressed as it should be. He is an ego-mani­a­cal nar­cis­sist who is being allowed to sin­gle-hand­ed­ly enhance the deaths of hun­dreds of Jamaicans to sat­is­fy his ego while cre­at­ing a name for him­self, at the expense of tax­pay­ers — this along with a hor­rif­ic crim­i­nal empow­er­ment law.
No sin­gle per­son should be allowed this lev­el of pow­er in a democ­ra­cy. No per­son should head any agency which is answer­able to no one.
This obser­va­tion is not unique to this writer; oth­er Jamaicans have spo­ken out about this, includ­ing Damion Crawford, Peter Bunting and others.
This fias­co has to come to an end.
Thus far in the parish of Saint James, over two hun­dred peo­ple have lost their lives. The Prime Minister, the Honorable Andrew Holness can­not pre­tend that he has­n’t heard. He can­not pre­tend he does not see the numbers.
Consequently, for every per­son who is killed because the secu­ri­ty forces are too scared for their legal secu­ri­ty to go after the killers, the Prime Minister must take respon­si­bil­i­ty for their spilled blood.
Unless there are enough guar­an­tees giv­en to police and sol­diers going into that war zone by this gov­ern­ment, that they will not become vic­tims of ego-mani­a­cal and nar­cis­sis­tic witch hunts.
Guarantees that they will not be scape­goats and maligned after they have silenced the guns of the Island’s urban mer­ce­nar­ies as they were after 2010.
Then my advice to each mem­ber of the secu­ri­ty forces is “shoul­der arms.”

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A spe­cial police tac­ti­cal team has been deployed to Montego Bay, St James with a man­date to tar­get the main per­pe­tra­tors of vio­lence in the crime-rav­aged city.

“This team has not hit the road since the 2010 oper­a­tion in west Kingston and it has been giv­en the duty to tar­get the ‘big fish­es’ who are the ones with the mon­ey to buy the high-priced, high-pow­ered weapons which we are see­ing in the hands of the crim­i­nals,” a senior police offi­cer told The Gleaner a short while ago. “This team is dif­fer­ent from the oth­er for­ma­tions that are on the ground work­ing with the mil­i­tary to restore law and order to the city. The team is going to get the major play­ers,” added the cop. Police Commissioner Dr Carl Williams is slat­ed to tour some of the more crime-rav­aged com­mu­ni­ties in and around Montego Bay today before host­ing a media brief­ing where he is expect­ed to announce addi­tion­al plans to reduce the mur­ders in St James. http://​jamaica​-glean​er​.com/​a​r​t​i​c​l​e​/​n​e​w​s​/​2​0​1​6​0​9​2​8​/​j​u​s​t​-​s​p​e​c​i​a​l​-​p​o​l​i​c​e​-​t​a​c​t​i​c​a​l​-​t​e​a​m​-​d​e​p​l​o​y​e​d​-​c​r​i​m​e​-​p​l​a​g​u​e​d​-​m​o​bay

JAMAICA IS HEAVILY DEPENDENT ON TOURISM FOR ITS SURVIVAL, YET THE VERY HEART OF THE TOURISM HUB, MONTEGO BAY, HAS FOR YEARS BEEN A WILD ‚WILD WEST .

The Island’s Prime Minister Andrew Holness vis­it­ed Montego Bay and spoke to cit­i­zens a cou­ple days ago he also met with secu­ri­ty per­son­nel in the parish who gave him first-hand brief­ing of the chal­lenges they face. The Prime Minister sub­se­quent­ly released a state­ment in which he said the following .

“We don’t have a switch to turn off crime … . The strate­gies we are putting in place will take some time to bear fruit, but we are work­ing with the great­est speed and alacrity to ensure the results bear fruit,”. “There is a need for leg­isla­tive reform to empow­er our police – and mil­i­tary in sup­port of the police – leg­is­la­tion that is rel­e­vant and applic­a­ble to the crime sit­u­a­tion we face.

I humbly sub­mit to the Prime Minister and indeed the entire Nation that this fight is an exis­ten­tial fight. If the events of 2010 in Tivoli Gardens have not con­vinced you that there are enough guns, ammu­ni­tion and the will to effec­tive­ly chal­lenge the author­i­ty of the state I do not know what will.

There is a series present­ly avail­able on Netflix which tells the sto­ry of Colombia’s war with nar­co traf­fick­ers. It depicts the pow­er and ruth­less­ness of the Colombian drug lords in that exis­ten­tial fight that nation had with deter­mined nar­co traf­fick­ers. I sug­gest the Prime Minister , the Minister of National Security sit down and take a look at that series.
Otherwise they may do a sim­ple Google search which will reveal what the Colombian peo­ple did to break the back of that threat, sav­ing their nation from becom­ing a Narco state.

Mister Prime Minister I sup­port­ed your can­di­da­cy for the high­est elect­ed office in our coun­try . At this time I sup­port the work you are doing . You have demon­strat­ed an under­stand­ing of what needs to be done . I also under­stand that there are strong forces arrayed against a change in our coun­try which are quite com­fort­able with the sta­tus quo.
Mister Prime Minister, I am sure that you are more con­ver­sant with what is occur­ring on the ground than most, includ­ing this writer. You live there , you receive brief­in­gs, you see it on tele­vi­sion. It is up to you to change this.

It won’t be easy I under­stand that. At the risk of sound­ing grandiose I am speak­ing direct­ly to you because I am aware that you and some well placed peo­ple in your admin­is­tra­tion do take a peek at this lit­tle medi­um from time to time.
I implore you to get rid of INDECOM.
It is a bad law which was poor­ly thought through, you know it, many in your Administration know it, and an ever increas­ing plu­ral­i­ty of the Jamaican peo­ple are com­ing to that realization.

Mister Prime Minister I know that you under­stand that I am absolute­ly not advo­cat­ing for unfet­tered polic­ing with no over­sight . I have a his­to­ry of advo­cat­ing for strong over­sight of police but it can­not be an adver­sar­i­al over­sight deter­mined to have gotcha moments of police offi­cers who go out and risk their lives for your life and that of all of our citizens.
Mister Prime Minister the future of our coun­try can­not be mort­gaged on the ego of a sin­gle per­son or even a small group of elites who are hell bent on a destruc­tive path of social engi­neer­ing which has been tried and proven to fail, not just in our coun­try but in others.

Finally Prime Minister Holness, I do believe you are crit­i­cal­ly aware that your growth agen­da can­not and will not be suc­cess­ful in an atmos­phere of mur­der and may­hem. Someone will have to bell the cat . If not you then who?
You do not want to pre­side over the ash­es of our coun­try . Make no mis­take if this regres­sion is not halt­ed with deci­sive action and soon, that will be the result.
This is not the first time that this kind of threat has emerged in our coun­try . It was anoth­er great Labor Party Prime Minister, the Rt Honorable Hugh Lawson Shearer who placed his boot-heels on that monster.
You too can be great , if not for your­self , for the yet unborn chil­dren, for the future of our coun­try. It’s up to you. You must send Terrence Williams pack­ing and empow­er the police to go after the murderers.
The world is watching !!!

“We don’t have a switch to turn off crime … . The strate­gies we are putting in place will take some time to bear fruit, but we are work­ing with the great­est speed and alacrity to ensure the results bear fruit,”. “There is a need for leg­isla­tive reform to empow­er our police — and mil­i­tary in sup­port of the police — leg­is­la­tion that is rel­e­vant and applic­a­ble to the crime sit­u­a­tion we face.

Those words were uttered by Jamaica’s Prime Minister who is also the Minister of defense accord­ing to the Island’s con­sti­tu­tion. The Prime Minister has my sym­pa­thy, not because of any polit­i­cal alle­giance but because he has a full plate . He has an agen­da which he ran on to turn around the lives of the 2.8 mil­lion Jamaicans. His mantra being from pover­ty to prosperity.

The Prime Minister has a full plate unlike his pre­de­ces­sor who seemed to have del­e­gat­ed all of her core func­tions to min­ions whom were large­ly inter­est­ed only in stuff­ing their pock­ets with the con­tents of the till.
Nevertheless , the Prime Minister has a duty despite his many oth­er func­tions to address the Nation’s gal­lop­ing mur­der rate. It seem that with the best efforts of the secu­ri­ty forces and the rel­a­tive­ly inane lead­er­ship of his National secu­ri­ty Minister no one has any idea how to stop the bleed­ing literally.

When The Police Are Constrained Crime Increases Placing The Lives Of Everyone In Jeopardy

On Monday some­one asked me on a social media plat­form what I would do dif­fer­ent­ly if it was my job to bring crime to man­age­able lev­els. I had no time to respond in a way which would have made sense on that plat­form giv­en the time I had. So I referred him to my web­site, I did so not because I need­ed the hits but because over the years I have artic­u­lat­ed a raft of ideas which must be addressed if we are to gain con­trol of crime.

https://​mike​beck​les​.com/​r​e​v​a​m​p​r​e​-​d​o​-​r​e​-​a​u​t​h​o​r​i​z​e​-​i​n​d​e​c​om/

Many crit­ics have said some of my pro­pos­als can­not work because of Jamaican laws.
To those I ask who made the laws?
Most of the Nation’s laws were made at a time when peo­ple weren’t gun­ning down groups of peo­ple, or slit­ting the throats of infants.
They are archa­ic , out­dat­ed and they sim­ply have no deter­rent effect. They need to go.

REPEAL AND REPLACE THE INDECOM ACT: Part 2.

There can be no place in the search for solu­tions where police are poor­ly trained, poor­ly super­vised, poor­ly sup­port­ed and are allowed to go out and kill peo­ple indiscriminately.

I have no inter­est in spend­ing my time debat­ing the fore­gone so I high­light­ed it just for that reason.
Many Jamaicans can harken back to the days when 300 homi­cides annu­al­ly was a ter­ri­fy­ing propo­si­tion for us . Today the small Island of 2.8 mil­lion peo­ple expe­ri­ence between 1000 and 1600 annu­al­ly. Our police force had many prob­lems not the least of which was Corruption♦ Poor-train­ing♦ Poor super­vi­sion♦ Unlawful Political inter­fer­ence♦ Pathetic lead­er­ship♦ Poor remu­ner­a­tions♦ Lack of respect for our offi­cers♦ Lack of respect for the rule of law and a range of oth­er problems.

What the Island need­ed then was lead­er­ship and a decid­ed pol­i­cy of non-tol­er­ance toward crime and those who com­mit them. As a police offi­cer then I absolute­ly thought that 300 homi­cides annu­al­ly was way too much and that it rep­re­sent­ed a par­a­digm shift which if not addressed would lead to where we are today . Guess what we are there.
Instead of invest­ing heav­i­ly in mod­ern­iz­ing our police depart­ment the polit­i­cal class made the deci­sion to take the coun­try in a dif­fer­ent direction.
They gut­ted the police force , using some mem­bers as their per­son­al gophers , removed fund­ing for detec­tive train­ing while expo­nen­tial­ly work­ing to facil­i­tate the gar­ri­son culture.

Despite the tremen­dous harm both polit­i­cal par­ties did to the Police depart­ment and by exten­sion our country,the sin­gle great­est crime enhance­ment step ever tak­en in our nation’s his­to­ry was the cre­ation of INDECOM as an over­sight agency to mon­i­tor the JDF /​JCF/​and the Corrections department.
Jamaica’s crim­i­nals are no fools , many are incred­i­bly smart young men who decid­ed on a life of crime after real­iz­ing that the penal­ty for crim­i­nal behav­ior is so insignif­i­cant that not engag­ing in it is almost silly.
Many have attend­ed some of the most pres­ti­gious high schools these are young men who could be any­thing they put their minds to giv­en the oppor­tu­ni­ty. It is no won­der how­ev­er that each year more and more exec­u­tive posi­tions both in the pub­lic and pri­vate sec­tors are being filled by women . Simply put Jamaica’s young women are going to schools , young men are leav­ing and enter­ing the lucra­tive busi­ness of crime.

One thing is cer­tain the much bal­ly­hooed mod­ern­iza­tion of the police depart­ment has not done a darn thing to change any­thing for the bet­ter if the actions of the offi­cers on the streets and the crime sta­tis­tics are any­thing to go by.
Before the Island begin to bend the arc of crime, it must come to a point of “no mas” the infa­mous quote of a beat­en Roberto Duran as Sugar Ray Leonard pep­pered him with unan­swered blows on November 25, 1980 .

Like a dope addict who ulti­mate­ly comes to the real­iza­tion that the next nee­dle up his arm will be his last and says “I need help” . The Island can get to that space, or it can con­tin­ue with the bull­shit nar­ra­tive that it is a nation on the cusp of first world sta­tus if only it con­tin­ue to pretend.
Jamaica can con­tin­ue to pre­tend it is actu­al­ly on a path to pros­per­i­ty or it can rec­og­nize that with a pop­u­la­tion of approx­i­mate­ly 2.8 mil­lion people,it con­tin­ues to have a high homi­cide rate (36÷100,000), which places it among the high­est (per capi­ta) nation­al homi­cide rates in the world.
It is esti­mat­ed that because of youth crime, Jamaica los­es US$4.3 mil­lion in poten­tial invest­ment each year while a fur­ther US$95 mil­lion, which would flow into Jamaica through tourism, goes else­where. The Island also spends more than US$529 mil­lion (J$46.5 bil­lion) every year as a direct pub­lic and pri­vate cost to fight crime.

As I have said before in numer­ous arti­cles the coun­try did not get to this stage in a day and it will take much time to reverse what is hap­pen­ing in our coun­try today.
We can­not reverse peo­ple fight­ing our police offi­cers in a day but we can put in place seri­ous penal­ties for assault­ing our police officers.
We can put in place seri­ous penal­ties for police offi­cers who step out­side the laws to abuse and kill peo­ple unjustly.

We can invest in the cre­ation of an inves­tiga­tive bureau which is staffed with well trained offi­cers of integri­ty, while leg­is­lat­ing real penal­ties for vio­lent crimes.
We can reverse the pol­i­cy of jail­ing pre­di­al thieves, putting them instead to work clean­ing up our Cities and towns or work­ing for their vic­tims as pay­ment for their crimes.
This will free up prison spaces for vio­lent felons.
We can begin an edu­ca­tion cam­paign to get adults to respect the rule of law while telling them what the penal­ties are for offending .

Most impor­tant­ly repeal the INDECOM act now !!!!!
Assign the INDECOM bud­get, and the Public defend­er’s bud­get to train­ing and equip­ping the police depart­ment, improv­ing the office of DPP and hir­ing more judges from the pros­e­cu­tion side of the fence.
Most impor­tant­ly is truth in sen­tenc­ing for vio­lent crimes . Truth in sen­tenc­ing must come after a total revamp­ing of the penal­ties for vio­lent penal­ties and replac­ing them with life with­out parole where applicable.

To my friend who asked what I would do , I did not answer you because I do not have time to back and forth on social media . If the Government , any Government is seri­ous about deal­ing with those blood thirsty crim­i­nals this is how it will be done . It will not be achieved by pussy-foot­ing around and treat­ing crim­i­nals with def­er­ence. It will be accom­plished when we adopt a zero tol­er­ance pol­i­cy toward crim­i­nal­i­ty in this a zero sum game.

A young mem­ber of the Jamaica Defence Force told Robert Montague the Minister of National Security , if he should take on a gun­man who threat­ens him with a weapon he will have to face INDECOM with attor­neys for up to four years.

Montague said the mat­ter was brought into focus last night as he gave a moti­va­tion­al talk to a group of sol­diers head­ing to St. James to help con­tain crime there, accord­ing to Jamaican media. It’s impor­tant to under­stand the con­text in which the sol­dier made his views known to the minister.
The Island is awash in crime , mur­der is on a con­stant north­ward spi­ral and author­i­ties have not demon­strat­ed they pos­sess the balls to do what is nec­es­sary to fix the problem.
https://​mike​beck​les​.com/​2​7​7​971 – 2/

Responding to the sol­dier’s com­ment the clue­less Montague respond­ed Quote:
“I am one who is a sup­port­er of INDECOM, I am one who believes that we still can work hard­er to get the police fatal shoot­ings down, but there comes a time when the cir­cum­stances dic­tate: when the State is threat­ened, the State has to respond in like manner.”

Many of my PNP read­ers will sali­vate at the fact that I refer to Montague as clue­less. The Laborites will do what they always do cas­ti­gate and label me a PNP shill, as if I care.
Montague showed utter igno­rance of what polic­ing entails in respond­ing to the sol­dier’s con­cern by argu­ing that when the state is threat­ened it has to respond in like manner.

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

Each and every mem­ber of the secu­ri­ty forces have a respon­si­bil­i­ty over and above all else to pro­tect their own lives. They owe it to them­selves and their fam­i­lies to return home after every shift.
Even though they oper­ate as agents of the state, their bod­ies are not the prop­er­ty of the state. An attack on any of them must be seen as an attack on the state, but over and above that each attack on a mem­ber of the secu­ri­ty forces is an indi­vid­ual attack which must be dealt with individually.
Use of force has to be weighed by each offi­cer so forced . It must com­port with Jamaican law and should also square with that offi­cers moral com­pass. Use of force must be with­in the remit of the indi­vid­ual offi­cer which is enshrined in Jamaican law and the JCF’s use of force policy.
That is why the col­lec­tive label­ing of all police shoot­ings as extra judi­cial killings, is lan­guage of crim­i­nals and their sup­port­ers and not that of intel­li­gent informed people.
As the author­i­ties dither and con­tin­ue the embrace of pre­ten­tious pos­tures and poli­cies of advanced soci­eties the bul­let rid­dled bod­ies con­tin­ue to pile up.

WAR ON JAMAICAN POLICE FOR DOING THEIR JOBS:

Remarkably, it took a sol­dier, and a young one at that, to artic­u­late what most past and present cops and many well think­ing Jamaicans already knew . That the INDECOM law is a shack­le and a crime enhance­ment law.
This writer have been sound­ing that alarm since it’s inception.
Ironically it is not the mem­bers of the Jamaica Defense Force which faces and deals with the brunt of the crime and the resul­tant dan­ger which comes from enforc­ing the laws it is the police department.
Yet the incom­pe­tent posers who make up the hier­ar­chy of the police force are silent . Silent as Terrence Williams uses the media as a whore seek­ing to extract all she can from a com­pli­ant John. Williams uses the media to under­mine the police depart­ment and the rule of law, in the process empow­er­ing the crim­i­nal under­world and cre­at­ing a fer­tile breed­ing ground for young criminals.

This writer is not opposed to police over­sight. This medi­um was cre­at­ed to pass on what I learned as a police offi­cer so that peo­ple may under­stand their respon­si­bil­i­ties in society.
It was designed to speak out against crime and injus­tice wher­ev­er I see it. Regardless of the offend­er’s sta­tus or station.
What I do under­stand how­ev­er, is that when the laws are slant­ed in sup­port of crim­i­nals, when those in posi­tions of pow­er and influ­ence use those posi­tions to fur­ther the cause of crim­i­nal­i­ty and may­hem we have a problem.
It demon­strates that as a nation Jamaica has a seri­ous crime prob­lem which will only be fixed by peo­ple with balls and determination.
Thus far I have not seen that kind of lead­er­ship in our country.

Western Bureau:

St James, espe­cial­ly the parish cap­i­tal, Montego Bay, is now gripped by fear and anx­i­ety as gun-tot­ing thugs con­tin­ue to wreak mur­der­ous hav­oc, killing and maim­ing with impuni­ty as the parish’s mur­der count races towards 200 since the start of the year.

“I lived through the trib­al war of the 1970s and I have nev­er seen any­thing like this,” a for­mer politi­cian told The Gleaner yes­ter­day short­ly after news broke of anoth­er mur­der in the afflu­ent Ironshore com­mu­ni­ty. “This is past mad­ness! Right now, I am feel­ing so much raw emo­tion that I feel like just scream­ing and bawl­ing out. We can’t take any more of this.”

In yesterday’s inci­dent in Ironshore, which occurred close to the pop­u­lar Blue Diamond Complex, shots report­ed­ly barked for sev­er­al min­utes as gang­sters armed with rifles and hand­guns snuffed out the life of a Glendevon man iden­ti­fied only as ‘Bob’. Several per­sons, who were at the loca­tion, suf­fered non-life-threat­en­ing injuries.

Since the start of this week, there has been a spike in shoot­ings across the parish, result­ing in sev­er­al per­sons being killed. The may­hem is hap­pen­ing despite the cur­rent high-vis­i­bil­i­ty pres­ence of joint police-mil­i­tary patrols across the parish in recent months.

At approx­i­mate­ly 7:20 a.m. on Tuesday, all hell broke loose on Creek Street in down­town Montego Bay when a gun­man opened fire on a bus crammed with school­child­ren. When the shoot­ing sub­sided, it was dis­cov­ered that the dri­ver, Alvin ‘Strive Clarke, had suc­cumbed to mul­ti­ple gun­shot wounds. Two stu­dents from MaldonHigh School were left nurs­ing bul­let wounds.

Later in the day, at approx­i­mate­ly 2:00 p.m., stu­dents and teach­ers at the Glendevon Primary School were forced to take cov­er as war­ring fac­tions trad­ed heavy gun­fire for well over half an hour. Based on reports from the com­mu­ni­ty, the shoot­ing was sparked by the killing of a man in the com­mu­ni­ty on Monday night.

There were also oth­er reports of shoot­ings in com­mu­ni­ties such as Norwood, Tucker, Glendevon, Catherine Mount, Tangle River, and the Cambridge area.

In respond­ing to the ongo­ing vio­lence across the parish, Heroy Clarke, the mem­ber of Parliament for Central St James, made an impas­sioned plea to the thugs to lay down their guns and take up their Bibles with a view to putting their lives in God’s hands.

“Remove the guns from your pock­ets and waists and replace them with Bibles so peace can reign again,” urged Clarke. “Also, the lead­er­ship in the com­mu­ni­ties in west­ern Jamaica – pub­lic and pri­vate – must take up the man­tle and step up to the plate and lead from the front, not behind.” Read more here: 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​0​9​2​3​/​m​o​b​a​y​-​m​a​y​h​e​m​-​t​h​u​g​s​-​w​r​e​a​k​i​n​g​-​m​u​r​d​e​r​o​u​s​-​h​a​v​o​c​-​s​t​-​j​a​m​e​s​-​2​0​1​6​-​m​u​r​d​e​r​-​c​o​unt

Betty Shelby, the Tulsa police offi­cer who shot and killed Terence Crutcher last week, faces a charge of first-degree manslaugh­ter, Tulsa County District Attorney Stephen Kunzweiler announced Thursday. “In the mat­ter of the death of Terence Crutcher, I deter­mined that the fil­ing of the felony crime of manslaugh­ter in the first degree against Tulsa police offi­cer Betty Shelby is war­rant­ed,” Kunzweiler said. An arrest war­rant has been issued for Shelby, whose attor­ney said she opened fire because she feared Crutcher might have been reach­ing for a weapon. Police failed to find a weapon on Crutcher or in the car. http://​www​.huff​in​g​ton​post​.com/​e​n​t​r​y​/​t​e​r​e​n​c​e​-​c​r​u​t​c​h​e​r​-​b​e​t​t​y​-​s​h​e​l​b​y​_​u​s​_​5​7​e​4​4​2​1​9​e​4​b​0​8​d​7​3​b​8​3​0​5​8​4​0​?​s​e​c​t​i​o​n=&

blob:http://www.huffingtonpost.com/0cc6c4bc-0d6c-494b-93a4-b92df69eee5e

Even under the most ideal conditions the job of policing is challenging.
There is a part of every human being which is opposed to losing it’s freedom, even when we consciously know that we are engaging in activities we have no business engaging in.
Given the most ideal hypothetical situation where race, class and other defining characteristics which influences behavior are non-existent, people would still be opposed to receiving a parking ticket from a police officer. And an officer would probably be more inclined to give a ticket to a male who gives him lip over a sweet old lady who doesn’t .

If we reverse that utopi­an sce­nario and put back in the mix , the defin­ing neg­a­tives of racism, clas­sism, dis­re­spect, as a result or racism or clas­sism the dis­ci­pline which is polic­ing becomes far more prob­lem­at­ic for some.
That seem to be the chal­lenge fac­ing police depart­ments across the United States today.
There are var­i­ous rea­sons giv­en for the fright­en­ing killing of Americans by police with­out hard­ly any offi­cer being held account­able. Even when there seem to be glar­ing evi­dence of wrongdoing.

Whether police are killing more peo­ple than years gone by, or we are see­ing more of these con­fronta­tions because of tech­no­log­i­cal advances remains to be defined.
For peo­ple in the black and brown com­mu­ni­ties, the almost dai­ly killings of unarmed peo­ple by police is what they have been com­plain­ing about for decades.
It is impos­si­ble to tell whether police are killing more peo­ple today because police depart­ments are not required to report to fed­er­al author­i­ties just how many peo­ple lose their lives at their hands each year.
Even today there are no legal require­ment for uni­formed report­ing to the Federal Bureau of Investigations. Nonetheless pri­vate web­sites and oth­er orga­ni­za­tions are begin­ning to track as much as they can, these killings at the hands of police.

According to Eastern Kentucky University and Author Victor E. Kappeler, Ph.D.

The birth and devel­op­ment of the American police can be traced to a mul­ti­tude of his­tor­i­cal, legal and polit­i­cal-eco­nom­ic con­di­tions. The insti­tu­tion of slav­ery and the con­trol of minori­ties, how­ev­er, were two of the more for­mi­da­ble his­toric fea­tures of American soci­ety shap­ing ear­ly polic­ing. Slave patrols and Night Watches, which lat­er became mod­ern police depart­ments, were both designed to con­trol the behav­iors of minori­ties. For exam­ple, New England set­tlers appoint­ed Indian Constables to police Native Americans (National Constable Association, 1995), the St. Louis police were found­ed to pro­tect res­i­dents from Native Americans in that fron­tier city, and many south­ern police depart­ments began as slave patrols. In 1704, the colony of Carolina devel­oped the nation’s first slave patrol. Slave patrols helped to main­tain the eco­nom­ic order and to assist the wealthy landown­ers in recov­er­ing and pun­ish­ing slaves who essen­tial­ly were con­sid­ered property.

It is impor­tant to con­sid­er these facts when we grap­ple with what we see hap­pen­ing today, even though we have come a long way since the days of slave patrols.
In my native Jamaica some experts have point­ed to the fact that the Jamaica Constabulary Force emerged out of the Morant bay rebellion.
They argue that because the force was cre­at­ed to quell the upris­ing of the oppressed mass­es, present day police still approach the task of polic­ing with the same mindset.
Whether there is truth to both sce­nar­ios or not is not up to me to decide . It’s inter­pre­ta­tion has to be with­in the remit of each and every one of us.

Clearly what is unde­ni­able is the uncon­scious bias­es which informs each offi­cer’s mind­set. Without a doubt, an offi­cer who pulls his/​her weapon in an inner city com­mu­ni­ty and shoots some­one who is unarmed, is informed and influ­enced by pre­con­ceived risks with­in that community.
The bias­es which inform those actions would most cer­tain­ly not be present in an upscale white com­mu­ni­ty. Therein lies the problem.
Within those real­i­ties, not all white offi­cers who end up killing an unarmed black per­son is nec­es­sar­i­ly racist.
In the same way that a Jamaican offi­cer, him­self from the poor­er class, who kills some­one in the ghet­to could rea­son­ably be accused of classism.
It is the per­cep­tion of inher­ent dan­ger, (wrong or right)and in some cas­es lack of respect, which cre­ates the vio­lent con­fronta­tions we see today.

As a young offi­cer patrolling parts of Western Kingston, Arnett Gardens, Waterhouse and oth­er com­mu­ni­ties we con­strued to be dan­ger­ous, my weapon was always at the ready. The same was not true when I patrolled Cherry Gardens and Norbrook.
I was not against peo­ple liv­ing in the inner city com­mu­ni­ties. I was just mind­ful that I was a lot more like­ly to be shot in those com­mu­ni­ties than I was in Cherry Gardens and Norbrook.

Black and brown peo­ple in America’s urban areas com­plain about aggres­sive and even oppres­sive police tac­tics in their com­mu­ni­ties. The police say they are mere­ly arrest­ing peo­ple where crimes are being committed.
There are ele­ments of truth to both arguments .
According to the Washington post .

Whites were about 45 per­cent more like­ly than blacks to sell drugs in 1980, accord­ing to an analy­sis of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth by econ­o­mist Robert Fairlie. This was con­sis­tent with a 1989 sur­vey of youth in Boston. My own analy­sis of data from the 2012 National Survey on Drug Use and Health shows that 6.6 per­cent of white ado­les­cents and young adults (aged 12 to 25) sold drugs, com­pared to just 5.0 per­cent of blacks (a 32 per­cent difference).

This part­ly reflects racial dif­fer­ences in the drug mar­kets in black and white com­mu­ni­ties. In poor black neigh­bor­hoods, drugs tend to be sold out­doors, in the open. In white neigh­bor­hoods, by con­trast, drug trans­ac­tions typ­i­cal­ly hap­pen indoors, often between friends and acquain­tances. If you sell drugs out­side, you’re much more like­ly to get caught. Rothwell’s num­bers shoot some holes into some oft-repeat­ed drug war­rior talk­ing points: that peo­ple don’t get arrest­ed for non­vi­o­lent drug crime as much as they used to (false), and that legal­iz­ing and decrim­i­nal­iz­ing cer­tain drugs won’t mag­i­cal­ly solve racial dis­par­i­ties in the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem true but it could help.

Essentially, police arrest peo­ple where they see crimes being com­mit­ted in the open.This usu­al­ly leaves the false per­cep­tion that there is mar­gin­al, or no crime in upscale neighborhoods.
The prison pop­u­la­tions shows the dis­par­i­ties and so are the crim­i­nal records of many inner city residents.
Years ago, police in my upstate city of Poughkeepsie patrolled on bikes and walked the streets inter­act­ing with busi­ness own­ers like myself on a per­son­al basis.
The city was able to claw it’s way back from the throes of drug infes­ta­tion and gun vio­lence, result­ing in a burst of new busi­ness­es and occu­pan­cy of build­ings which were once shut­tered, ren­der­ing the city a ver­i­ta­ble ghost town.
We prac­ti­cal­ly knew the names of all of the cops on the department.

All of a sud­den the foot and bike patrols dis­s­a­peared, in their place were cops in cruis­ers glar­ing at peo­ple as if they are aliens.
I asked sev­er­al offi­cers with whom I had become friends over the years,“what hap­pened to com­mu­ni­ty polic­ing”? To a man they all said they were told to write tick­ets and enforce qual­i­ty of life offences.
In oth­er words stop being so darn friend­ly. Community rela­tions be damned what we need are arrests.
Today , save for one Lieutenant on the depart­ment who goes out of his way to be what a police offi­cer should, I have no idea who the peo­ple we pay to police our city are.
That kind of polic­ing is a two-edged sword as experts have said , it cre­ates a chasm between police and the com­mu­ni­ties they are sup­posed to serve. It is prob­lem­at­ic when peo­ple see the peo­ple they pay to pro­tect them as occu­py­ing forces there to oppress and keep them in line.
It is a prob­lem when offi­cers come from out­side the com­mu­ni­ties in which they work and act as over­seers to those com­mu­ni­ties , mak­ing deter­mi­na­tions on their own how they decide to treat people.

A cou­ple days ago I drove west­er­ly on main street in my city of Poughkeepsie. Back on some of the cor­ners are some of the very things which result­ed in the demise of the city years ago. Young men stand­ing around at all times of the day , it does not require a great deal of thought to fig­ure out what they are doing on those corners.
These groups did not con­gre­gate dur­ing the foot and bike patrol days. The short-sight­ed approach of polic­ing from afar will yield seri­ous con­se­quences for my city and it has for count­less oth­er cities which have cre­at­ed mil­i­taries out of local law enforce­ment agen­cies result­ing in adver­sar­i­al rela­tion­ships with the com­mu­ni­ties they are sup­posed to serve.

An ill-informed polit­i­cal can­di­date run­ning for pres­i­dent can argue for stop and frisk as a strat­e­gy to con­tain crime out of igno­rance. It is how­ev­er dan­ger­ous tone-deaf­ness to con­tin­ue to ignore the cries of the oppressed which will have dev­as­tat­ing con­se­quences going forward.