Montego Bay’s Mayor Glendon Harris alleges that robot taxis owned by police per­son­nel are pro­mot­ing ram­pant law­less­ness down­town busi­ness dis­trict of the Second City. Harris made the alle­ga­tions last week at a Montego Bay Chamber of Commerce and Industry (MBCCI) stake­hold­ers meet­ing in Montego Bay. Harris hit out against mem­bers of the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF) who he accused of turn­ing a blind eye to traf­fic vio­la­tions, among myr­i­ad oth­er offences com­mit­ted in the city’s busi­ness cen­ter, accord­ing to the Jamaica Observer.
Mayor Harris went on quote : “If you go to the inter­sec­tion of Creek Street, St James Street, and this come in like a cho­rus now, you will find no less than 13 white plate cars… so I can say run­ning ‘robot’, from there to Clock and Mount Salem and we can’t get the police to deal with them,” Harris said.“My under­stand­ing is that these cars, by and large, are owned by police offi­cers. It is said that they are owned by police offi­cers. It needs the police to stamp on that once and for all,” he added.

Hmm ..
This is a cry I seem to hear these days, peo­ple com­plain­ing that the Police are turn­ing a blind eye to offences being com­mit­ted in their very presence.
What I also recall is that many of these same peo­ple were front and cen­ter in con­dem­na­tion of Police offi­cers who took their jobs seri­ous­ly and aggres­sive­ly went after all offences. To the best of my rec­ol­lec­tion then the nar­ra­tive was that the police are pres­sur­ing poor peo­ple., Many active­ly instruct­ed offend­ers to phys­i­cal­ly assault police offi­cers. Not sat­is­fied they passed a law which crim­i­nal­ized police for doing their jobs. So lets get this straight you can­not have it both ways, these police offi­cers take action based on what they see. Since it is impos­si­ble to see for oth­ers, maybe these young offi­cers sim­ply haven’t seen these offence.

I remem­ber a time when young Police offi­cers walked those beats and made sure peo­ple had the right to live in peace. I

know a lit­tle about that I was one of those offi­cers. Jamaicans did not want that they com­plained about the police harass­ing poor peo­ple who are just try­ing to make a living.
In Kingston as well on King street. Orange street. Heywood street. North Parade. South Parade.East Parade. West Parade the prob­lem posed by mini-bus­es posed a seri­ous safe­ty prob­lem. Back then as young offi­cers we took a no non­sense approach to their deci­sion not to obey the traf­fic laws. The fact that the courts only fined offend­ers a mar­gin­al feel made enforce­ment a non issue as a deterrent .
In Montego Bay. Negril. and Ochio Rios the same was true, The Chamber of Commerce aligned itself with those who crave anar­chy and accused the police of apply­ing too much pres­sure to those who harass and intim­i­date Visitors to our Island. Again the claim was that the Police are pres­sur­ing poor peo­ple who only want to make a liv­ing. Well the con­se­quence of that is that Tourists were repelled and repulsed by being harangued so the all inclu­sive pack­ages became the choice of vis­i­tors. In addi­tion the seri­ous­ness of our crime sit­u­a­tion result­ed in a US State Department warn­ing to Americans wish­ing to trav­el to Jamaica.
That did not work out so well for the poor peo­ple who only want­ed to make a liv­ing now did it?

Harris con­tin­ued: “If peo­ple are allowed to do any­thing that they want to do, then that is why we end up with the mur­der rate as it is. You have to stop the small things. You are at a traf­fic light in Montego Bay; stop, and vehi­cle just pass you and the police are there, police vehi­cle is there and some­body just broke the stop light and gone and noth­ing is done.
This makes me laugh real­ly they still do not get it I am con­vinced. The Police are doing the bare min­i­mum and they still do not get it.  “Enforcement must be the order of the day in order for us to get back some law and order and civil­i­ty inside this city and inside this coun­try.” Said Harris.
You think?
Since we are on the lit­tle sub­ject of fix­ing small prob­lems I would just like to point out to the good­ly Mayor one tiny lit­tle trans­gres­sion he over­looked . This blun­der which defines the Mayor and his abil­i­ty to lead . That is the issue of the des­e­cra­tion of the Jamaican flag by polit­i­cal hacks who thought it was expe­di­ent or fun­ny to remove the green from the Jamaican flag when the Mayor was being installed as chief exec­u­tive of the city of Montego Bay.
Mister Mayor you could have demand­ed that the mon­stros­i­ty be tak­en down(in the event your argu­ment is you did not know it would be there as is). You could have decid­ed to be sworn in at anoth­er time, or in anoth­er venue. You did not.
When you point fin­gers and make grandiose state­ments be care­ful how you do that par­tic­u­lar­ly when you live in a glass house.
Go tell that to your Government Mayor Harris. tell that to the bunch of know it all’s who are shap­ing pub­lic pol­i­cy with­out an degree of ratio­nale at all . Tell that to the Elites who occu­py ivory tow­ers and relieve their con­sciences by pre­tend­ing to care about what hap­pens down-town while they would not be caught dead down there.
Tell that to those who dri­ve around in deeply tint­ed vehi­cles with the win­dows wound all the way up so they do not have to deal with win­dow-wip­ing squeegee-guys, or the beg­gars at the traf­fic lights.
They then go back to their gat­ed com­mu­ni­ties and man­sions on the hill and pon­tif­i­cate about how much they care for the poor.

Godfrey Dyer, the for­mer pres­i­dent of the MBCCI. chimed in ..

“The peo­ple who you put there must serve. I have seen it also, things hap­pen­ing and a police­man walk­ing by and he does­n’t see it. They are not per­form­ing. They need super­vi­sion. It does­n’t make sense you send half a dozen police­man down town and you don’t have super­vi­sors check­ing on them to see what they are doing. They are just left there for the num­ber of hours that they are left there. They are not per­form­ing they should be a lot more effective,”

News flash, Supervisors can­not force younger offi­cers to make arrests. Though more mid­dle man­age­ment of younger offi­cers may be in order, no one can force any­one to make arrests​.You can­not force offi­cers to make arrest or be tough on offend­ers sim­ply because it suits your pur­pose now. The shit is now hit­ting the fan and it’s now about panicking.
Said Dyer: “The peo­ple who you put there must serve…Ah that supe­ri­or bull­shit , who did Dyer put out there? The real­i­ty is these shit-heads real­ly believe police offi­cers are their lit­tle bitch­es out there to serve their fidu­cia­ry and oth­er inter­ests. They do not care about the inter­est of the offi­cers who are out there stand­ing between them­selves and the anar­chists. You get police to crack down by sup­port­ing them and pay­ing them , you don’t get to demand anything.
Where was the cham­ber of com­merce when the police were fight­ing their wage battles?
Where were the cham­ber of com­merce when the Police were fight­ing an ill-advised and ill-con­fig­ured (inde­com) Act which empow­ers crim­i­nals more than it removes bad cops?

These sup­posed lead­ers need a healthy dose of intro­spec­tion , you can­not have it both ways, get your lazy judg­men­tal ass­es behind the Police , sup­port them and watch crime go away.
Then of course there are the courts where the lib­er­al judges sim­ply dis­pose of cas­es as they see fit , this place is fast becom­ing a failed state.
Too many know it all in this lit­tle Island.
Happy Independence day JAMAICA…

Recently Damion Crawford spoke out again about the (inde­com act). …It was­n’t the first time Crawford came under attack for dar­ing to crit­i­cize the rich peo­ple’s pro­tec­tion from police vigilance.

THIS IS THE JAMAICA GLEANER’S CHARACTERIZATION OF MINISTER CRAWFORD’S STATEMENTS.
The paper pre­tend­ed to pass the sto­ry off as a reg­u­lar news sto­ry yet end­ed up inject­ing it’s own bias­es into the sto­ry and com­ments made by Damion Crawford. Despite not pre­sent­ing the sto­ry on it’s Editorial page.

This time he is accus­ing the enti­ty of only being inter­est­ed in pub­lic rela­tions while fail­ing to ful­fill its objec­tives. INDECOM was set up in 2010 to inves­ti­gate actions by mem­bers of the secu­ri­ty forces that result in death or injury to per­sons or the abuse of the rights of per­sons. However, in a series of social media out­bursts in recent weeks, Crawford has attacked the agency and the author­i­ties for alleged­ly only being inter­est­ed in pub­lic rela­tions. In a post on Twitter today, the East Rural St Andrew MP said INDECOM has been in the news fre­quent­ly but not in rela­tion to the con­vic­tion of bad cops. He says either there are only a few bad cops in Jamaica or INDECOM is incom­pe­tent, adding that per­for­mance is being sac­ri­ficed for pub­lic rela­tions. In a post last week Tuesday, Crawford, the Junior Minister in the Tourism and Entertainment Ministry, said the renew­al of Terrence Williams’ con­tract as head of INDECOM proves to him, that pub­lic rela­tions is more impor­tant than per­for­mance. Last Monday, Williams was sworn in for a sec­ond five-year term as com­mis­sion­er of the over­sight body.

In 2013, Crawford called for the clo­sure of INDECOM claim­ing that the enti­ty had failed to meet its objec­tives. Legislators are dis­cussing whether to estab­lish an over­sight body for INDECOM, with some crit­ics say­ing the inves­tiga­tive body has been ham­per­ing police efforts to catch crim­i­nals. INDECOM has claimed a major role for the approx­i­mate­ly 50 per­cent fall in police-relat­ed killings in 2014 when com­pared to 2013. Read more here. .Damion Crawford Continues Anti-INDECOM Campaign

Response by one Charlene H Foote

Damion Crawford needs to adopt the adage, ‘be quick to lis­ten and slow to speak’, because for some­one who is sup­posed to be a mem­ber of the artic­u­late minor­i­ty, his anti-INDECOM state­ments are asi­nine — and that is putting it mild­ly. Taken in parts, his fuzzy log­ic can be torn apart as eas­i­ly and quick­ly as he blast­ed his mis­guid­ed views all over the microblog­ging site, Twitter. I invite Mr Crawford to write a paper, or even an arti­cle of no few­er than 1,000 words, to con­vince us why INDECOM should be closed or why he believes the estab­lish­ment of the organ­i­sa­tion was a pub­lic rela­tions stunt. Only when he is forced to actu­al­ly do some research will he see that he will come up short on actu­al facts to sup­port his posi­tion. Mr Crawford infers that INDECOM has not ful­filled its man­date because he is hear­ing more noise than con­vic­tions. This is laugh­able! For all the time he spends on social media tweet­ing and post­ing on FB, did­n’t he see:

1. The con­vic­tion of eight police per­son­nel for breach­es of the INDECOM Act?

2. Or the con­vic­tion of DSP Albert Diah for fail­ing to com­ply with a law­ful require­ment on the com­mis­sion with­out law­ful jus­ti­fi­ca­tion or excuse, con­trary to Section 33 (b) (ii) and obstruct­ing the com­mis­sion in the exer­cise of its func­tions, con­trary to Section 33 (b)(i)?

He cer­tain­ly did not see the news about the con­vic­tion of Detective Sherwood Simpson for wound­ing with intent and ille­gal pos­ses­sion of a firearm. By my count, that is 10 police per­son­nel in three mat­ters com­plet­ed in a court sys­tem that, if it was mov­ing any slow­er, it would be going back­wards. INDECOM report­ed that it has had more than 85 mat­ters in the court.

MOST ASININE STATEMENT

Mr Crawford also com­ment­ed that either there are few bad cops or INDECOM is incom­pe­tent. In my many years of fol­low­ing the work of INDECOM, I have nev­er heard any claims by the com­mis­sion, or any­one else for that mat­ter, that all police per­son­nel are bad. Among the many asi­nine com­ments Mr Crawford has made, this one may be a win­ner for being THE most asi­nine state­ment I have ever heard from some­one who is sup­pos­ed­ly a mem­ber of the artic­u­late minor­i­ty. Contrary to pop­u­lar belief, ‘Dirty Harry’ polic­ing is not a sus­tain­able mod­el to man­age Jamaica’s crime sit­u­a­tion; it has nev­er worked, and it nev­er will. But all this rhetoric is not about that. I am will­ing to bet that we would not have to deal with his anti-INDECOM cam­paign had the con­cept of INDECOM been craft­ed by, and estab­lished under, the People’s National Party admin­is­tra­tion. A lit­tle advice for Mr Crawford from Abraham Lincoln and me: Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.

CHARLENE H. FOOTE
The fore­gone is a Letter of the day which appeared in the Jamaica Daily Gleaner in response to a Junior Minister of Tourism Damion Crawford con­tin­ued com­ments regard­ing the (inde­com) Act.
As an un-apolo­getic crit­ic of the law I am par­tic­u­lar­ly inter­est­ed in bring­ing Minister Crawford’s point of view to the fore on this mat­ter. I hold no brief for mis­ter Crawford whom I believe is quite capa­ble of defend­ing him­self from ver­bal assaults. I must how­ev­er acknowl­edge the views of Damion Crawford in light of the colos­sal blun­der which is the (ide­com) as it is present­ly constituted.
I will deal with the Writer Charlene H Foote’s attack on Damion Crawford sole­ly on the mer­its of her igno­rance and mis­guid­ed argu­ments with­out engag­ing in the per­son­al attacks she lev­eled at Crawford.
1. The con­vic­tion of eight police per­son­nel for breach­es of the INDECOM Act?
♦There would have been no breach of the (inde­com) Act if there was no (inde­com) Act. To sug­gest that chal­leng­ing a law which was unset­tled and still is is the epit­o­me of ASNINE.
2. Or the con­vic­tion of DSP Albert Diah for fail­ing to com­ply with a law­ful require­ment on the com­mis­sion with­out law­ful jus­ti­fi­ca­tion or excuse, con­trary to Section 33 (b) (ii) and obstruct­ing the com­mis­sion in the exer­cise of its func­tions, con­trary to Section 33 (b)(i)?
♦ Again not abid­ing by a law the full con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty is yet to be deter­mined as it regards com­pli­ance is no proof of crim­i­nal wrong doing. To sug­gest that offi­cers who chal­lenge the legit­i­ma­cy of a law is guilty of crim­i­nal con­duct is the heights of nonsense.
He cer­tain­ly did not see the news about the con­vic­tion of Detective Sherwood Simpson for wound­ing with intent and ille­gal pos­ses­sion of a firearm. By my count, that is 10 police per­son­nel in three mat­ters com­plet­ed in a court sys­tem that, if it was mov­ing any slow­er, it would be going back­wards. INDECOM report­ed that it has had more than 85 mat­ters in the court.
♦ I am going to haz­ard a guess that the writer is a Lawyer loy­al to the Opposition Labor Party , which seem to be a haven of Elitist anti-police oper­a­tives wait­ing to get their hands on pow­er with a view to car­ry out the demo­li­tion of the rule of law and the JCf.
Said Foote Quote: I am will­ing to bet that we would not have to deal with his anti-INDECOM cam­paign had the con­cept of INDECOM been craft­ed by, and estab­lished under, the People’s National Party administration.
♦ Ah ..So this is what the attack on Crawford is about . Politics, the fact that the law was con­struct­ed under the Golding Administration does not make it a good law . The reverse is actu­al­ly true , It is a bad law which was for­mu­lat­ed with no con­sid­er­a­tion or study done by impar­tial pro­fes­sion­als on the way the law would impact crime or more sig­nif­i­cant­ly the feel­ing many now have that they can attack police offi­cers at will with­out the com­men­su­rate response nec­es­sary to dis­pel such notions.
I am among those who want over­sight of police and every pub­lic body. What the infan­tile attack on Crawford reveals is exact­ly what I write about in these blogs on a dai­ly basis, the elit­ism of some who live above cross roads who ben­e­fit from police sac­ri­fice yet are not thank­ful for the work they do.

In every pub­lic body there is cor­rup­tion. Jamaican lawyers are some of the most cor­rupt so-called offi­cers of the courts any­where. Every year sev­er­al of them are dis­barred from prac­tic­ing law. Ever won­der why they do not want an effec­tive Police Force? Many of them have engaged in fleec­ing illit­er­ate and unsus­pect­ing clients both abroad and at home. The only rea­son more of them are not in prison is exact­ly because of the inep­ti­tude of the police depart­ment. The only rea­son there is not more phys­i­cal response against them is because too many Jamaicans believe they are some kind of big-man .
Certain Jamaican’s con­tin­ued sup­port of (indecom)has pre­cious lit­tle to do with cor­rup­tion or abuse with­in the three agen­cies with­ing the agen­cy’s scope of respon­si­bil­i­ty but more to do with their con­tin­ued sup­port and engage­ment in crim­i­nal con­duct which places them at odds with effec­tive policing.
If they can muz­zle the police and no one is watch­ing the store they then engage in crim­i­nal acts unperturbed.

Having being sub­ject­ed to some of the most out­ra­geous and degrad­ing names for stand­ing on prin­ci­ple I would bet that Damion Crawford will shrug off this Uninformed par­ti­san assault and con­tin­ue to speak out on issues the way he sees them. Not through unin­formed myopic par­ti­san lens but with seri­ous well though-out and care­ful delib­er­a­tion. the pre­dis­po­si­tion of Jamaicans to berate and demo­nize those with whom they dis­agree can­not be of con­cern to Crawford as it is not with me . Those who resort to vit­ri­olic intem­per­ate out­bursts do so because the facts are not on their side.
The (indecom)Act. is a crime-esca­lat­ing, crime-cre­at­ing law which places the lives of the Police and cit­i­zens alike in deep jeopardy.
The law needs to be repealed and redone. The fact that the law is still being re-worked is proof pos­i­tive the Law is imper­fect and should be abol­ished. We are still not sure how many Jamaicans have lost their lives as a result of the mind­set cre­at­ed from this ill-advised piece of leg­is­la­tion. On the face of it the law offers more pro­tec­tion to Jamaica’s maraud­ing crim­i­nal-gangs than it removes alleged bad cops . Thanks to the atten­tion-starved head of the agency who spends more time com­plain­ing and demand­ing pow­er than he does doing any­thing productive.
A ris­ing tide rais­es all boats , as such well mean­ing Jamaicans have to push back against the destruc­tive nature of this ill-advised law. Otherwise I would be the first to say let sup­port­ers live in a Jamaica with (inde­com) while those with com­mon sense live in a Jamaica with­out that law. Improve and mod­ern­ize the force, pay police offi­cers put in place impar­tial over­sight which has no axe to grind, I’ll sup­port that.
No one who came out of the Norman Manley Law School or the University of the West Indies has the moral com­pass to be a part of that process.

I was nev­er ever an admir­ing fan of the Police High Command, those famil­iar with my rants are aware of my dis­dain for them. One of the rea­sons I quit the force after only ten(10) years was that I was­n’t par­tic­u­lar­ly inter­est­ed in aspir­ing to be a mem­ber of that fra­ter­ni­ty. I was not inter­est­ed in being any­one’s tool. I was not inter­est­ed in tak­ing orders which was anti­thet­i­cal to my oath. I was not inter­est­ed in being any­one’s yard-boy. I was not inter­est­ed in polit­i­cal affil­i­a­tions for pro­mo­tions. I was not inter­est­ed in fol­low­ing behind Jamaica’s cor­rupt politicians(of either par­ty) like a domes­ti­cat­ed Mutt. And I was cer­tain­ly not inter­est­ed in bit­ing my tongue when some­one pissed me off.

Oh in case you are won­der­ing about the Police High Command those were the char­ac­ter­is­tics which defined the Police High Command and they still are today. Promotions and plum assign­ments are tied to polit­i­cal alle­giance and servi­tude. It is easy to under­stand why Rank and file Police offi­cers get no respect on the streets when the top-tier of the force are mere tools of servitude.

In a report yes­ter­day Terrence Williams made unsub­stan­ti­at­ed alle­ga­tions that Police offi­cers are involved in mak­ing threats against his staff. Williams is the com­bat­ive pow­er-hun­gry Commissioner of (inde­com) the police over­sight agency. In what was a shock­ing dis­play of reck­less­ness Williams assert­ed that Police offi­cers were involved yet pro­duced no evi­dence to back up his claim. At the same time Williams made the claims, he assert­ed that he had a chum­my rela­tion­ship with the Police high com­mand . Of course why not ? The police high com­mand was always a bunch of cow­ard­ly rum bel­ly lack­eys who nev­er had a prob­lem sell­ing out their sub­or­di­nates for a pat on the back and a drink of Rum. I am still nau­se­at­ed think­ing about the sub­mis­sive nature of some of them twen­ty four years later.

Neither the so-called high com­mand nor the Federation is worth a damn as far as the inter­est of the rank and file are con­cerned. It was always the young offi­cers, gung-ho and full of brava­do, who brought vital­i­ty to the force. The old­er mem­bers of the Federation and the high com­mand are only inter­est­ed in cur­ry­ing favor for pro­mo­tions and spe­cial assignments.
Williams assert­ed unequiv­o­cal­ly, that Police offi­cers were involved in mak­ing threats against his staff, he went as far as to nail down the age group of those he sus­pect­ed. The only thing miss­ing from William’s wild and fan­tas­tic alle­ga­tions was the most impor­tant thing .…..Proof !!!
Williams and his lack­eys were crafty enough to pla­cate the High com­mand with sweet plat­i­tudes in order to win their silence ‚while he lam­bast and lam­poon the offi­cers who place their lives on the line for an ungrate­ful repro­bate nation. Quote : The threats have been brought to the atten­tion of the Police High Command, and (INDECOM) has bol­stered its inter­nal secu­ri­ty frame­work and risk assessment.
Williams’ assis­tant Hamish Campbell said quote: ” Making the inci­dents known to the High Command is one of the best ways to pro­tect (indecom’s) inves­ti­ga­tors and staff. “There is coöper­a­tion with the senior police offi­cers about it. We have dis­cussed it, we have engaged with them,” .
Of course the sell outs who head the Force nev­er both­ered to request that Williams pro­vide proof if he intend­ed to go pub­lic with his wild claims. And real­ly why would they ask him to pro­vide proof? They nev­er cared about the younger offi­cers and they don’t now.

In prepar­ing for this Article I decid­ed to look at the web­page of the JCF . I also looked at the page of the Police Federation. as well as their Facebook pages. Despite the trag­ic loss of life of four (4) offi­cers over a peri­od of just days nei­ther of the web­sites have a memo­r­i­al for these offi­cers. In fact nei­ther their web­sites nor their Facebook pages pro­vide a link to a sto­ry which speaks to the offi­cers who fell both in the line of duty or oth­ers who died nat­u­ral­ly or under cloudy and yet to be deter­mined cir­cum­stances .There is no memo­r­i­al in the coun­try which hon­ors their sac­ri­fice but it is incom­pre­hen­si­ble and uncon­scionable that nei­ther the Police Department nor the Federation has enough com­mon sense to hon­or offi­cers with a sim­ple memo­r­i­al on their web­site, or on their Facebook pages.

As a sign of my sup­port for the fall­en offi­cers who give their lives for an unde­serv­ing pop­u­la­tion. As a sign of my sup­port for the fam­i­lies from all across the Island who so will­ing­ly give up their sons and daugh­ters in ser­vice to our Country this pub­li­ca­tion hon­ors your sac­ri­fice and com­mit­ment to our Country. As a small token of that com­mit­ment we will, start­ing today, begin by high­light­ing the last four offi­cers who gave their lives recently.
I hon­or and cel­e­brate the sac­ri­fice of all of these heroes whether the Police High Command and the Federation real­ize their sac­ri­fice or not .
Rest in Peace .….…
It is time for mem­bers of the Jamaica Constabulary Force to refuse to car­ry the coffins of Ministers of Government and those the Government lift up as stal­warts with­in the Jamaican soci­ety. Frankly I have nev­er seen any of those soci­ety big-wigs at the funer­als of Police Officers.
These are the peo­ple who clam­or for (inde­com) let (inde­com) car­ry their coffins.
There are many ways to opt out of those duties you are police offi­cers. If the Country demon­stra­bly decide it does not appre­ci­ate you then it’s time that you look out for yourselves.

There’s always a prob­lem which needs media atten­tion if Terrence Williams (inde­com’s) Commissioner is to be believed . When he is not bitch­ing that he needs more pow­er to go after Police. He is bitch­ing that he does­n’t need any over­sight of the agency he heads.
It’s always some­thing with this guy , he spends so much time bitch­ing and grip­ing, where the hell does he find time to do his damn job?
The lat­est com­ing from the infan­tile dic­ta­tor is that his office has received death threats. I mean who gives a shit ?
Even if he and his oper­a­tives received a mil­lion death threats who the f**k cares?
death threats ?

How many cops lost their lives actu­al­ly doing some­thing worth­while and com­mend­able over the last week or two? I have just about had it with this shit head.
Why not go actu­al­ly do some work for the blood mon­ey you are get­ting paid ?
In the lat­est in a series of atten­tion grab­bing media manip­u­la­tion Williams claims “There have been threats to INDECOM staff mem­bers. The nature of the threats runs a gamut from per­sons mak­ing intem­per­ate remarks, threats of what they will do, and what they will cause to be done,” Williams told a Gleaner Editors’ Forum last Friday. “It also comes in intel­li­gence that is gath­ered by agen­cies about whis­per­ings of plans. “The job of the INDECOM inves­ti­ga­tor is not an easy one. Apart from rogue offi­cers or their friends who may threat­en, it is also dan­ger­ous being out on the road at late hours where they have to go, because of their inves­ti­ga­tions,” added Williams. The INDECOM boss said while the threats have not been fre­quent, they are still mat­ters of con­cern as his staff mem­bers are unarmed, and arm­ing inves­ti­ga­tors is not an option he is pre­pared to explore.

HERE’S THE RUB.

According to Williams, the threats have been brought to the atten­tion of the Police High Command, and (INDECOM) has bol­stered its inter­nal secu­ri­ty frame­work and risk assessment.

Williams was sup­port­ed by assis­tant com­mis­sion­er of the agency, Hamish Campbell, who argued that mak­ing the inci­dents known to the High Command is one of the best ways to pro­tect (inde­com’s) inves­ti­ga­tors and staff. “There is coöper­a­tion with the senior police offi­cers about it. We have dis­cussed it, we have engaged with them,” said Campbell. In the mean­time, Nigel Morgan, INDECOM’s direc­tor of com­plaints for the east­ern divi­sion, argued that the threats may be com­ing from the younger mem­bers of the force, influ­enced by offi­cers at the mid­dle-man­age­ment lev­el. “Most mem­bers of the JCF coop­er­ate with INDECOM. It is impor­tant for us to put that on the table. There are a few, how­ev­er, who will be recal­ci­trant; when they are giv­en instruc­tions they dis­obey,” charged Morgan. “We have rea­son to believe that they are being influ­enced by a few offi­cers who are the mid­dle man­agers, who may be anti-INDECOM,” said Morgan.

Williams claims he does not want weapons for his staff?
“Yah”…
If Williams wants firearms he should come out and say so . Doing the back door phy­col­o­gy is not fool­ing any­one. This guy is the worst kind of pow­er hun­gry moron imaginable.
♦He want­ed to be a Judge in anoth­er Caribbean Island he did not get that job.
♦ He want­ed the job of Director of Public Prosecution (DPP) in Jamaica, Paula Llewelyn got the job, since then Williams has been a thorn in Llewelyn’s side claim­ing all sorts of incom­pe­tence on the part of her office.
♦ Since get­ting the job as com­mis­sion­er of (inde­com) he has not stopped bitch­ing that he needs more power.
♦ Williams just lost a fight when a joint select com­mit­tee of Parliament sided with the DPP that indeed (inde­com) should have over­sight and not be vest­ed with super pow­ers to go after oth­ers while the agency is not account­able to anyone.
♦ Not sat­is­fied Williams is now back at it mak­ing fan­tas­tic claims and allegations.
Let me be clear I fun­da­men­tal­ly believe Williams and the Police high com­mand has a chum­my rela­tion­ship despite his dis­re­spect and dis­dain for the junior offi­cers. The Police high com­mand has nev­er been any­thing but a bunch of lap-dogs who are will­ing to sell out the rank and file for a pat on the back and a drink of white Rum. Not much has changed.
Insofar as this claim is con­cerned here’s my take .Unless Terrence Williams place evi­dence of the threats made against him and his lack­eys in the pub­lic domain. Unless he presents proof that said threats are com­ing from police offi­cers then Williams is noth­ing but an atten­tion lov­ing pow­er-hun­gry lying bastard.

There are a lot of prob­lems in Africa, expo­nen­tial­ly more than may be found in any oth­er part of the world. Extreme Poverty. Dangerous Diseases. Horrible Droughts. Horrendous Wars. Massive Corruption. Extreme Hunger. The list of prob­lems and the extreme nature of each calami­ty caus­es us to turn the page or quick­ly scroll up or down so we don’t have to face the stark imagery. We hide from the imagery not because we are uncar­ing, we do so because some­times the prob­lems seem too large too momen­tous and so we feel help­less. We tell our­selves there is noth­ing we can do so why tor­ture ourselves.

So with all of the prob­lems plagu­ing the Continent of Africa why the out­rage about the death of Cecil the Lion? Why has the death of a sin­gle Lion sparked such out­rage across the Globe? According to the New York Times ‚Zimbabwe’s envi­ron­ment min­is­ter called Friday for the extra­di­tion of the American den­tist who killed Cecil, a 13-year-old lion.

The min­is­ter, Oppah Muchinguri, said the den­tist, Dr. Walter J. Palmer, a hunter from Minnesota, had bro­ken Zimbabwe’s laws. At a news con­fer­ence in Harare, the Zimbabwean cap­i­tal, Ms. Muchinguri said that she under­stood the process was under­way to have Dr. Palmer extra­dit­ed from the United States and that the “for­eign poach­er” need­ed to be held account­able for his actions. “Unfortunately, it was too late to appre­hend the for­eign poach­er, as he had already abscond­ed to his coun­try of ori­gin,” she was quot­ed as say­ing by The Associated Press. “We are appeal­ing to the respon­si­ble author­i­ties for his extra­di­tion to Zimbabwe.”.
Dr. Palmer a 55-year-old Minnesota Dentist and big game hunter said he trust­ed his Two Zimbabwean guides and that he act­ed on their advice before shoot­ing the prized Lion which is a tourist attrac­tion in the African coun­try. Both Men have been arrest­ed and are fac­ing crim­i­nal charges in rela­tion to the inci­dent. Palmer alleged­ly paid $55,000 to hunt the lion. (According to NBC News, the guides, Theo Bronkhorst and Honest Ndlovu, could also face poach­ing charges and, if found guilty, 10 years in jail.)

Dr. Palmer has issued a state­ment as a result of the firestorm which has devel­oped over his killing of the prized 13 ‑year-old Cecil . In his state­ment Palmer said “Again, I deeply regret that my pur­suit of an activ­i­ty I love and prac­tice respon­si­bly and legal­ly result­ed in the tak­ing of this lion,” Dr. Palmer con­clud­ed to his patients. “That was nev­er my intention.”
In the mean­time Dr.Palmer has stayed out of sight of US Authorities amidst the calls for his extra­di­tion to answer to charges in Zimbabwe.
The United States has a treaty with Zimbabwe under which some­one charged with an offense pun­ish­able by a sen­tence of at least a year in both coun­tries can be extra­dit­ed. On Friday, a Justice Department spokesman said the agency did not com­ment on extra­di­tion requests from for­eign governments.
In the mean­time a peti­ton on the White House web­site has col­lect­ed over 200,000 sig­na­tures call­ing for Dr Palmer’s extra­di­tion to Zimbabwe to face charges. The White house main­tains it will react to any peti­tion which col­lects over 100,000 signatures.

In the mean­time there is a side of the American Media which may be fuelling International out­rage. Many have been say­ing that under no cir­cum­stance should Palmer be extra­dit­ed to face charges. They cite a litany of issues includ­ing alle­ga­tions of Human Rights abuse by Zimbabwe and President Mugabe.
This out­rages many observers across the world as it out­rages this writer.
A treaty is a treaty . The United States has a duty to hon­or treaties it is sig­na­to­ry to . Therefore there should be no dis­cus­sion about whether or not Dr. Walter Palmer should be extra­dit­ed to Zimbabwe to face charges . The United States would expect no less were the sit­u­a­tion reversed.
As a mem­ber of the International com­mu­ni­ty and one that takes onto itself the role of lec­tur­ing oth­ers about obey­ing International laws and treaties it is impor­tant that the United States prac­tice what it preach­es and do what is right. It can­not be that there are two sets of rules , one for the rest of the world and anoth­er for the United States.

I recall in 2010 the United States adamant­ly asked that Christopher Coke be extra­dit­ed to face charges in the US for crimes many argued were com­mit­ted in Jamaica. In the end Christopher Dudus Coke was extra­dit­ed, tried ‚and con­vict­ed he is present­ly serv­ing a lengthy sen­tence in a Federal prison. Before all of that how­ev­er the process saw mas­sive street unrest and vio­lence between sup­port­ers of Coke and Police. Police Stations were torched , mem­bers of the secu­ri­ty forces were even­tu­al­ly killed. A mas­sive Military/​Police incur­sion into Tivoli Gardens annexed the com­mu­ni­ty to the rest of the coun­try, but not before an esti­mat­ed 73 peo­ple lost their lives.

The United States just con­clud­ed seri­ous nego­ti­a­tions as part of the so-called P5 and 1 sur­round­ing the issue of Iran’s nuclear pro­gram. The (P5) Permanent 5 , includes the United States, Russia , France, England and China, Iran being the one(1).
The nego­ti­a­tions cen­tered on what the United States and it’s allies includ­ing Israel says is Iran’s pur­suit of Nuclear weapons con­trary to International nuclear non-pro­lif­er­a­tion treaties.
Iran has stead­fast­ly insist­ed that it’s Nuclear pro­gram is for domes­tic peace­ful pur­pos­es only. Notwithstanding the very same sec­tor of the pop­u­la­tion is fight­ing to kill the deal the (P5) reached with Iran with­out offer­ing an alter­na­tive deal. It is impor­tant to note that in the absence of a deal the Iranians would have no restraints on it’s nuclear pro­gram and may sim­ply go ahead and pro­duce nuclear bombs.
It is also impor­tant to note that what the polit­i­cal Right and the bleed­ing heart Liberals who blind­ly fol­low Israel real­ly want is war with Iran.

This brings us full cir­cle to the killing of Cecil. There are those in America who want to dic­tate to the rest of the world how they should act , yet they believe the same rules ought not apply to them. Thankfully that is not a Universal view. Many con­sci­en­tious Americans want Dr. Walter Palmer extra­dit­ed to face charges and so he should .
This writer share that belief.…

As an un-apolo­getic cru­sad­er against the (inde­com) Act as con­fig­ured, I am pleased to see that the Joint Select Committee of Parliament has come to it’s sens­es at least in this case and decid­ed to add over­sight to (inde­com).
Form the incep­tion of (inde­com) I argued stri­dent­ly that the (JCF) should have over­sight, how­ev­er I believed then and still do today that at present what obtains is an adver­sar­i­al con­fronta­tion­al elit­ists approach being employed by the neo­phyte agency which is head­ed by Terrence Williams now in his sec­ond five year term. Williams is a pow­er hun­gry nar­cis­sist who has an over inflat­ed ego and a rapa­cious desire for more and more unfet­tered power.

Williams from the get go cre­at­ed an adver­sar­i­al envi­ron­ment between his office and the entire Jamaica Constabulary Force which poi­soned any well of good­will and coöper­a­tion which could poten­tial­ly have exist­ed, which by the way would be ben­e­fi­cial to him the JCF and the country.
Doing his job well and main­tain­ing respect­ful coöper­a­tion with the JCF are not mutu­al­ly exclu­sive goals. That was not what Williams wanted.
Williams was proud to make sure cer­tain sec­tions of the soci­ety knew that he was adver­sar­i­al with the Police when he shared a stage with the group Jamaicans for Justice and its then head Carolyn Gomes an activist who delib­er­ate­ly cre­at­ed much enmi­ty, and spread much lies and mis-infor­ma­tion about exces­sive police behavior.

This is not to say that the police was not guilty of some of the trans­gres­sions mem­bers were accused of com­mit­ting. Notwithstanding because of the advo­ca­cy and lob­by­ing effort of the group it was out­side the realm of whats appro­pri­ate for Williams to share the stage with them at the time.
The police then called on the Government to fire Williams , need­less to say the Government did not acqui­esce to those demands . I don’t believe the Police expect­ed the Government to do any­thing they asked for.

Most strik­ing­ly Williams has rapa­cious­ly pursed more and more pow­er argu­ing he need­ed Prosecutorial pow­ers to go after mem­bers of the Police Department, the Military and Corrections Departments.
In an illu­mi­nat­ing stroke of irony Terrence Williams simul­ta­ne­ous­ly opposed any over­sight of his (inde­com)..
Williams did not make ene­mies of just the Police , Military and Corrections, he picked fights with the nation’s Director of Public Prosecution (DPP) Paula Llewelyn.
Of course in Jamaica no one wants to share pow­er so this did not sit well with the (DPP). The mat­ter came up for review in Parliament. The idea of anoth­er over­sight lev­el for the com­mis­sion was intro­duced by Minister of National Security, Peter Bunting and Minister of Justice, Senator Mark Golding with­in the com­mit­tee. However it was the DPP who sug­gest­ed it to Parliament, fol­low­ing a row with (inde­com) boss, Terrence Williams, over her han­dling of the case involv­ing the con­tro­ver­sial killing of aspir­ing DJ Robert “Kentucky Kid” in 2009 by the police..
Williams does not believe in the Prosecutorial process in place to ade­quate­ly weigh and present evi­dence. What he wants is carte-blanche to go after offi­cers with unchecked pow­ers to per­se­cute, not prosecute.

Many mem­bers of the JSC did not want to check the unfet­tered pow­ers of (inde­com) and it’s Napoleonic leader, most­ly out of fear for the howls of con­dem­na­tion which is sure to ensue from the crim­i­nal rights fra­ter­ni­ty par­tic­u­lar­ly in the Bar Association and the Norman Manley Law school at the Mona Campus UWI.
Notwithstanding after Bunting read a let­ter addressed to Golding out­lin­ing his views on the mat­ter the com­mit­tee had an about face.
In his let­ter Bunting said »>.

With very lit­tle over­sight from Parliament, Commissioner Williams, and pos­si­bly his team at INDECOM, “decides admin­is­tra­tive, inves­ti­gate and pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al issues with no oper­a­tional review”. “The qual­i­ty and fair­ness of these deci­sions are crit­i­cal to main­tain­ing both the con­fi­dence of the pub­lic, as well as the trust of the secu­ri­ty forces,” Bunting said. “Importantly, if mem­bers of the secu­ri­ty forces con­clude that engag­ing armed vio­lent crim­i­nals is a ‘no win’ exer­cise for them, then we run the risk of facil­i­tat­ing crim­i­nal impuni­ty with obvi­ous adverse con­se­quences to the society”.

I have been mak­ing the very same argu­ments in this medi­um. I am extreme­ly pleased to see that final­ly com­mon sense has pre­vailed in this mat­ter. Too many peo­ple die when police refrain from going after criminals.
I have repeat­ed­ly asked do we all have a desire to see Jamaica with less crime?
The peo­ple who sup­port (indecom’s)power grab are ben­e­fit­ing great­ly and have always ben­e­fit­ed from crime in the past.
They are the Nation’s crim­i­nal lawyers , many of whom dou­ble as leg­is­la­tors. Therein lies the problem.

I read about the mur­ders rapes , shoot­ings and oth­er felonies being com­mit­ted in Jamaica dai­ly. I also read and watch videos of grue­some crimes being com­mit­ted against women and even defense­less inno­cent babies. I do so with trep­i­da­tion and fear. Fear for fam­i­ly and friends who live in Jamaica. I also fear for the lives of the good police offi­cers who place their lives on the line dai­ly believ­ing they can make a dif­fer­ence on an Island where the peo­ple large­ly do not under­stand the ben­e­fits good law-enforce­ment bring to their lives and a Government which is quite con­tent to keep them ignorant.
Crime is a phe­nom­e­non which feeds on acqui­es­cence and oppor­tu­ni­ty. That means crime metas­ta­size when the peo­ple are ambiva­lent to it and when the peo­ple actu­al­ly cre­ate oppor­tu­ni­ties for it to occur,.

It will be dif­fi­cult to make a case that Jamaica is not ambiva­lent and in many ways engage in cre­at­ing the envi­ron­ment for crime to flour­ish both by omis­sion and commission.
Our Police are woe­ful­ly inca­pable of mak­ing a dent in crime as a result and are in many cas­es now sim­ply engaged in ensur­ing their own sur­vival. Despite the con­tin­ued esca­la­tion in the num­ber of seri­ous crimes being com­mit­ted on the Island the Administration seem more con­cerned with erect­ing bar­ri­ers which would pre­vent the Police from hav­ing suc­cess than actu­al­ly declar­ing war on orga­nized crime.
Some argue the polit­i­cal Directorate is active­ly engaged in seri­ous cor­rup­tion and oth­er crim­i­nal acts.
The Police Department suf­fer great­ly from Political inter­fer­ence in their abil­i­ty to do their jobs. Interference comes in the form of trans­fers, lack of pro­mo­tion and may even mean much more seri­ous con­se­quences if the wrong per­son is pros­e­cut­ed even when they com­mit heinous crimes. This is not lost on the crim­i­nal under­world which exploit every open­ing it gets to increase it’s assault on law abid­ing Jamaicans.

There is much to-do now about (inde­com) , the agency was cre­at­ed by the for­mer Jamaica Labor Party Administration after what many saw as out of con­trol police abuse and cor­rup­tion. The new Agency has respon­si­bil­i­ty to police the Military, the Police and Corrections Departments.
On the face of it no one can deny the need for police over­sight in light of recent occur­rences not just in Jamaica but in the United States of Americas well.
Many on the side­lines with axes to grind and per­son­al agen­das naïve­ly’ and in many case igno­rant­ly argue that if police offi­cers are not break­ing the laws they have noth­ing to fear from aggres­sive oversight.

Those state­ments lack a fun­da­men­tal under­stand­ing of the chal­lenges Police offi­cers face in exe­cut­ing their duties. When we talk about polic­ing in Jamaica those chal­lenges are mul­ti­plied expo­nen­tial­ly. Oversight can­not be adver­sar­i­al and or con­fronta­tion­al with polic­ing. Effective over­sight works cohe­sive­ly with police in order to remove cor­rup­tion . It can­not be a witch-hunt aimed at mak­ing crim­i­nals out of peo­ple who act in good faith in the law­ful exe­cu­tion of their man­dates and are forced to make life and death deci­sions in split sec­ond scenarios.
One can­not ful­ly under­stand those nuances unless one has donned a police uni­form and faced the cir­cum­stances offi­cers face. Even the most ardent crit­ics of police in many devel­oped coun­tries adjust their posi­tions when placed in sim­u­lat­ed sit­u­a­tions in which they have to make split sec­ond decisions.
That is the rea­son police are giv­en such wide lat­i­tude to do their jobs in devel­oped coun­tries. That is not to say Police are jus­ti­fied in expand­ing those lat­i­tudes and inter­pre­ta­tions of right and wrong. That is where prop­er­ly focused intel­li­gent over­sight comes in.
Police over­sight can­not be con­duct­ed with a view to indict­ing or impris­on­ing offi­cers, the police is not the ene­my. Officers go out to do good. It can­not be done because some­one wants to be seen. It can­not be done so one can build a rep­u­ta­tion or a resume as is the cur­rent sit­u­a­tion in Jamaica.

At present (inde­com) is not an effec­tive over­sight agency. As present­ly con­fig­ured and autho­rized it is a con­fronta­tion­al (pseu­do-rights agency) not far removed from the pha­lanx of oth­er so-called rights agen­cies oper­at­ing on the Island. Throwing a white face into the mix does not legit­imize (inde­com), it actu­al­ly prove the opposite.
Insofar as for­eign gov­ern­ments and Departments are con­cerned if they want­ed Jamaica to progress they would be offer­ing aid in train­ing, equip­ment, tech­ni­cal know-how and oth­er oper­a­tional upgrades to the JCF not offer­ing mon­ey to aid and com­fort (inde­com).
Every coun­try which offers mon­ey or oth­er aid to (inde­com) have strong police agen­cies which they do not allow any agency or per­son to con­flict with.

As I have report­ed from speak­ing to offi­cers on the ground there is real­ly no effec­tive inves­ti­ga­tions from the Island’s detec­tives. Many would have you believe Jamaican offi­cers and by exten­sion our detec­tives are sub-stan­dard or in some way infe­ri­or to their coun­ter­parts in oth­er coun­tries. The fact is that the evi­dence points in the oppo­site direction.
Time after time when­ev­er mem­bers of the JCF com­pete or par­tic­i­pate in train­ing cours­es with their con­tem­po­raries from oth­er coun­tries, includ­ing the devel­oped world our offi­cers per­form in exem­plary fash­ion , in many instances out­shin­ing those officers.

Presently there are ambi­gu­i­ties between the police and (inde­com) as to who has con­trol of cer­tain crime scenes. How does an over­sight agency have con­trol of a scene of crime is beyond comprehension.
The chal­lenge for Jamaica is not an unavail­abil­i­ty of tal­ent and com­mit­ment . Jamaicans need to reori­ent it’s views on the rule of law and make a deci­sion whether it wants to be sim­i­lar to a sub-Saharan fief­dom con­trolled by war­lords or a pro­gres­sive 21^st cen­tu­ry Island posi­tioned for growth and development.
Only the peo­ple can decide that. If their actions of the past are any­thing to go by I do not hold out much hope for the fore­see­able future.

There is much spec­u­la­tion regard­ing the death of (JCF) Corporal Tyrone Thompson, thus far media reports sug­gest sui­cide. Initial reports sug­gest the offi­cer was found lying dead in bed by his twin broth­er also a police offi­cer of the same rank clutch­ing a weapon with a sin­gle gun­shot wound to the head.
Media leaks also sug­gest he had asked for a trans­fer to anoth­er sta­tion and that he was hav­ing per­son­al and rela­tion­ship problems.
As far as we know there is no offi­cial cause of death from Police Investigators.
However there is a pic­ture of what appears to be the deceased on social media which begs the ques­tion, who made that pho­to­graph avail­able ? Was it the Police and if so why?
If it was­n’t the Police who else have had access to the scene?

As we await a cause of death we are remind­ed that the death of cor­po­ral Thompson is just anoth­er in a series of three deaths of police offi­cers in a mat­ter of days. Constables Curtis Lewis and Crystal Johnson both lost their lives in the line of duty a few days before Corporal Thompson.
Despite my per­son­al objec­tion to the release of the pho­to­graph of Corporal Thomas (if not a fake) I too have some obser­va­tions which con­tra­dicts the notion that his death was a suicide.
Lets not for­get that there still is no offi­cial word from the police. In the mean­time the rumor mill keep churning .

The pho­to­graph which appears on social media is stir­ring a mas­sive debate regard­ing whether the cause of death could pos­si­bly be suicide.
Many offi­cers past and present have offered up the­o­ries why they believe he could not have shot himself.
Points of con­tention are var­ied and many . My obser­va­tions are simple.
♦ The posi­tion of his arm with the weapon lay­ing loose­ly in his right arm appear to have been placed in his hand after he was killed. If he shot him­self in the head it seem to me the weapon would have fall­en from his hand clos­er to his head and not come back to where his hand was to rest com­fort­ably in his palm.
♦ His body was in a fetal posi­tion which sug­gest he was sleep­ing . If he was sleep­ing that is incon­sis­tent with suicide.
♦From all appear­ance he was shot while sleeping.
♦ I would say he nev­er knew what hit him.
All of this is spec­u­la­tion in the absence of an offi­cial cause of death from the Police.
Now that these opin­ions are in the pub­lic domain, hope­ful­ly the police will not come out with a sui­cide cause of death which would make them look real­ly sil­ly and do a tremen­dous dis-ser­vice to the fam­i­ly of this fall­en officer.

Out of respect for cor­po­ral Thompson’s fam­i­ly we decid­ed not to not to post the pic­ture of his body.