Former Minister of National Security Peter Bunting told the Jamaica Gleaner ‚that upon tak­ing office in 2012 he tried to revive the probe of a Senior Government offi­cial by the police.
Bunting was speak­ing about the alleged mur­der for hire inves­ti­ga­tions which was being spear-head­ed by Former Scotland Yard Detective, and a then ACP in the JCF Les Green.
The sub­ject of the probe was the JLP ‘s St Thomas MP James Robertson.

Said Bunting…

“I indi­cat­ed to Mr Green that I would sup­port the renew­al of his con­tract and that we would be able to offer pro­tec­tion to the wit­ness­es,” . “In essence, revers­ing the deci­sion the min­istry had tak­en … . But by that time, the wit­ness­es were already spooked,” . “I lat­er wrote to the Police Service Commission express­ing sup­port for the renew­al of Green’s con­tract”. I thought that Mr Green was mak­ing an impor­tant contribution,however, six months into the new con­tract, a frus­trat­ed mis­ter Green decid­ed he could no longer con­tin­ue, bunting told the Gleaner.

In the mean­time the present min­is­ter of nation­al secu­ri­ty Robert Mantague has sug­gest­ed he will now ask that the mat­ter be reopened.

This case, loaded with pol­i­tics, and ref­er­ence to crim­i­nal col­lu­sion though stark, is just one case. It is one of many with­in a sys­tem of cor­rup­tion which has per­me­at­ed the Jamaican cul­ture since the Nation start­ed run­ning it’s own affairs.

Everyone knows that the well con­nect­ed in Jamaica are above the laws.
Les Green, set aside his accent, skin col­or and coun­try of ori­gin, was a cop no more no less.
He left over frus­tra­tion with the com­plic­it, cor­rupt sys­tem and every­one is talk­ing about his depar­ture and comments.
Yet every year hun­dreds of police offi­cers born in Jamaica, chat Jumekan , and wear dark skin leave with vol­umes of sto­ry to tell .
What’s the dif­fer­ence with Green speak­ing out? As against our own offi­cers say­ing the very same things for years?
The col­or of his skin!!!!
They were hired to do a job we were quite capa­ble of doing but our Jamaican police offi­cers received no sup­port. The
lead­er­ship was pret­ty hap­py to run to England for help , I’m
Les Green for­mer Acp, JCF .…..

still wait­ing to see the ben­e­fits from those contracts.

The Tivoli Gardens inquiry which the People’s National Party com­mis­sioned to embar­rass it’s adver­sary the JLP, wast­ed hun­dreds of mil­lions of dollars.
The witch-hunt which sought to do more that what was an open and shut case of annex­ing a way­ward com­mu­ni­ty to the rest of the Island was doomed to reveal noth­ing we did not know.
In the same way the lin­ger­ing residue of colo­nial­ist brain­wash­ing influ­enced the hir­ing of Mark Shields, Les Green and Hamish Campbell over the empow­er­ment of our own officers,having David Simmons of Barbados sit in judge­ment in our coun­try reveals the deep root­ed sense of inse­cu­ri­ty and self doubt which still exist in Jamaica despite the out­ward bravado.

Ultimately the Tivoli inquiry start­ed out as this writer said it would be. A drawn-out bull­shit p[aarde of much heat and lit­tle light.
Garnet Roper a Minister of Religion summed up the Commission’s work this way.

We have spent some $300 mil­lion on a com­mis­sion of enquiry that went out of its way to exon­er­ate mem­bers of the polit­i­cal class for their role in those mat­ters. In fact, the only peo­ple that the Tivoli com­mis­sion­ers were pre­pared to blame for the entire episode were the secu­ri­ty forces. The com­mis­sion­ers were par­tic­u­lar­ly sav­age in their find­ings on the mem­bers of the JCF. In fact, there is one par­tic­u­lar offi­cer who, if the com­mis­sion­ers had their way, would have his career end­ed and play no fur­ther role in polic­ing. Their beef with that offi­cer is that he failed to proof­read the state­ment he gave to the com­mis­sion before sign­ing it. The com­mis­sion­ers attrib­uted no per­son­al cul­pa­bil­i­ty to any­one but the police — even though the mem­bers of the JCF entered the zone of con­flict only after a sub­stan­tial num­ber of per­sons who were killed were already dead (read the post-mortem reports). They did not blame the JDF for fail­ing to tell the com­mis­sion where Dudus had been stay­ing before the Reverend Miller went and fetched him.

It’s time that this Island of 2.8 mil­lion rec­og­nize that irre­spec­tive of the qual­i­ty of the Les Green led investigation,the evi­dence or lack there­of to pros­e­cute the sub­ject of said inves­ti­ga­tion, the aver­age per­son on the streets ignore the laws because they fun­da­men­tal­ly believe the laws do not apply to the polit­i­cal class.
This inci­dent is not an out­lier, it is the norm.
There is noth­ing out­side the bounds of what the polit­i­cal class will not do to avoid get­ting arrest­ed and pros­e­cut­ed for their crimes.

There can be no defense of tar­di­ness in any body , pub­lic or pri­vate in this fast paced infor­ma­tion dri­ven age in which we live . On that basis ‚Governments, their indi­vid­ual arms ‚and even pri­vate enti­ties have to be up on their game if they are to succeed.
This is true not just of Government and pri­vate com­pa­nies but also of sports teams and every com­pet­i­tive enti­ty that com­petes with­in the pub­lic space. Every minu­tia of data has to be ana­lyzed and con­sid­ered with a view toward gain­ing a com­pet­i­tive edge.

This is why it is so sad that the Mobile Reserve Branch of the JCF allowed itself to be char­ac­ter­ized as unable to do the basic , as it relates to account­abil­i­ty of per­son­nel and their movements.
The move­ment of Police per­son­nel should be out­side the remit of the aver­age per­son for obvi­ous rea­sons. Even for INDECOM that infor­ma­tion should be gained through a court order in my esti­ma­tion, based on the hos­til­i­ty alone of that agen­cy’s Commissioner to police officers.

Shockingly the com­mis­sion­er of Police Carl Williams and indeed the police fed­er­a­tion has become like the three monkeys.
See no evil . Speak no evil. Hear no evil.
In yet anoth­er dis­joint­ed and irra­tional broad­side against the police, the INDECOM com­mis­sion­er said that the Jamaica Defense Force should take over the oper­a­tions of the Mobile Reserve, because in his words the hier­ar­chy of the Mobile Reserve divi­sion of the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF) should step down and the com­mand of the unit be turned over to the Jamaica Defence Force (JDF) for an extend­ed peri­od — at least until the unit starts to devel­op respon­si­ble leadership.

This lat­est bit of media whor­ing by Williams comes as lit­tle sur­prise to plugged in observers like myself but to oth­ers not as plugged in, it demon­strates once again that the head of INDECOM will stop at noth­ing to demon­strate his dis­dain and utter hatred for the police force, even if it means show­ing that he is at best irrational,stupid or worse.

In an effort to give Williams the ben­e­fit of the doubt, I con­tem­plat­ed that he made the state­ment tongue in cheek.
However after tak­ing anoth­er look at his state­ment, I found that he was dead seri­ous, as seri­ous as he has pre­vi­ous­ly been, not just to per­se­cute police offi­crs but to embar­rass the entire depart­ment in the process.
This has been Terrence Williams’ modus operan­di from the moment he was empow­ered to inves­ti­gate the mil­i­tary , police and cor­rec­tions depart­ments on the Island.
It must be remem­bered that as the new­ly mint­ed head of INDECOM Williams sat at a table with then head of Jamaican’s for Justice (JFJ) Carolyn Gomes a lob­by group and then lob­by­ist vehe­ment­ly opposed to police.

Since it’s incep­tion INDECOM has had mod­est suc­cess at best ‚in pros­e­cut­ing real rogue cops. In fact accord­ing to Terrence Williams’s own account, the vast major­i­ty of the alle­ga­tions his office inves­ti­gat­ed have result­ed in evi­dence reveal­ing that the offi­cers had done noth­ing wrong.
Conversely the JCF’s inter­nal house-clean­ing meth­ods avail­able to the depart­ment and the ser­vice com­mis­sion, has demon­stra­bly done a mas­ter­ful job of root­ing out rogue cops from the department.
These tools, includes the abil­i­ty the Commissioner of Police has , to eval­u­ate an offi­cer through his/​her ser­vice record, and mak­ing an informed deci­sion whether an offi­cer should be allowed to re-enlist after each five year period.

Senior Gazetted offi­cers may, and have been root­ed out by the ser­vice com­mis­sion as well. That body has the pow­er to deter­mine when it’s prop­er that a senior offi­cer step aside in the pub­lic’s interest.
Additionally the Police has oth­er meth­ods which works effec­tive­ly to remove unfit offi­cers from the department.
On the face of it, it could eas­i­ly be con­strued that these process­es do not work well.
That hap­pens because the pub­lic is not privy to the fir­ings out­side of the force orders which Owen Ellington made a pub­lic document.

The fact of the mat­ter is that INDECOM has been pre­cious more than a mas­sive dupli­ca­tion of efforts, and a colos­sal waste of resources which ought to have gone to law-enforcement.
It kills police morale and demon­strates how tiny lit­tle bureau­crats and dupli­ca­tions can have dis­as­trous con­se­quences for a country.
In a coun­try like Jamaica where peo­ple are inca­pable of say­ing this was a mis­take, this mon­strous débâ­cle is not like­ly to be repealed and done away with.

In the inter­im, the INDECOM act has embold­ened crim­i­nals to kill with­out the vig­i­lance and deter­mi­na­tion of the police com­ing after them.
Sure police are engag­ing mur­der­ing crim­i­nals much less and the inci­dents of vio­lent con­fronta­tions are expo­nen­tial­ly less.
For the aver­age Jamaican this is a victory.
For peo­ple look­ing to raise a fam­i­ly, retire or do busi­ness this envi­ron­ment is cer­tain­ly not a wel­com­ing one.

Terrence Williams the com­mis­sion­er of INDECOM under­stands full well the pow­er of the media. He sees the mur­der sta­tis­tics, he knows that soon enough some peo­ple with brains in their cra­ni­ums will start mak­ing the con­nec­tion between his per­se­cu­tion of police and the mur­der statistics.
Hence his shame­less media prostitution.

Carl Williams the inept police com­mis­sion­er could care less about optics. In fact the impor­tance of optics is lost on him .
The young offi­cers under his com­mand are well advised to col­lect their pay­checks and keep their heads low . There is absolute­ly no rea­son to rock the boat or do any­thing but watch the clock.

In what reads like a Hollywood mur­der-for-hire movie script a Miami Herald Article laid out ver­ba­tim, what Jamaicans have known for decades and this writer have writ­ten about for years .
The Article doc­u­ment­ed point by point by point , mur­der for hire. Shootings. Murder. Corruption. Prosecutorial and Police cow­ardice and incom­pe­tence . And the fail­ings of a crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem which gives new mean­ing to the term “crim­i­nal jus­tice system”.

The Article spoke in chill­ing detail about Jamaica Labor Party St Thomas mem­ber of par­lia­ment James Robertson.
Alleging that Robertson attempt­ed to have peo­ple mur­dered, as well as peo­ple relat­ed to the sub­ject Robertson alleged­ly want­ed to do the killings because he was refus­ing to car­ry out the hits.
The Subject him­self was alleged­ly shot at sev­er­al times ‚and was shot three times in one incident.

http://​www​.miami​her​ald​.com/​n​e​w​s​/​n​a​t​i​o​n​-​w​o​r​l​d​/​w​o​r​l​d​/​a​m​e​r​i​c​a​s​/​a​r​t​i​c​l​e​9​5​6​2​3​7​4​2​.​h​tml

The man Robertson alleged­ly con­tract­ed for the killings detailed that Robertson vis­it­ed him and promised that all his trou­bles would dis­s­a­pear if he com­mit­ted to doing the hits.
What con­found­ed me in the lengthy Article is why would Robertson need this par­tic­u­lar busi­ness­man to do con­tract killings as is alleged if Robertson could find oth­er shoot­ers as stip­u­lat­ed in the arti­cle who were shoot­ing and killing peo­ple around the sub­ject himself?

As pro­found, chill­ing and intrigu­ing as the plot detailed in the arti­cle is, it comes as no sur­prise to those of us who wore the uni­form as police offi­cers in the Island-nation of Jamaica.
Whether or not the alle­ga­tions detailed in for­mer Assistant Commissioner of Police Les Green’s account are cor­rect, and there are no rea­sons to assume they aren’t , it high­lights that con­nect­ed peo­ple do not go to prison or even gets pros­e­cut­ed for their crimes in Jamaica,.

It showed that it took a white for­eign senior police offi­cer to com­mence and con­clude an inves­ti­ga­tion of a Jamaican politi­cian, a case file sub­mit­ted to the Director of Public pros­e­cu­tion, who cow­ard­ly or duplici­tious­ly refused to pros­e­cute, even as she now argue that the police could have laid those charges anyway.
The DPP should have known that her abdi­ca­tion of her sworn con­sti­tu­tion­al func­tion would not stand with a real police offi­cer like Les Green, who is unafraid and uncon­cerned about Jamaica’s lit­tle crim­i­nals who pose as polit­i­cal leaders.

The cir­cum­stan­tial evi­dence in sup­port of Les Greens stance can­not be ignored, when its con­sid­ered that his con­tract to help mod­ern­ize the force was not renewed. Why was the Government unable to pro­tect the pros­e­cu­tion witnesses?
The Nation need to con­sid­er why the visa of James Robertson and his wife were yanked by the Americans as well.

After the FBI con­clud­ed it’s inves­ti­ga­tions against for­mer sec­re­tary of State Hillary Clinton in the e‑mail scan­dal, the agency deter­mined there was not enough evi­dence to sup­port any crim­i­nal charge.
The Justice depart­ment did not over-ride it’s chief inves­tiga­tive arm by pros­e­cut­ing Clinton regardless.
The asser­tion by Paula Llewellyn that the police could have laid charges despite her advis­ing that the case would have been hard to prove because of who the wit­ness­es are. And fur­ther, because she her­self is the sole pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al author­i­ty, her asser­tions rings hol­low , it flies in the face of logic.

One would have to sus­pend real­i­ty to buy into the DPP’s log­ic. That even though she had doubts, she would then turn around and pros­e­cute the case against James Robertson with the vig­or and vital­i­ty it deserved.
Or at all.….….….….…..

Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Paula Llewellyn says the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF) could have ignored her rec­om­men­da­tion and brought charges against par­lia­men­tar­i­an James Robertson over the 2011 find­ings of a crim­i­nal investigation.

The DPP issued a state­ment to The Gleaner this morn­ing in response to a Miami Herald sto­ry quot­ing for­mer Assistant Commissioner of Police Les Green, the case’s lead inves­ti­ga­tor, as say­ing there was suf­fi­cient evi­dence to bring charges against the Jamaica Labour Party rep­re­sen­ta­tive for St Thomas Western.

Llewellyn said in June 2011 her office sent its opin­ion to Green rais­ing ques­tions about the cred­i­bil­i­ty of the wit­ness­es and the need for “inde­pen­dent cor­rob­o­ra­tive material”.

However, the DPP said she remind­ed the then senior cop that the JCF had the pow­er to bring charges if it felt they were needed.

“It is unfor­tu­nate that Mr Green in his recount­ing to the Miami Herald, may have suf­fered from a lapse of mem­o­ry here or there, caus­ing him to be less than ful­some,” read the DPP’s statement.

She also said the inves­ti­ga­tors have not sub­mit­ted any fur­ther details to her office after the con­cerns were raised about the qual­i­ty of evi­dence and the wit­ness­es. http://​jamaica​glean​er​.com/​a​r​t​i​c​l​e​/​n​e​w​s​/​2​0​1​6​0​8​1​6​/​d​p​p​-​c​o​p​s​-​c​o​u​l​d​-​h​a​v​e​-​i​g​n​o​r​e​d​-​m​y​-​a​d​v​i​c​e​-​a​n​d​-​a​r​r​e​s​t​e​d​-​m​p​-​t​h​e​i​r​-​own

Deputy Commissioner of Police Clifford Blake told a Gleaner Editor’s Forum dis­cussing events of the 2010 Military/​Police incur­sion, “some mem­bers of the force are resis­tant to using com­put­ers at the sta­tion level”.

If These Senior Officers Are Incompetent Why Keep Them .….

There are times I feel I am the only per­son who sup­port the Jamaican police. Despite it’s many and var­ied flaws I under­stand fun­da­men­tal­ly that it is crit­i­cal to the exis­tence of the Island if it is to avoid becom­ing a failed state.

Yet I some­times clutch my head in dis­gust because the lead­er­ship of the force con­tin­ue to cause ruina­tion and ridicule to this indis­pens­able func­tion of demo­c­ra­t­ic societies.

This has forced me to write crit­i­cal­ly of the force even when it kills me to do so.
Deputy Commissioner Blake told the forum at that offi­cers are resis­tant to using com­put­ers say­ing quote” At my age, I don’t want to go and learn to type”.

Problem With The Team ? Fire The Coaching Staff…

At the forum were the reg­u­lar agi­ta­tors and anti-police Vultures who make a liv­ing from pick­ing at the car­cass of police ineptitude.
♦ Office of Public Defender.
♦JFJ
♦INDECOM.
Among oth­ers. Ironically these Buzzards are nev­er active­ly engaged in any­thing press­ing or sub­stan­tive which would keep them from a sit-down of this type. They were in Hog’s heav­en and Clifford Blake was all too hap­py to pro­vide them more than enough car­cass on which to feed.
Oh how I wish the police depart­ment would func­tion as a mod­ern smart police depart­ment what would these scav­engers eat?
Anyway !!!!

I too would absolute­ly love to see a trans­for­ma­tive mod­ern police depart­ment. The heirach of the PD now makes it clear it wants to be seen as an incom­pe­tent do noth­ing set of posers who are quite con­tent to give inter­views from behind desks in com­put­er adorned offices.

These are the new breed which grad­u­at­ed from the (Intellectual ghet­to) , my bad I meant the UWI>.
Weren’t they sup­posed to be bet­ter at lead­er­ship, speak bet­ter, more rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the Elites above Cross Roads?
What the hell hap­pened, weren’t they sup­posed to rev­o­lu­tion­ize the force, trans­form­ing it from a night-watch­man para-mil­i­tary bunch of big-foot­ed dunce-bats?

You see, much of polic­ing has noth­ing to do with PhD’s and Masters or even Bachelor’s degrees. They are absolute­ly use­ful ‚but not crit­i­cal to polic­ing . Not in the past, not now, nor for the fore­see­able future.
Policing is a spe­cif­ic dis­ci­pline which requires more than any­thing else, a desire to serve. PhD’s and Masters Degrees are absolute­ly great accom­plish­ments in what­ev­er dis­ci­pline they may be earned, how­ev­er polic­ing is acquir­ing train­ing in spe­cif­ic small yet crit­i­cal areas.

We need PhD’s in the lab­o­ra­to­ries for foren­sics and analy­sis not for polic­ing. We need police offi­cers for policing.
The hier­ar­chy of the JCF has com­plete­ly proven this point.
I have writ­ten about this pre­vi­ous­ly , cit­ing com­mis­sion­ers of police like William(Bill) Bratton who start­ed out as a patrol­man in Boston Massachusetts and rose to lead­ing the NYPD the world’s largest and most sophis­ti­cat­ed police department.

HERE’ WHY CLIFFORD BLAKE’S STATEMENTS SHOWS A LACK OF LEADERSHIP.……

As a young offi­cer attached to the CIB office in Constant spring, we col­lect­ed all of the crimes com­mit­ted in the Parish of St, Thomas , St Andrew North, and St Catherine each day. Anyone famil­iar with my home parish of Saint Catherine will attest to the vol­ume of crime com­mit­ted in that parish alone , par­tic­u­lar­ly in and around Spanish Town.
The afore­men­tioned made up the Police Area five(5)

Collecting all that crime data had to be done so that it would include all of the crimes record­ed for that day up to midnight.
The report had to be record­ed in by hand and dupli­cat­ed five(5) times, we had no type­writ­ers in the CIB office.
One report for the Divisional Detective Inspector.
One for the Divisional officer.
One for the Officer in charge of crime Area five.
One for the offi­cer in charge of Area five.
One for the Commissioner of Police’s office.

I hat­ed writ­ing all of that crap by hand so I decid­ed to use car­bon paper.
The lazy-ass fat incom­pe­tent kha­ki clad wasters com­plained that there were smudges which made the reports hard to read.
I under­stood their com­plaints, they were always about form over sub­stance. They were no fans of cre­ativ­i­ty, or those who found work­able solu­tions to problems.
To counter that I took it upon myself to approach a friend of the Police who was exceed­ing­ly kind in giv­ing a used type­writer to the CIB office. My typ­ing career was born.

Literally every per­son across the globe hav­ing access is able to nav­i­gate their way around smart devices, includ­ing smart­phones, tablets, and yes com­put­ers, police offi­cers being no exception.
As much as I resent and abhor those vul­tures from the eat-a-food groups sit­ting in unright­eous judge­ment of police offi­cers , I have to won­der whether or not DCP Clifford Blake con­sid­ered just how stu­pid his state­ment would sound before utter­ing them.
If typ­ing on a com­put­er key­board is not part of the skill-set required for police offi­cers today, then those who can’t must learn and those who are opposed to learn­ing must now seek alter­na­tive employment.
I am sor­ry to be so blunt, but we can­not have police offi­cers who deter­mine they won’t com­ply with sim­ple require­ments of the job.

BALTIMORE

It is total­ly with­ing the norm for Police depart­ments to make sub­stan­tive change fol­low­ing major inci­dents which neces­si­tat­ed out­side inves­ti­ga­tions of their department.
In fact just Wednesday the US Justice Department issued a scathing report against the Baltimore Police Department. The Justice Department inves­ti­ga­tion com­menced after a young black man Freddie Gray died in police custody.

The report released a syn­op­sis of the prob­lems with­in the Baltimore Police Department under an Executive Summary which included .
♦Unconstitutional Arrests.
♦Unconstitutional stops and search­es and arrests.
♦Racial dis­par­i­ties in enforce­ment with evi­dence sug­gest­ing inten­tion­al dis­crim­i­na­tion against African Americans exac­er­bat­ing com­mu­ni­ty distrust.
♦Overly aggres­sive tac­tics unnec­es­sar­i­ly esca­lat­ing encounters .
♦Use of unrea­son­able force.
♦Unreasonable force against juveniles.
Unreasonable force against peo­ple with men­tal disabilities.

Among oth­er uncon­sti­tu­tion­al actions against African American cit­i­zens of that city .
Baltimore’s may­or Stephanie Rawlings-Blake and Police Commissioner Kevin Davis stood chas­tened as a jus­tice depart­ment offi­cial read out in full, the list of the Justice depart­men­t’s find­ings in the actions of the Baltimore PD.
Both the Mayor and the Police chief promised to work assid­u­ous­ly to ensure that the BPD can once again be a trust­ed , respect­ed police depart­ment which serves the needs of all cit­i­zens, equi­tably and justly.

KINGSTON

The com­mis­sion which heard evi­dence in what tran­spired in Tivoli Gardens in 2010 issued among oth­er rec­om­men­da­tions ‚that some senior police offi­cers not be allowed com­mand in the future.
The three pan­el com­mis­sion led by David Simmons a for­mer senior judge from Barbados , con­duct­ed an inquiry which was patent­ly hos­tile to Jamaican law-enforce­ment from the onset.
With that said, it is rea­son­able to assert that the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF) has cre­at­ed for itself much of the ani­mus it expe­ri­ences today, exact­ly because of incom­pe­tence, nepo­tism and cor­rup­tion. Animus which allowed an out­sider to come into the coun­try and dis­play open dis­dain and dis­re­spect to the depart­ment and it’s officers .

The JCF for it’s part announced it has moved to reas­sign from oper­a­tional duties, two senior offi­cers, as rec­om­mend­ed by the Tivoli Commission.
Among the com­mis­sions response, this par­tic­u­lar recommendation.

“Where the accu­sa­tions of extra­ju­di­cial killings on the part of the secu­ri­ty forces were found by this com­mis­sion to be cred­i­ble, and where per­sons were iden­ti­fied as being in dere­lic­tion of duty or were admin­is­tra­tive­ly or oper­a­tional­ly incom­pe­tent, we rec­om­mend that these per­sons should nev­er again be allowed to lead or oth­er­wise par­tic­i­pate in inter­nal secu­ri­ty oper­a­tions,” the com­mis­sion wrote.

If these com­man­ders were cred­i­bly found to be in dere­lic­tion of their respon­si­bil­i­ties, the JCF is with­in its right to reas­sign them.
However, there are more than enough rea­sons to believe that the com­mis­sion was lit­tle more than a kan­ga­roo court which was set up to appor­tion blame to one par­ty for the loss of life in Tivoli Gardens.
Additionally, the JCF has a his­to­ry of throw­ing it’s own out to the dogs at the slight­est protest from spe­cial inter­est groups opposed to the rule of law on the Island.
With that said ‚this writer shed no tear for any senior mem­ber of the force who find them­selves being abused by the sys­tem. Let them have a taste of what the young offi­cers they push around and abuse dai­ly feel.

Speaking to a Gleaner’s Editor’s forum ‚Deputy Commissioner of Police Clifford Blake revealed yes­ter­day that the two senior offi­cers — who were among five serv­ing mem­bers sin­gled out for sting­ing crit­i­cism by the David Simmons-chaired com­mis­sion — were trans­ferred to oth­er areas of the JCF in the last two months. Head of the Independent Commission of Investigations (INDECOM), Terrence Williams, who was also a guest at the forum, ques­tioned whether the two offi­cers — in their new roles — would be super­vis­ing police per­son­nel car­ry­ing out oper­a­tional duties.“I’m say­ing no,” Blake insisted.

If there was evi­dence to sup­port the alle­ga­tions as alleged by the com­mis­sion the JCF should not reas­sign incom­pe­tent senior offi­cers. If they are unable to car­ry out their duties oper­a­tional­ly why keep them on?
It offers the depart­ment the oppor­tu­ni­ty to remove them from the pub­lic’s pay­roll, as young con­sta­bles cor­po­ral and sergeants would be let go.
The Baltimore Police com­mis­sion­er report­ed to the nation that his depart­ment has already begun the task of fix­ing itself , that process he explains involve remov­ing errant offi­cers from its ranks.
The JCF should use this unfor­tu­nate episode to do some house clean­ing of it’s own.
Keeping incom­pe­tent senior offi­cers on the pay­roll to warm desks does a dis-ser­vice to the country.

Talk about being tough on crime, this is how we do it in Jamaica, this is a mod­el for being tough on crime. [sic].
Using this medi­um I speak out unabashed­ly against crime . I do so because I have not seen a bet­ter sys­tem than the rule of law.
I absolute­ly do not believe in too much Government, how­ev­er, since humans can­not be total­ly trust­ed to act in ways which are law­ful , legal and good, soci­eties cre­ate laws with clear lines of demar­ca­tion and penal­ties which appro­pri­ates puni­tive sanc­tions for breach­es of said laws. This is to pro­tect those who want to live in soci­eties free from crime and ter­ror, as well as to estab­lish and main­tain sta­ble secure societies.

We can­not have growth and eco­nom­ic advance­ment when the very insti­tu­tions of Government which are sup­posed to enhance those process­es are wit­ting­ly or unwit­ting­ly engaged in defeat­ing the process.

A sin­gle wood-chuck is capa­ble of doing incred­i­ble dam­age to a build­ing’s sup­port struc­ture . So too can a sin­gle mag­is­trate with­ing a system.
Imagine when most of the think­ing of the judi­cia­ry is aligned close­ly with the lax, Laissez-faire atti­tudes which we have grown accus­tomed to and which per­me­ates the process of jus­tice dis­pen­sa­tion in Jamaica.

Gleaner Editorial Assails DPP Makes No Mention Of Pusey’s Outrageous Decision

A repeat offend­er, who plead­ed guilty to rob­bery, was sen­tenced to 18 months in prison when he appeared in the Kingston and St Andrew Parish Court yesterday.

Twenty-six-year-old Jaion Wilson plead­ed guilty to a charge of rob­bery with aggra­va­tion. The court heard that on July 21, Wilson — who was armed with a knife — held up the com­plainant and robbed him of a Samsung cel­lu­lar phone val­ued at $90,000, a BLU cel­lu­lar phone val­ued at $16,000, and a sil­ver ring val­ued at $3000, before flee­ing the scene. Wilson was sub­se­quent­ly accost­ed by police offi­cers, who saw the com­plainant chas­ing him and joined the chase.

Man Fined $50,000 For Driving Over Cop’s Foot

Prior to sen­tenc­ing, Senior Parish Judge Judith Pusey asked Wilson if he ever had trou­ble with the law before.

“Second time,” Wilson replied.

Wilson told the court that he was con­vict­ed for the same offence and was giv­en a sec­ond chance to find a job.

“So what must I do, not send you to prison?” Pusey asked.

“ Mi a beg you some lenien­cy,” Wilson replied.

“Why?” Pusey asked.

“I have a son,” Wilson told the court.

Magistrate: Not Guilty, But Is Kern Innocent ?

Pusey told Wilson that she, too, has a son, hence why she works to sup­port him.

“My son going back to school,” Wilson said.

“What hap­pened to his moth­er?” Pusey asked.

“His moth­er is not there for him,” Wilson replied.

Pusey, who was not moved by Wilson’s expla­na­tion, said that he should have been think­ing that if he goes to jail his son would not have any­one to take care of him.

He was sub­se­quent­ly sen­tenced to 18 months in prison. http://​www​.jamaicaob​serv​er​.com/​n​e​w​s​/​R​e​p​e​a​t​-​o​f​f​e​n​d​e​r​-​g​e​t​s​-​1​8​-​m​o​n​t​h​s​-​f​o​r​-​r​o​b​b​e​r​y​_​6​9​959

The Problem With Jamaica’s “Grung Gads”

KINGSTON, Jamaica — The police’s Counter Terrorism and Organized Crime Investigation Branch (C‑TOC) has list­ed Tesha Miller as a per­son of inter­est. He is being asked to make him­self avail­able to detec­tives at the Major Investigation Division (MID) locat­ed at 230 Spanish Town Road, Kingston, by mid­day, Tuesday.

Miller was des­ig­nat­ed a ‘Person of Interest’ fol­low­ing inten­sive inves­ti­ga­tions and intel­li­gence led oper­a­tions, by senior detec­tives from the C‑TOC and MID. Recently the police have record­ed an increase in mur­ders and oth­er vio­lent crimes in St Catherine, par­tic­u­lar­ly the Spanish Town area where the Clansman Gang is active­ly engaged in crim­i­nal activ­i­ties, the Corporate Communications Unit (CCU) revealed in a release Sunday.

Tesha Miller Returns Amidst Warning From Feckless Police…

Detectives dis­closed that dur­ing the first quar­ter of 2016, while Tesha Miller was incar­cer­at­ed over­seas, the St Catherine North Division record­ed a 48 per cent reduc­tion in mur­der when com­pared with the same peri­od in 2015. This fig­ure also rep­re­sents the low­est num­ber of mur­ders in the divi­sion for the com­par­a­tive peri­od in the last five years. The mur­der fig­ure in St Catherine North now stands at 73, mov­ing from 21 at the end of the first quar­ter of 2016, accord­ing to the lawmen.

Based on the avail­able intel­li­gence, the police believe that Miller can assist the police with the inves­ti­ga­tion of sev­er­al of the mur­ders record­ed in Spanish Town and sec­tions of Portmore. Most of the killings, the CCU said, have been linked to an inter­nal feud with­in the Clansman Gang since the depor­ta­tion of Tesha Miller on March 29.

Tesha Miller Deported, Police Issue Warning

Several attempts by the police to con­tact him have proven futile.

Tesha Miller or any­one know­ing his where­abouts is being asked to con­tact C‑TOC at 922‑2373, the St Catherine North Police at 984‑2305, police 119 emer­gency num­ber, 311, 811, the near­est police sta­tion or use the Stay Alert App, which can be down­loaded from the Google Play Store. http://​www​.jamaicaob​serv​er​.com/​n​e​w​s​/​t​e​s​h​a​2​0​1​6​-08 – 07T22-14 – 05

The Director of Public Prosecution (DPP) in Kingston has report­ed­ly ruled that there will be no crim­i­nal charges prof­fered against Police offi­cers who tus­sled with a Woman as they tried to arrest her.
The inci­dent occurred in the Gordon Town area of rur­al St Andrew in late July.
https://​mike​beck​les​.com/​d​o​n​t​-​d​i​s​b​a​n​d​-​f​o​r​c​e​-​d​i​s​b​a​n​d​-​g​a​z​e​t​t​e​d​-​r​a​n​k​s​-​u​s​e​l​e​s​s​-​f​e​d​e​r​a​t​i​on/

Regardless of what neces­si­tat­ed the arrest, regard­less of what pre­cip­i­tat­ed the tus­sle, what was evi­dent in the video is a woman vio­lent­ly attack­ing and fight­ing with police offi­cers who law­ful­ly told her she was under arrest,.
That is what’s important.

The police have a duty to present to a court of law , evi­dence beyond a rea­son­able to sub­stan­ti­ate an arrests.
If the per­son arrest­ed is exon­er­at­ed by a court of law, that per­son has reme­dies under the law to sue for damages.
Citizens who are told by the police they are under arrest must com­ply with offi­cers com­mands with­out fight­ing or oth­er­wise imped­ing that arrest.
The crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem in Jamaica is so crim­i­nal friend­ly that a police offi­cer was recent­ly con­vict­ed for shoot­ing a taxi oper­a­tor who attacked him in uni­form , knocked him to the ground and strug­gled with him.
Faced with the like­li­hood of los­ing his weapon and his life he shot the assailant.
The police offi­cer was con­vict­ed in the Jamaican courts.

Jamaica’s Crime Not Rooted In The Ghettos.…

The media not to be out­done con­tin­ued to run with the brain-dead idio­cy that the police were caught tus­sling with a woman they want­ed to arrest.
What do these idiots mean caught? When was sub­du­ing a vio­lent sub­ject become unlawful?
The lap-dog police senior offi­cers includ­ing the pathet­ic com­mis­sion­er did not stand up for the offi­cers who were doing what they were trained to do.

If the offi­cers are to be chas­tised, it should be for not tak­ing com­mand of the woman more decid­ed­ly, and arrest­ing those on the side­lines who were inter­fer­ing in the process.
The high com­mand through the Inspectorate branch instead, betrayed the offi­cers by sub­mit­ting a file to the DPP upon which that office ruled that there were no breach­es in law on the part of the officers.
This despite the fact that INDECOM the police per­se­cu­tion Agency shock­ing­ly stat­ed through it’s deputy Commissioner Hamish Campbell that the offi­cers did their best to restrain her and were extreme­ly patient .

Notwithstanding the Inspectorate is not done , it has con­tin­ued it’s witch-hunt of these officers.
I am par­tic­u­lar­ly inter­est­ed in under­stand­ing from the do noth­ing Inspectorate Branch what exact­ly are offi­cers sup­posed to do when a sub­ject refus­es to sub­mit to arrest?

I call on the lack­ey Commissioner of Police to issue a stand­ing order to offi­cers who are con­front­ed with bel­liger­ent , vio­lent offend­ers that they should stand down.
The law gives police offi­cers across the globe, Jamaica being no excep­tion, the pow­er and the right to use all nec­es­sary force to effect an arrest.
By God , what kind of mes­sage are they send­ing when police offi­cers are not even allowed to effect sim­ple arrests?
Since the inter­na­tion­al pro­to­col of using force to law­ful­ly effect arrests no longer apply in Jamaica, it is impor­tant that the chief con­sta­ble Carl Williams inform the offi­cers under his com­mand to stand down when those they want to arrest decide they do not wish to be arrested.

One vil­lage lawyer actu­al­ly sought to crit­i­cize me in a lengthy social media post at the time I came out in sup­port of the offi­cers. His stu­pid con­tention was that she had a right to resist arrest because of dif­fi­cul­ties in secur­ing bail and a raft of oth­er issues which has noth­ing to do with police.
This is the lev­el of luna­cy and idio­cy which informs debates in the Jamaican space.
If you are afraid you won’t be get­ting bail stay out of trouble.
Ironically Jamaica has one of the most lax bail law, and a crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem dom­i­nat­ed by crim­i­nal lov­ing judges who sum­mar­i­ly release vis­cous mur­der­ers back onto the streets as soon as they are arrest­ed. These vis­cous killers prompt­ly kill again and again and again with­out consequence.
In some case up to five known times and are grant­ed bail regardless.

Commissioner Carl Williams has become a dis­grace. Staying on as com­mis­sion­er does a hor­ri­ble dis­hon­or to polic­ing and a dis­ser­vice to offi­cers under his command.
Commissioner Williams, if you can­not stand up and defend your offi­cers when they go over and above to do the right thing of what use are you?
Why would these offi­cers actions even be ques­tioned in the first place?

Jamaica is a place with an extreme­ly high crime rate . No amount of spin­ning or bull­shit­ting will change that fact.
When for­eign coun­tries have to send their own offi­cers to observe court pro­ceed­ings in cas­es where extra­di­tion requests are in order, it is a sear­ing indict­ment on the state of the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem on the Island.
It means they have no con­fi­dence in the sys­tem to deliv­er jus­tice to crim­i­nals. Lets stop with the patri­ot­ic bull­shit and the ratio­nal­iza­tion , they know and believe, that the sys­tem is one which sup­ports criminality.
As I have said this jus­tice sys­tem is a sham. It sup­ports crim­i­nals and demo­nizes police. Lets cut to the chase, Jamaica’s crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem means exact­ly that.
It is a jus­tice sys­tem which favors cod­dles and encour­ages crime.
I stand with the offi­cers in this case . For the record I would not be as char­i­ta­ble as they were .
That’s the bot­tom line.
Step aside Commissioner Williams you are not a leader…

After the shoot­ing of the police offi­cers in Dallas Texas , The Police chief David Brown told pro­test­ers out­raged by indis­crim­i­nate police killings quote , “get off that protest line we are hir­ing”. I thought Brown was not only woe­ful­ly con­de­scend­ing but illu­mi­nat­ing­ly igno­rant . His com­ments made assump­tions about pro­test­ers skills sets, employ­ment sta­tus as well as assumed they would want to be cops.
Many peo­ple who stepped into the streets to protest the grotesque police killings were Doctors, pro­gram­mers , teach­ers nurs­es and all types of career fields. They were Blacks, Whites, Latinos and peo­ple of all dif­fer­ent backgrounds.
Inherent in Brown’s assump­tions was a naïveté which assumed that the seri­ous issue of police killings can be fixed with more police. Or more Black police officers.
https://​mike​beck​les​.com/l/

Since then almost two hun­dred peo­ple have report­ed­ly turned up hop­ing to become a part of the Dallas PD. As you might have imag­ined most of them are white . Even if more cops could fix the prob­lem most of the peo­ple who turned up were white. To those who see police as a prob­lem and white police in par­tic­u­lar as a seri­ous prob­lem, this places David Brown’s sim­plis­tic argu­ments on their head.
At the time Brown made the state­ment , many includ­ing the President of the United States of America was fawn­ing over him. The effu­sive praise direct­ed Brown’s way from both left and right had noth­ing to do with Brown the indi­vid­ual and every­thing to do with America’s sin­gu­lar glo­ri­fi­ca­tion of law-enforcement.
As some­one who ask my fel­low Jamaicans to sup­port law ‑enforce­ment I get it , just not the idol wor­ship which comes out of the polit­i­cal right, with­out hold­ing dirty cops accountable,.

I chid­ed David Brown’s com­ments not because I though he did not mean well , or that he may not even be a nice guy . I found his com­ments both con­de­scend­ing and patron­iz­ing. I also thought they were dis­re­spect­ful and I said so. Not every per­son who steps up to con­demn egre­gious police behav­ior wants to be a police offi­cer. On that basis I was not per­turbed that a cou­ple of my offi­cer friends were upset that I thought Brown’s com­ments condescending.
I was quick to point out that I sup­port law-enforce­ment and more impor­tant­ly I am a for­mer law-enforce­ment offi­cer. What I cer­tain­ly did not con­done while I served and cer­tain­ly do not sup­port now are bad police officers.
My point in all of this, is that mere­ly sign­ing up more peo­ple Brown clear­ly saw as unem­ployed from depressed com­mu­ni­ties is no solu­tion to police killings.
He believes if peo­ple have jobs ‚police will be more respect­ful of their lives . If so be the case then sign up every­one and lets all be cops. As if black cops do not fear for their lives like every oth­er black person.
Black Americans cer­tain­ly have no inter­est in being abused or killed by black cops. In many com­mu­ni­ties of col­or they view black cops with even more sus­pi­cion as they believe they are worse than white officers.
Yes there is much out­rage when white police offi­cers kill black cit­i­zens. That I sub­mit how­ev­er derives from the con­tin­ued poor rela­tion­ship between blacks and whites in the United States and the biased role police has con­sis­tent­ly played in the whole saga.
On the oth­er hand , In case after case we see sit­u­a­tions where black police offi­cers them­selves abuse cit­i­zens or stand by and do noth­ing while their white coun­ter­parts abuse citizens

In my home coun­try of Jamaica, peo­ple say police are inher­ent­ly dis­re­spect­ful and abu­sive , yet there is no black and white pop­u­la­tion. The polar oppo­sites are poor une­d­u­cat­ed un-con­nect­ed peo­ple and monied peo­ple with connection.
This points to deep­er cul­tur­al atti­tudes of how police view peo­ple who are tra­di­tion­al­ly seen as less wor­thy of respect. Police are tra­di­tion­al­ly more pre­dis­posed to abus­ing peo­ple they do not believe will be able to hire high pro­file lawyers to fight on their behalf in court.
In Jamaica the poor­er class are seen the same way that black Americans are viewed by American police.
I believe it is fun­da­men­tal­ly the rea­son that we con­tin­ue to have the gap­ing dif­fer­ences of opin­ion in the way we view police killing of black Americans in America . Whites gen­er­al­ly do not have acri­mo­nious rela­tion­ships with police, pri­mar­i­ly because police gen­er­al­ly do not abuse and wan­ton­ly kill whites.
It is true that over­all more whites are killed by police each year but when the amount of whites killed are viewed against their num­bers in the soci­ety those num­bers become less glar­ing. Conversely the num­ber of dead blacks is alarm­ing when viewed against their per­cent­age with­in the population.

Which brings us to the killing of 23-year-old Korryn Gaines a Baltimore Maryland woman. According to live​.bal​ti​more​sun​.com police went to serve arrest war­rants on ms Gaines when she alleged­ly point­ed a gun at them.
They say they pulled back and called for swat.
The 23-year-old woman had been pulled over in March for dri­ving with a card­board “Free Traveler” sign in place of a license plate on her car, and told an offi­cer at the scene that police would have to “mur­der” her to get her out of the vehicle.
Cops report­ed­ly went in search of Ms Gaines for fail­ing to appear in court. It is pret­ty nor­mal for police to show up to arrest some­one for fail­ing to show up in court. What is stun­ning is that they would esca­late a sit­u­a­tion with a woman in a sit­u­a­tion in which there is also a minor child . Why bring swat into the pic­ture? The woman clear­ly was not going any­where . Why cre­ate a sit­u­a­tion in which killing her and hurt­ing her child becomes a possibility?
From all indi­ca­tions Korryn Gaines had men­tal issues. Police alleged­ly nego­ti­at­ed with her for hours , they knew she had her young son in the apart­ment with her.
They said she point­ed the weapon at them at dif­fer­ent times but did not fire at them. Does that not say to them wait just a minute here , lets see what we can do to de-esca­late this? If not for her for the minor child?
But even then why not for her ? Why in the name of God are these cops so will­ing to kill peo­ple, blak or white ? What the hell is wronk with wait­ing and wait­ing and talk­ing some­one down?
How about bring­ing a fam­i­ly mem­ber in to rea­sure the young lady?
http://​live​.bal​ti​more​sun​.com/​E​v​e​n​t​/​B​a​l​t​i​m​o​r​e​_​C​o​u​n​t​y​_​P​o​l​i​c​e​_​b​r​i​e​f​i​n​g​_​o​n​_​d​e​a​t​h​_​o​f​_​K​o​r​r​y​n​_​G​a​i​nes
Why would they take the deci­sion to shoot her and place her son at risk? What kind of police offi­cers open fire on a woman armed or not par­tic­u­lar­ly in a sit­u­a­tion where a child is present in the room?

I sub­mit there must have been a bet­ter way to deal with this sit­u­a­tion than to open fire on this clear­ly dis­turbed woman. What would the police have done if they had no guns ?
I guar­an­tee there would have been a peace­ful res­o­lu­tion to this mat­ter. Korryn Gaines was shot because she was a poor woman of color.
Police lack of respect for black lives con­tin­ue to get peo­ple killed.
What is behind this innate desire by police to kill ? When did police become judge , jury and exe­cu­tion­ers? Why are police killing peo­ple sim­ply because they can get away with it?