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?

As a Christian I believe in the pow­er of prayer. I believe in pray­ing to God as an acknowl­edge­ment that he is my source. My pray­ing to God is not an exer­cise intend­ed that God mag­i­cal­ly do for me what I can do for myself.
God is a mir­a­cle work­ing God , he is not a magician.
Subsequently , when I pray to God, I do not do so into per­pe­tu­ity . I am of the belief that when I pray he hears me the first time. I believe if I con­tin­ue to pray to him for the same thing I do a cou­ple of things.
♦ I believe he did­n’t hear me the first time I prayed.
♦ I am unsure of his abil­i­ty to grant that which I pray for.

Since I believe that God hears me and knows what I will pray for even before I pray . And since I am absolute­ly con­vinced about his abil­i­ty to grant that which I pray for accord­ing to his will I do not pray a prayer for stuff more than once.
Does that mean that I do not pray to God much ? Of course not ! There are prayers of praise, prayer of thanks, prayers of acknowl­edge­ment among oth­er rea­sons we pray to God. So yes I pray con­sis­tent­ly. I sim­ply under­stand that the pow­er to change my cir­cum­stance rests with me. Mark 11:24 Therefore I tell you,what­ev­er you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.

How did I come to this belief sys­tem as against con­sis­tent­ly stay­ing on my knees in prayer for what I want?

Jesus’ moth­er tells him there was no more wine .
John 2 – 7 . Jesus said to the ser­vants, “Fill the jars with water”; so they filled them to the brim.

Jesus heals a leper.

Luke 5:14 . 14 “Do not tell any­one,Jesus instruct­ed him. “But go, show your­self to the priest and present the offer­ing Moses pre­scribed foryour cleans­ing, as a tes­ti­mo­ny to them.”

“Elisha sent a mes­sen­ger unto him, say­ing, Go and wash in the Jordan sev­en times, and thy flesh shall come again to thee, and thou shalt be clean” (II Kings 5: 10).

A brief look at the min­istry of Jesus Christ or even the prophets who pre­ced­ed him demon­strates clear­ly that if we want to receive the ben­e­fits we seek we also have some work to do on our own.

WE HAVE THE SOLUTIONS IN OUR HANDS BUT CHOSE TO ENGAGE IN NONSENSICAL RITUALS

In declar­ing what they char­ac­ter­ize as “death to crime” some Jamaican pas­tors took turns destroy­ing a cof­fin paint­ed gold and white. The sig­nif­i­cance of the exer­cise was to demon­strate their com­mit­ment to the destruc­tion of crime.
In atten­dance was the Minister of nation­al secu­ri­ty Robert Montague and for­mer min­is­ter of National secu­ri­ty Peter Bunting. Speaking to a packed crowd in the Half-Way-Tree square the min­is­ter told the crowd ““to those who wreak hav­oc on soci­ety, we the peo­ple of Jamaica have drawn a line”. “We are going to begin to take back our country.”.

I am not one to dis­re­gard any­thing which is geared toward reduc­ing crime. However as a prag­mat­ic chris­t­ian I believe in the pow­er of doing for our­selves what we need to do.
God is not going to come down and fix what he already empow­ered us to fix.
No amount of mean­ing­less the­atrics will fix crime.
Dithering while ignor­ing the prag­mat­ic com­mon sense changes which must be embarked on to begin the slow tedious process of end­ing ram­pant crim­i­nal­i­ty on the Island will not be fixed by bust­ing up a cof­fin like a piñata .
No amount of sym­bol­ism , no mat­ter how well-inten­tion-ed will turn the coun­try around .
If Jamaicans want a crime free soci­ety let them embrace respect for the laws and those who enforce them. Let them demand truth in sen­tenc­ing. Let them eschew gar­risons. Let them demand that mur­der­ers not be allowed out on bail. Let them demand account­abil­i­ty by those in pub­lic office.

There are a raft of things Jamaicans can begin to do to start to bend the arc of crime , sym­bol­ism is not one of them.

Another in the long litany of instances where mag­is­trate release vis­cous mur­der­ers back onto the streets , even after they are accused of the most egre­gious killings.

This has got to stop .
Time after time peo­ple are mur­dered ‚the police go out and do the hard work of remov­ing the killers from the streets. As soon as they do, the crim­i­nal lov­ing bas­tards who sit on the bench return the killers to the streets where they kill over and over again.
The pow­er to grant bail rests in the hands of even the newest mag­is­trate. Despite the fact that these peo­ple are actu­al­ly act­ing as offi­cers of the courts and sit­ting as tri­er of facts , I believe many of them have ties to the underworld.

One has to remove one’s self from the cocoon of dis­be­lief and the insu­lar mind­set that the Island’s judges are all above board. In rul­ing after rul­ing , utter­ances after utter­ances from the bench and the instances where vis­cous killers are giv­en bail we must con­clude that there is some­thing rad­i­cal­ly wrong with the Island’s judges.

Jamaica’s Criminal Loving Judges Shows Disdain For Cops By Overturning Death Penalty Of Cop-killers:

We can no longer assume that the sys­tem which threw out the Kern Spencer case with­out even allow­ing him to answer to the charges against him is a fair untouched system.
It’s time that we rec­og­nize that the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem has been com­pro­mised and is in seri­ous need of attention.
https://​mike​beck​les​.com/​s​o​-​m​u​c​h​-​f​o​r​-​j​u​s​t​i​c​e​-​i​s​-​b​l​i​nd/

Man accused of killing after sex skips bail.

A bench war­rant has been issued for the arrest of a young man who report­ed­ly killed a woman in December 2014 and hid her body under his bed, after invit­ing her to his home for sex.

Parish Judge Tracey-Ann Johnson gave the order on Friday after Kino Gilzene, of New Haven, in Kingston, failed to appear in the Kingston and St Andrew Parish Court on a mur­der charge. The 21-year-old labour­er is accused of stab­bing 22-year-old Sudeen Jackson of Portmore, St Catherine, and bash­ing her face with a stone at his home on December 8, 2014. Meanwhile, Gilzene’s sis­ter, Alicia, who was also charged with mur­der fol­low­ing alle­ga­tions that she helped her broth­er to bury Jackson’s body in a pit latrine, has failed to take up her $300,000 bail which was re-offered.

Alicia is to return to court on September 3.

According to police report, on December 8, Kino con­tact­ed the woman by phone after he got her num­ber from a friend and made arrange­ments for her to meet him at his home the next day. The woman was report­ed­ly sched­uled to vis­it and have sex with Kino for a fee of $3,000. Jackson, who had nev­er seen Kino before, report­ed­ly met up with him in Duhaney Park, went to his house, fol­lowed through with the arrange­ment and was paid. However, the court heard that the woman lat­er request­ed to leave, but Kino got angry and stabbed her in her chest and neck before using a stone to bash in her face. Subsequently, the accused alleged­ly hid the woman’s body under­neath his bed and pro­ceed­ed to clean up the crime scene.

Alicia lat­er arrived home and report­ed­ly found the body under the bed. After mak­ing enquries, she was told by her broth­er that he had killed Jackson. Upon learn­ing of the mur­der, Alicia alleged­ly sent a text mes­sage to her boyfriend and told him that her broth­er had killed a woman. The fol­low­ing morn­ing the accused then report­ed­ly took the woman’s body and buried it in a pit latrine at their home. They then report­ed­ly con­coct­ed a sto­ry and told their moth­er, who called the police. Kino, when he was arrest­ed, alleged­ly said that he was at home when three men — one of whom was armed with a gun — barged in with Sudeen. According to the accused, the men were curs­ing that Sudeen had “dissed di pro­gramme” and told her that they were going to kill her. Kino said that the men raped Sudeen and then stabbed her to death and ordered him to bury her. Alicia, in her state­ment, cor­rob­o­rat­ed her brother’s sto­ry. http://​www​.jamaicaob​serv​er​.com/​n​e​w​s​/​M​a​n​-​a​c​c​u​s​e​d​-​o​f​-​k​i​l​l​i​n​g​-​a​f​t​e​r​-​s​e​x​-​s​k​i​p​s​-​b​a​i​l​-​_​6​9​070

JAMAICA’S JUSTICE SYSTEM IN CRISIS:

Justice Minister Delroy Chuck is warn­ing that tough mea­sures will be imple­ment­ed to break the back of the lot­tery scam, which is believed to be at the heart of much of the vio­lence that has plagued west­ern Jamaica since last year.

Among the mea­sures could be a sharp increase in the num­ber of scam­mers being extra­dit­ed to the United States (US) to face the courts there for bilk­ing Americans out of mil­lions of dollars.

“I will have no dif­fi­cul­ty sign­ing the war­rants of extra­di­tion once the parish judges make the orders,” Chuck told The Gleaner, as he not­ed that scam­mers were get­ting away with the extor­tion of vul­ner­a­ble elder­ly peo­ple in the US and “that crim­i­nal­i­ty can­not be con­doned”. 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​8​0​1​/​e​x​t​r​a​d​i​t​e​-​t​h​e​m​-​j​u​s​t​i​c​e​-​m​i​n​i​s​t​e​r​-​v​o​w​s​-​s​i​g​n​-​r​e​q​u​e​s​t​s​-​s​c​a​m​m​e​r​s​-​s​o​o​n​-​c​o​urt

Judge refus­es to let indict­ed sher­iff have gun after threats

Personnel from sev­er­al US law enforce­ment agen­cies are now in the Kingston and St Andrew Parish Court for the extra­di­tion hear­ing of eight peo­ple includ­ing a police­man want­ed on lot­tery scam­ming charges.

The US agen­cies rep­re­sent­ed in court are the FBI, the US Postal Investigation Service, the US Marshall Service and the US District Attorney’s Office for North Dakota. The eight accused are Police Constable Jason Jahalal, Alrick McLeod, Dhalia Hunter, Oneil Brown, Xanu-Ann Morgan, Karoe Gray, Dario Palmer and Kimberley Hudson. They are want­ed on an indict­ment hand­ed down in the State of North Dakota in the US. According to the DPP’s office, the eight have each been indict­ed on one count of con­spir­a­cy and attempt­ing to com­mit wire fraud; 48 counts of wire fraud; 15 counts of mail fraud, and one count of mon­ey laun­der­ing in the state of North Dakota in the US. The DPP says in the case against Hudson, pros­e­cu­tors revealed that their coun­ter­parts in North Dakota have alleged that she was part of a crim­i­nal organ­i­sa­tion they believe was led by a Jamaican man iden­ti­fied as Labrick Willocks. Prosecutors charged that the gang began oper­a­tions in 2009 from Jamaica, the US and else­where and used an advance fee scheme to defraud a total of 80 elder­ly vic­tims of approx­i­mate­ly US$5.6 mil­lion. According to them, the cash was sent to Jamaica by mid­dle­men oper­at­ing in the US through blank cheques, wire trans­fers, the mail ser­vice and by mon­ey couriers.

A police cor­po­ral today revealed that United States law enforce­ment per­son­nel par­tic­i­pat­ed as “observers” in a police oper­a­tion in Western Jamaica in March this year tar­get­ing alleged scam­mers to be extra­dit­ed to the United States.

Detective Corporal Nashema Newell of the police Fugitive Apprehension Team made the dec­la­ra­tion in the Kingston and St Andrew parish court at the extra­di­tion hear­ing for eight Jamaicans includ­ing a police con­sta­ble Jason Jahalal. The oth­er accused are: Alrick McLeod, Dhalia Hunter, Oneil Brown, Xanu-Ann Morgan, Karoe Gray, Dario Palmer and Kimberley Hudson. Tom Tavares Finson, the attor­ney for Dhalia Hunter was cross-exam­in­ing cor­po­ral Newell when the issue arose that US law enforce­ment per­son­nel were part of a March 30 oper­a­tion aimed at exe­cut­ing an arrest war­rant on his client.

Tavares Finson want­ed to know on whose author­i­ty the for­eign agents par­tic­i­pat­ed in the oper­a­tion. But Detective Corporal Newell declined to say, not­ing that it was priv­i­leged infor­ma­tion she could not reveal.

While the cop was respond­ing, US agents from the FBI, the US postal inves­ti­ga­tion ser­vice, the US Marshall Service and the US District Attorney’s office for North Dakota, sat in the Half-Way Tree Court lis­ten­ing to her evi­dence. Tavares Finson point­ed to one Special Agent Gosper and asked him to stand. He then asked Corporal Newell if the agent was on the police oper­a­tion. Her response: Not sure But Constable Newell said she was sure the US agents did not trav­el with local police when they went in search of Dahlia Hunter at her four-storey home in Greenwood, St James. She said the American team met up with local police at the Falmouth Police Station in Trelawny.
http://​jamaica​glean​er​.com/​a​r​t​i​c​l​e​/​n​e​w​s​/​2​0​1​6​0​7​2​8​/​c​o​p​-​t​e​l​l​s​-​c​o​u​r​t​-​u​s​-​o​f​f​i​c​e​r​s​-​o​n​l​y​-​o​b​s​e​r​v​e​d​-​e​x​e​c​u​t​i​o​n​-​a​r​r​e​s​t​-​w​a​r​r​a​n​t​s​-​o​u​t​-​w​est

In the last couple of days I have written two Articles which are less than complimentary of the High command of the Jamaica Constabulary Force(JCF). In both instances I recommend firing the entire high command with the exception of a few who may have a record of accomplishment .In the interim however, I would like to offer to the Department a simple plan which will greatly impact policing, more-so in urban areas. Particularly in light of the attacks we have witnessed on Jamaican police officers and the relentless tax-payer funded witch-hunt by INDECOM

IMPORTANT

Policing as it was done before is no longer pos­si­ble. It is impor­tant that if no one rec­og­nize it, the lead­er­ship of the police depart­ment do so. Superintendents and the com­mis­sion­er ranks can­not exist as a vehi­cle to bul­ly and intim­i­date the hard work­ing rank and file of the department.
Throughout the exis­tence of the depart­ment the lead­er­ship of the depart­ment has waged war­fare against the rank and file it pur­ports to lead. The great king of beast­’s tail is not uncon­nect­ed from it’s tail. The police high com­mand dis­joint­ed and adver­sar­i­al rela­tion­ship with the men and women of the depart­ment who actu­al­ly take the risks must come to an end.

Failure of lead­er­ship has forced many good offi­cers from the depart­ment. In many cas­es the prob­lems being expe­ri­enced with younger offi­cers can be laid firm­ly at the feet of the lead­er­ship whose rela­tion­ship style increas­es the stress lev­el of the men and women who actu­al­ly do policing.
Over the years we have wit­nessed an increase in mur­der sui­cide and in some cas­es sui­cide by rank and file officers.
Some crit­ics sug­gest the offi­cers are just bul­lies who can­not con­trol their urge to bul­ly oth­ers. Other self appoint­ed Gods have argued these offi­cers are just con­trol­ling that’s why they kill their spous­es and that’s why they kill their spous­es and them­selves. Try hav­ing prob­lems with finances and oth­er fam­i­ly issues and then being sub­ject­ed to pres­sure on your job and see how you may have a dif­fer­ent per­spec­tive on this issue.

Leadership is not about lord­ing, it is about lead­ing. The hall­mark of a good leader is to crit­i­cize in pri­vate and praise pub­licly. The men and women of the depart­ment who real­ly mat­ter are nei­ther being praised nor supported.
As the INDECOM Act empow­ers and rad­i­cal­ize ordi­nary peo­ple to fight and assault police offi­cers under the ban­ner “him caaaan shoot yu” . As Government past and present allows it to metas­ta­size out of con­trol . And as we wit­ness that even effect­ing a sim­ple arrest on a bel­liger­ent, vio­lent female using no guns, no batons, no pep­per spray, no taser, is being sold as police abuse on the island . The police high com­mand must now act to pro­tect officers.

There are far too many peo­ple at the upper end of the police depart­ment whom are not doing any­thing toward reduc­ing crime. From the Commissioner of police down it appears some do not even feel a con­nect­ing with the force but are there sole­ly for the pay­check. On the rare occa­sion the com­mis­sion­er wears his uni­form there is no belt to his uni­form and absolute­ly no util­i­ty belt with a weapon and oth­er accou­ter­ments of the trade.
The same is true of the female mem­bers of the Gazetted ranks . Do they believe their rank pre­clude them from doing the most rudi­men­ta­ry task of effect­ing an arrest.
Does their rank set them apart from get­ting dirty sub­du­ing a vio­lent sus­pect? Can they even make an arrest? If no Huston we have a problem.

VIOLENT RESISTANCE AND INTERFERENCE IN ARRESTS

There is a seri­ous issue of vio­lent resis­tance against law­ful arrest, and attacks on police offi­cers on the Island. Factually this was not start­ed by the cre­ation of the INDECOM Act , it sim­ply has tak­en on new life not just because of it’s cre­ation, but because of the unwar­rant­ed acri­mo­ny it’s head has cre­at­ed, delib­er­ate­ly fan­ning the flames of anti-police sen­ti­ment on the Island.

People inter­fere in police activ­i­ty because they believe there will be no penal­ty for their actions. As a young police offi­cer I was incensed that the lib­er­al left­ist activist judges on the Island would sum­mar­i­ly admon­ish and dis­charge crim­i­nals for assault­ing police offi­cer and resist­ing arrest . Even when the evi­dence sup­port­ed the charges as they were laid .
By doing so there was tac­it sup­port from the bench to con­tin­ue the prac­tice of vio­lent­ly resist­ing arrest and assault­ing offi­cers some­times seri­ous­ly. Even when con­vict­ed the archa­ic laws offered only a slight slap on the wrist punitively.
Understanding fun­da­men­tal­ly that my safe­ty and secu­ri­ty as a Jamaican police offi­cer would not be helped by the Island’s leg­is­la­ture .Would not be helped by the Courts. Would not be assist­ed by the peo­ple under whose com­mand I served, I built my own defense struc­ture which worked per­fect­ly until I depart­ed the department.

That defense struc­ture was an unprece­dent­ed, yet not unique no-non­sense strat­e­gy which became known real quick­ly . You F*** with that lit­tle cop and things will turn out real­ly bad for you!

Because of the increased assault and vio­lence against offi­cers, police lead­er­ship must reduce response time, not just for calls to the 119 switch-board, but more impor­tant­ly in get­ting appro­pri­ate back­up to offi­cers who demand it as rapid­ly as pos­si­ble. When poten­tial offend­ers know back­up will flood the are in min­utes if not sec­onds and they will be going to jail they will get the message.
No, the police can not change the atti­tudes of the crim­i­nal lovers who sit in the Island’s par­lia­ment . The police can do lit­tle to change the atti­tudes of the left­ist activists on the bench but it can do a whole lot bet­ter in pre­serv­ing offi­cer safety.
After all that and only that is the num­ber one priority.
You can­not secure any­one else if you can­not secure yourself.
Lets get rid of the senior offi­cers giv­ing inter­views from behind desks. Let them get up off their fat ass­es and go out into the streets in sup­port of the young offi­cers. Policing is not about floss­ing and show­ing off . It’s about crime reduc­tion and elimination.

Remarkably ‚despite the increased proliferation of social media and smart recording devices many in Jamaica are blissfully ignorant as to what their civic duties are under the law. The lack of civic pride begs the question ‚do they even teach Civics in school anymore?.
The level of incivility and ignorance in the society is beyond alarming as it relates to what citizens should do when dealing with law-enforcement.
Set aside the glaring violence on the streets. Set aside the village lawyers and the arm-chair and key-board generals . Even those who are supposed to be in the know are shockingly ignorant of their responsibilities as citizens.

Who does not know that as cit­i­zens we have a respon­si­bil­i­ty to sur­ren­der peace­ably to being arrest­ed the minute an offi­cer tells you you are under arrest?
What can rea­son­ably be gained by engag­ing in a fight with offi­cers of the law who have the pow­er to take your life ?

https://​mike​beck​les​.com/​f​i​g​h​t​i​n​g​-​w​i​t​h​-​p​o​l​i​c​e​-​o​f​f​i​c​e​r​s​-​c​i​t​i​n​g​-​t​h​e​-​i​n​d​e​c​o​m​-​a​c​t​-​i​s​-​s​i​l​l​y​-​a​n​d​-​d​a​n​g​e​r​o​us/

In an arti­cle I wrote yes­ter­day I spoke to my dis­gust with the hier­ar­chy of the police force and the police fed­er­a­tion . In that arti­cle I called for the dis­band­ment of the high com­mand and the use­less fed­er­a­tion. Today an Assistant Commissioner of Police got up off his rear end and issued state­ments relat­ing to cit­i­zens respon­si­bil­i­ties as well as police rules gov­ern­ing arrests.

https://​mike​beck​les​.com/​m​a​n​y​-​m​o​r​e​-​w​i​l​l​-​s​u​f​f​e​r​-​m​a​n​y​-​m​o​r​e​-​w​i​l​l​-​h​a​v​e​-​t​o​-​d​i​e​-​r​nm/

This from the Jamaicagleaner​.com

Assistant Commissioner of Police Norman Heywood is of the view that the man­ner in which Jamaicans are socialised is what usu­al­ly caus­es them to resist arrest by the police.

He has joined the many per­sons com­ment­ing on the inci­dent in which the police tried to arrest a woman, cell-phone footage of which vent viral on social media. Some view­ers accused the police of being bru­tal in their treat­ment of the woman. Others, includ­ing Hamish Campbell, deputy com­mis­sion­er of police, the Independent Commission of Investigations, felt the police were only try­ing to restrain her.

Heywood told The Gleaner yes­ter­day that if cit­i­zens had an appre­ci­a­tion for law and order, they would not be quick to video­tape the police’s attempts to arrest per­sons, but would instead encour­age these peo­ple to com­ply with the officers.

“What we need is more cit­i­zens com­ing out and stand­ing up for law and order instead of video­tap­ing an inci­dent between a police and a civil­ian. Normally, some peo­ple come on and see a sit­u­a­tion build­ing up between the police and a cit­i­zen. Instead of say­ing, ‘stop resist­ing the police’ [they start video­tap­ing],” he said.

“I think it’s how the soci­ety is being social­ized. There is a gen­er­al lack of order in soci­ety, and it’s in every walk of life. People feel that there is no respon­si­bil­i­ty on their part. If you want to live in an order­ly soci­ety, cit­i­zens must real­ize that they have respon­si­bil­i­ty. They have a duty to coöper­ate with law and order. If you feel that you were wrong­ly arrest­ed then you will have your day in court. If you do not, you end up in a soci­ety of chaos and every­body will do what they want to do.”

Heywood also high­light­ed that the force the police use at the point of effect­ing an arrest was heav­i­ly depen­dent on the exist­ing threat level.
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​7​2​7​/​i​f​-​y​o​u​r​e​-​b​e​i​n​g​-​a​r​r​e​s​t​e​d​-​d​o​n​t​-​f​i​g​h​t​-​p​o​l​ice

If social media threads are appro­pri­ate barom­e­ters of pub­lic per­cep­tions, Jamaica is in seri­ous trouble.
There seem to be a con­cert­ed attempt at will­ful igno­rance. Not an igno­rance born out of the inabil­i­ty to learn ‚but one of bel­liger­ence blus­ter and pure bull-shit bravado.
We could set aside the laugh­able insan­i­ty of the com­ments if they weren’t so dangerous.
What is the obses­sion with resist­ing arrest? How is that a win­ning strat­e­gy , par­tic­u­lar­ly if the offi­cers are deter­mined to make that arrest?

I made hun­dreds of arrests in my ten years of ser­vice and I would be lying if I said I did not have sus­pects resist.
What I can absolute­ly say is that there was nev­er one instance where a sus­pect who decid­ed to resist made me change my mind about that arrest.
If any­thing, a resist­ing sus­pect made me absolute­ly more res­olute that that sus­pect was going to jail by what­ev­er means necessary.

Believing that resist­ing arrest is a work­able strat­e­gy is fools gold.

DEMAGOGIC
That’s the term which must be attrib­uted to the atti­tude of Jamaicans toward the dis­ci­pline of policing.
There is no deny­ing that the Jamaican police depart­ment is a far cry from what sane peo­ple would require from their police department.
But let us under­stand that lit­er­al­ly every one of those imper­fect souls place their lives on the line each and every day they put their uni­forms on , men and women , all of them risk death for oth­ers they do not know.

THAT MUST ACCOUNT FOR SOMETHING.….
That must account for something.
The prob­lem of police mis­con­duct , police abuse and yes even police mur­der is not a fig­ment of our imag­i­na­tions. It is not a mis­con­cep­tion which infects our col­lec­tive con­scious­ness, it is real.

Social media imagery which depict per­ceived police abuse in the United States can­not be processed in the same way we process the imagery on those plat­forms from places like Jamaica.
One of the fac­tors which impacts polic­ing atti­tudes in the United States is “Race”. Race is not a fac­tor in Jamaica, social sta­tus is.
Color was once the defin­ing char­ac­ter­is­tic of sta­tus in Jamaica. Many would argue that mon­ey was as well, not true.
The mon­eyed caste was always lighter in hue the dark skinned mass­es had no mon­ey so the black mass­es was shut out of the upper caste.
Nowadays mon­ey defines sta­tus , though it cer­tain­ly does not estab­lish class.

This con­ver­sa­tion we must have, can­not only be police mis­con­duct. Citizens have to share in the soul search­ing . My great aunt always said “one hand can’t clap”.
The imagery day in day out depict Jamaicans assault­ing police offi­cers in the law­ful exe­cu­tion of their duties.
We see men attack police offi­cers aggres­sive­ly while bystanders cheer them on yelling “him caan shoot yu”.
We must ask our­selves this ques­tion in light of these devel­op­ments, what kind of coun­try is Jamaica becoming?

What is absolute­ly stun­ning is that there is no lead­er­ship from the com­mis­sion­er of Police or the senior corp of the depart­ment. The rank and file of the police depart­ment are out on the streets on their own with­out any sup­port from the lead­er­ship of the department.
I expect no sup­port from the Government , regard­less of which par­ty form the gov­ern­ment. I expect the police depart­ment to stand up and fight for the offi­cers on the streets.
The Police Federation has been a dis­mal fail­ure it does absolute­ly noth­ing to sup­port offi­cers and should forth­with be disbanded.
I urge young police offi­cers to opt out of hav­ing monies deduct­ed from their salaries for the police fed­er­a­tion to have con­fer­ences at fan­cy hotels but does noth­ing on their behalf.

On what plan­et would an orga­ni­za­tion of over 10.000 peo­ple be so pow­er­less and clue­less except in Jamaica?
In every oth­er coun­try, in every sit­u­a­tion when­ev­er there are crit­i­cisms of police , police com­man­ders and police unions come out and sup­port their offi­cers while calm­ing peo­ple who have gen­uine con­cerns about the inves­tiga­tive process­es in place to ensure fairness.
We know that some­times cit­i­zens do not always get the results they desire . But again it depends what police depart­ment and what coun­try we are talk­ing about.
The fat ‚lazy, incom­pe­tent ‚kha­ki-clad cadre of nin­com­poops who pass as lead­ers are inca­pable of set­ting aside the pork and white rum long enough to go out and defend the younger offi­cers who are actu­al­ly earn­ing the pen­nies they are paid.

The police com­mis­sion­er is sup­pos­ed­ly set to receive a report today which is beyond laugh­able . The video is on social media for all to see. Why was he not up as ear­ly as yes­ter­day defend­ing his officers?
You know it’s bad when the anti-police INDECOM praised the police for their actions>
Trying to save face in light of it’s grow­ing unpop­u­lar­i­ty Hamish Campbell the Deputy Commissioner of INDECOM said.

“The law­men were doing their best to restrain her”.

“They were car­ry­ing their guns with them, they turned their backs to the crowd, their pis­tols were avail­able to be tak­en by any­body, and that’s what I real­ly was try­ing to demon­strate. Let us calm­ly assess this sit­u­a­tion before indict­ing these two offi­cers. We’re quick to point out to the police where we think they are fail­ing in the stan­dards, and here is a video, iron­i­cal­ly, which is not as stark as reported.”

Personally I do not buy this attempt from “buck­y­mas­sa“to be mag­nan­i­mous or fair. Notice that the lit­tle Napoleon who heads the agency had noth­ing to say?
This lit­tle bone from “buck­y­mas­sa” has noth­ing to do with fair­ness . Many in the coun­try are begin­ning to real­ize that INDECOM enhances crime and inci­vil­i­ty. It cer­tain­ly is not just this low­ly blog­ger who sees it , more and more rea­son­able Jamaicans are begin­ning to step for­ward despite the slings and snares of the eat-a-food crim­i­nal rights fra­ter­ni­ty. They are step­ping for­ward and say­ing this is increas­ing crime.
I go fur­ther than that, INDECOM is cre­at­ing a soci­ety which has no respect for the rule of law. I am not sur­prised that the lit­tle man who heads the agency is silent .
Cockroaches run for cov­er when you shine a light in the room.

Hamish Campbell knows this could not hap­pen in his coun­try. Nevertheless, he wants to remain on the Island. Why not, the natives wor­ship “mas­sa” there?. What is he back home in England ? Just ask Mark Shields just how sweet that deal is?
Shields even got him­self a Jamaican bride. Wonder if she would have mar­ried one of her black broth­ers in the Jamaican police force?
Okay, okay, I’m not sup­posed to sug­gest that we haven’t yet got­ten over being sub­servient and def­er­en­tial to “mas­sa” !
Withdrawn…

This police Commissioner has received the ben­e­fit of the doubt from this writer , large­ly because he has come up through the ranks of the depart­ment and was not foist­ed on the department.
I sup­port­ed him because I believed that his exem­plary edu­ca­tion would bring some degree of lead­er­ship and direc­tion to the department.
I sup­port­ed him because I believed he need­ed time and sup­port against polit­i­cal inter­fer­ence which is ram­pant on the island.
I sup­port­ed him because I believed he need­ed time to exe­cute pol­i­cy direc­tions nec­es­sary to effect change.

In light of this most glar­ing of inci­dent in which offi­cers act­ed with tremen­dous restraint where is the damn police com­mis­sion­er or the Gazetted ranks, stand­ing with and for these officers?
Is any­one sur­prised that crime and chaos is so ram­pant? This is a clas­sic abdi­ca­tion of duty which dis­qual­i­fies the com­mis­sion­er from lead­ing this police department.
This Island is in the busi­ness of cru­ci­fy­ing police offi­cers . I am with the sys­tem when police break the laws but I will con­tin­ue to stand with the decent police offi­cers who go out to serve their coun­try day by day. The gazetted ranks is a bunch of fat, lazy, clue­less and cow­ard­ly lap­dogs behold­en to and influ­enced by politics.
This Commissioner has lost the moral author­i­ty to lead.
He has lost the moral author­i­ty to lead these poor men and women under his com­mand by his feck­less and cow­ard­ly actions.
He should do the right thing and resign.

THE FOLLOWING IS THE FULL TEXT OF A JAMAICA GLEANER’S STORY OF THE SHOOTING OF A HANOVER TAXI OPERATOR WHO ATTACKED A UNIFORMED POLICE OFFICER WHO SIGNALED HIM TO STOP IN 2014.

A taxi oper­a­tor who alleged­ly attacked a traf­fic police­man, knock­ing him to the ground and rain­ing blows on him, was shot and injured by the law­man in Hopewell, Hanover, yes­ter­day morn­ing. In the inci­dent, which was video­taped on a cel­lu­lar phone by a bystander, five shots were fired by the uni­formed police­man, result­ing in the injur­ing of taxi oper­a­tor St Obrian Downey, who is of a Montpelier address, also in Hanover. According to an eye­wit­ness account, Downey was dri­ving his taxi through the town when he was sig­nalled to stop by the law­man. The two report­ed­ly got into a heat­ed argu­ment and Downey stepped out of his car and accost­ed the police­man, who was in uni­form. “I just see dem grab up and start wres­tle and then the two of them fell to the ground,” the eye­wit­ness said. In the video of the inci­dent, which was post­ed on Facebook, both men were seen on the ground flail­ing away at each oth­er. Downey, who appeared to be the aggres­sor, was seem­ing­ly get­ting the bet­ter of the law­man, lash­ing out with punch­es and kicks. “… But the police­man can’t man­age him,” one of the onlook­ers was over­heard say­ing on the video.
https://​mike​beck​les​.com/​w​a​r​-​o​n​-​j​a​m​a​i​c​a​n​-​p​o​l​i​c​e​-​f​o​r​-​d​o​i​n​g​-​t​h​e​i​r​-​j​o​bs/

Five shots fired

After the view of the cel­lu­lar phone was blocked momen­tar­i­ly by a pass­ing vehi­cle, the record­ing resumed with the police­man, who now had his gun in hand, still tus­sling with Downey. Suddenly one shot was heard, fol­lowed by four oth­ers, as the law­man broke free and Downey buck­led over in appar­ent pain. The law­man sub­se­quent­ly picked up what looked like a baton on the ground, beside the injured Downey. It was not clear who moved Downey from the scene, but he sub­se­quent­ly end­ed up at the Cornwall Regional Hospital, suf­fer­ing from gun­shot wounds to his leg and thigh. Yesterday, the Independent Commission of Investigations (INDECOM) said it had launched a probe into the shoot­ing, while the police said they would inves­ti­gate the attack on their colleague.(jamaicagleaner)

Jamaica’s Crime Not Rooted In The Ghettos.…

That Police offi­cer Constable Wayne Hamil was found guilty and fined $1 mil­lion or three years in prison. On July 1, con­sta­ble Hamil was con­vict­ed in the Trelawny Circuit Court for wound­ing with intent.
According to oth­er report­ing the taxi oper­a­tor was armed with a machete. Here is that reporting .…..
St Obrian Downey was dri­ving his taxi approach­ing a no-stand­ing area, and warned to dri­ve off, before park­ing his taxi ille­gal­ly. Instead of issu­ing a tick­et, the offi­cer motioned the taxi dri­ver to dri­ve off. The two report­ed­ly got into a heat­ed argu­ment before Downey stepped out of his taxi with a machete and assault­ed the uni­formed police­man. It is at this point the two have fall­en to ground, wrestling for con­trol of the machete, when the offi­cer drew his gun and fired at close range, strik­ing the attack­er in the legs, thighs and but­tocks. http://​www​.live​leak​.com/​v​i​e​w​?​i​=​9​e​d​_​1​3​9​5​7​7​1​9​5​4​&​c​o​m​m​e​n​t​s=1

I write about crime in Jamaica not because I want to make friends , frankly I could­n’t care less about my crit­ics. I write to sup­port police offi­cers on the Island who uphold their oath to serve and pro­tect. I lend my unmit­i­gat­ed sup­port to those offi­cers who avoid the lure of filthy mon­ey derived from mur­der­ing crim­i­nals or those who would prey on oth­ers for finan­cial gain.
For the offi­cers who risk life and limb to pro­vide san­i­ty and a mod­icum of nor­mal­cy in an oth­er­wise Serengeti of car­nage and may­hem I stand with you.
In the time it took me to write this blog sev­er­al per­sons would have been sex­u­al­ly or oth­er­wise assault­ed and one per­son would have lost his/​her life to vio­lent thugs .
As a for­mer police offi­cer trained in Jamaica I was told that a police offi­cer in uni­form or duly iden­ti­fied as a police offi­cer and act­ing law­ful­ly has a right to use as much force as is nec­es­sary in defense of his/​her life or that of anoth­er.

That force I was taught, can­not be before or after force was used against the offi­cer, it must be at the time the force was direct­ed at said offi­cer. What that means is that a police offi­cer is not allowed to use force against a sus­pect before that sus­pect indi­cates he intends to harm the offi­cer or anoth­er. Neither can the offi­cer use lethal force after an assault by a sub­ject , as along as that sub­ject sur­ren­ders. On the oth­er hand no police offi­cer has any oblig­a­tion to wait to be assault­ed , wound­ed , or killed before using the nec­es­sary force required to put down an assault on his/​her per­son or on the per­son of anoth­er. It is all up to an assailant to decide to sur­ren­der to police com­mands and not attack a police offi­cer. That is a uni­ver­sal pro­to­col , except on the Island of Jamaica.

I will con­tin­ue to write for peo­ple with­in the dias­po­ra and those look­ing to Jamaica as a place to set­tle or do busi­ness . I refuse to pre­tend that this is a place where the rule of law is prac­ticed or encour­aged. What Jamaica has is a façade of democ­ra­cy. It is a cul­ture which cul­ti­vates an adver­sar­i­al rela­tion­ship with the rule of law.
Ultimately Jamaica is a tin-pan crim­i­nal sys­tem run by a few peo­ple who are crim­i­nals or have con­nec­tions with criminals.
This tran­scend polit­i­cal fin­ger point­ing, it is about a sys­tem rather than about the two polit­i­cal par­ty. It is an entrenched sys­tem which is root­ed in crime and the cel­e­bra­tion of criminality.
It is a sys­tem in which those who occu­py the crim­i­nal court bench has no fideli­ty or respect for the laws except when sit­u­a­tions fit into their nar­row world-view.
Jamaica is a coun­try in which the rule of law is a fig­ment of good peo­ple’s imag­i­na­tion and an aber­ra­tion to the masses.
There is no per­fect sys­tem any­where as it relates to polic­ing. The art of polic­ing is a con­tin­ued process of tri­al and error. We must pros­e­cute rogue police offi­cers when they bla­tant­ly abro­gate the laws they are sworn to uphold. As we do that how­ev­er ‚we must endeav­or to send a strong mes­sage to those who would attack police offi­cers that we stand behind our police officer.
This is true in the United States of America and it is true on the Island of Jamaica.

What is absolute­ly sur­re­al is, under what cir­cum­stance could a sus­pect who attack a uni­formed police office in the law­ful exe­cu­tion of his duties be giv­en the ben­e­fit of the doubt?
This is a dement­ed and deranged sys­tem of lit­tle men and women who sit atop a shit-pile total­ly obliv­i­ous of the stench as long as they get to sit atop the pile.
This has been the men­tal­i­ty of Jamaicans since the colo­nial pow­ers returned to England or died out. The bunch of self appoint­ed elites have since grabbed the reins of pow­er and cre­at­ed for them­selves a fief­dom of corruption.
This is the real Jamaica, not the total bull-shit you hear about in the tired old com­mer­cials about our country.
This is a coun­try in which many at every lev­el wants crime to con­tin­ue. Policing in Jamaica is an effort in futility.
There are sim­ply too many entrenched inter­est which ben­e­fits from crime.