The Rule of law must be respect­ed, with­out it we have no buffer between us and those who would us harm. It is a fright­en­ing irony when those we employ to stand between us and those who would bring harm to us, are the ones doing harm to us.

We must ask our­selves “why is it that Police Officers feel empow­ered to kill a mem­ber of the pub­lic over some mis­de­meanor offense”?

Every per­son run­ning for office in the United States from Presidential can­di­dates to dog-catch­er runs on a law-and-order plat­form. It is so crit­i­cal that a juiced-up-cop wrong­ly harassed and assault­ed an emi­nent Ivy League Professor, wide­spread con­dem­na­tion erupt­ed from many quar­ters includ­ing the President of the United States. In the end the cop gets invit­ed to the White House for a beer summit.

What is it which makes the American cop untouch­able? What gives the American cop the invin­ci­ble, untouch­able persona?

As a for­mer Law Enforcement offi­cial myself, I under­stand the dif­fi­cul­ties of the job. I also under­stand that I am not a God ! Police offi­cers in the United States do not see them­selves as peace offi­cers. In fact watch­ing cops in action in instance after instance, con­vinces me that cops delib­er­ate­ly dis­re­spect some cit­i­zens with the express intent of esca­lat­ing an issue which if dealt with calm­ly and pro­fes­sion­al­ly would sim­ply dissipate.

There are Ivory Tower dwellers who believe that Urban dwellers hate cops and are opposed to the rule of law. Recently one reporter went on an irra­tional rant about young black men after a young cop was killed. The Network had the good sense to dis­ci­pline him. Having been around inner cities all my adult life , I must con­fess there are cer­tain hos­til­i­ties to Law Enforcement. This is true whether you are in New York or Rio, DC or Kingston.

Police Officers must be trained to under­stand these issues and deal with them appro­pri­ate­ly. Most of these hos­til­i­ties come from some involved in crim­i­nal behav­ior. However the Police are not blame­less. Much of the hos­til­i­ties direct­ed at them are of their own mak­ing. This too runs the geo­graph­i­cal gamut. What is true of many Police Departments , hav­ing spo­ken to friends who are Police Officers, is that offi­cers are actu­al­ly encour­aged to have acri­mo­nious rela­tion­ships with minor­i­ty communities.

What’s shock­ing is that some Department heads actu­al­ly encour­age offi­cers to be cold and dis­re­spect­ful to even law abid­ing mem­bers of minor­i­ty com­mu­ni­ties. Let’s not kid our­selves, when large quan­ti­ties of black and brown men are locked away in the prison indus­tri­al com­plex, America’s race prob­lems are half solved. Prisons are big busi­ness­es , many are run by pri­vate sec­tor com­pa­nies which kick back huge sums of cash to the polit­i­cal cam­paigns of those dogs bark­ing the loud­est on the law and order issue.

You do see how this cycle is per­pet­u­at­ed? Cops and their Unions know this. So the cen­tral ques­tion then becomes,“who will bell the cat”? The sim­ple answer is no one! This is an issue so tox­ic and explo­sive , even the White House will not get involved in a local mat­ter involv­ing Police Departments. At least not a White House where the occu­pant is a black President.

Forty three year old Staten Island res­i­dent Eric Garner was killed by NYPD cops who placed him in a choke-hold, sup­pos­ed­ly to arrest him for sell­ing un-taxed cig­a­rettes. The police claimed Garner was pre­vi­ous­ly arrest­ed for doing the same thing. 

UN-TAXED CIGARETTES

Whether or not he was arrest­ed before for sell­ing cig­a­rettes, why was it nec­es­sary to place him in a choke hold to effect an arrest? They knew him, why was a tick­et not appro­pri­ate? The offence was not a felony! In fact from some accounts, no offense was even committed.

Why are these tat­tooed Black-water-type mer­ce­nar­ies being allowed to inter­act with the black com­mu­ni­ty? I don’t see any cops look­ing like this in some oth­er com­mu­ni­ties. Look it is impor­tant that if you are told you are under arrest that you sub­mit to being arrest­ed. But is it nec­es­sary to pile onto some­one press­ing his head into the pave­ment for sell­ing un-taxed cig­a­rettes? These are the ques­tions we must ask! Or is the arrest jus­ti­fied , irre­spec­tive of the cost, even at the cost of a life lost? Are these Pyrrhic arrests that impor­tant to the States and Municipalities?

It is a trag­ic irony when death becomes the penal­ty for a minor infrac­tion. When absolute com­pli­ance with the law becomes so fun­da­men­tal a shack­le that it mat­ters not whether you live or die. It is tyran­ny when the State becomes the great­est enti­ty of fear, it is time to be very fearful.

Even as the United States takes it onto itself to dic­tate to oth­er Nations about Human Rights. Cops in city after American city con­tin­ue to kill unarmed black and his­pan­ic men with­out penalty.

Cops in the United States kill peo­ple with a fright­en­ing fre­quen­cy, yet inci­dent after inci­dent gets washed away under the pre­text that the sys­tem is trust­wor­thy and these killings are prop­er­ly inves­ti­gat­ed and jus­tice is served.

Well guess what? Justice is not being served when Grand Juries are con­vened in pri­vate with no input from the pub­lic , and cops are exon­er­at­ed as a mat­ter of course.

Instances of Police Thuggery con­tin­ue unabat­ed, Black man killed by cops, bystanders take a few pic­tures, record a few min­utes of video, peo­ple are enraged, they wash away the blood, it’s back to busi­ness as usu­al. We are told that the mat­ter is being inves­ti­gat­ed, but what real­ly hap­pens is that the cops are giv­en a pat on the back for a job well done, sent home with full pay for a few weeks until those milling around are qui­et­ed down and the cycle continues.

A 400-pound asth­mat­ic Staten Island dad died Thursday after a cop put him in a choke-hold and oth­er offi­cers appeared to slam his head against the side­walk, video of the inci­dent shows. “I can’t breathe! I can’t breathe!” Eric Garner, 43, repeat­ed­ly screamed after at least five NYPD offi­cers took him down in front of a Tompkinsville beau­ty sup­ply store when he balked at being hand­cuffed. Within moments Garner, a mar­ried father of six chil­dren with two grand­chil­dren, stopped strug­gling and appeared to be uncon­scious as police called para­medics to the scene. An angry crowd gath­ered, some record­ing with smart­phones. “When I kissed my hus­band this morn­ing, I nev­er thought it would be for the last time,” Garner’s wife, Esaw, told the Daily News. Article here: http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/staten-island-man-dies-puts-choke-hold-article‑1.1871486

This was an inci­dent where cops need­ed to walk away. These cops seem to have a God Complex . This man was clear­ly doing noth­ing wrong, all they had to do is leave, they did not they chose to kill this man for no reason.

The rea­son they do these things is because there are no con­se­quences for their actions. The black com­mu­ni­ty will have to make a tac­ti­cal deci­sion whether it wants to con­tin­ue to be a com­mu­ni­ty of casu­al­ties or a com­mu­ni­ty which will send these mur­der­ing punks clear and unequiv­o­cal mes­sages that you will not kill our peo­ple and walk away . There were no short­age of super­vi­so­ry offi­cers on scene. The woman with arms akim­bo is a super­vi­sor . She could have stepped in and stopped the gang behav­ior, she did not. This is par for the course, these thugs have no regard for the black com­mu­ni­ty. Yet they will nev­er face up to a black man, man-to-man. This is not Police work these are crim­i­nals in uniform.

It’s “on again” in the “on again, off again” cycle of vio­lence between the Palestinian peo­ple and the State of Israel. 

Western observers to this con­tin­ued cycle of vio­lence have been schooled into believ­ing that Palestinians are vio­lent ter­ror­ists who strap bombs to them­selves to blow up peace lov­ing Israelis who just want to live their lives in peace and har­mo­ny with their Palestinian broth­ers and sisters.

The air­waves of tra­di­tion­al Media bom­bard us dai­ly with pleas and pro­pa­gan­da, extolling the virtues of Israel, while vis­cer­al­ly paint­ing the Palestinians as bar­bar­ic terrorists..

There are year round appeals for mon­ey for the Jewish peo­ple,. Entire net­works are ded­i­cat­ed to replay­ing over and over,the hor­rors the Nazi’s vis­it­ed on Jews. Churches use the Bible to preach that God will deliv­er the evil Arabs into the hands of his peo­ple the Jews.

Not to be out­done the American Federal Government pours approx­i­mate­ly 3 Billion dol­lars of our tax dol­lars into the diminu­tive Zionist State annu­al­ly. Politicians run­ning for office dare not crit­i­cize Israel for fear of being brand­ed anti Semitic. Those not cow­ered by fear have bought into the pro­pa­gan­da that some­how the white Europeans occu­py­ing the lands at the mouth of the Suez Canal ,

dubbed Israel, are some­how a spe­cial peo­ple cho­sen by God. That the land of Palestine was promised to them and that they can do no wrong.

The Zionist State pos­sess Nuclear weapons, out­side the rules which gov­ern larg­er more pop­u­lous Nations. Other Nations are invad­ed because they are alleged­ly sus­pect­ed of pos­sess­ing cer­tain weapons. Israel is allowed to occu­py their neigh­bors using the most sophis­ti­cat­ed weapon­ry, most­ly sup­plied by the United States. Israel main­tains an iron grip of the ter­ri­to­ry they con­trol, dimin­ish­ing Palestinians to mere sub­jects of the Zionist State. Palestinians who rise up against Israeli occu­pa­tion and dom­i­na­tion are des­ig­nat­ed Terrorists.

The term Terrorists is the great neu­tral­iz­er , it is used as a blud­geon­ing tool by the Zionist State, under­stand­ing full well the per­cep­tions asso­ci­at­ed with it, à la September 11^th , 2001 in the United States. Many Western observers are unable to sep­a­rate what hap­pened that September morn­ing in the United States from the vio­lent and uncon­scionable mil­i­tary oppres­sion Israel impos­es on Palestine. No one is more adept at exploit­ing that psy­cho­log­i­cal dis­con­nect than Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli Prime Minister.

Fighting back against Israel’s aggres­sive Apartheid poli­cies brings swift over­whelm­ing pun­ish­ment, incon­sis­tent with what Israel refers to as Palestinian provo­ca­tion. Never mind that Israeli has occu­pied Palestine since 1948. The peo­ple with crude rock­ets, sticks and stones are ter­ror­ists. Those hold­ing the pow­er , made pos­si­ble by the most sophis­ti­cat­ed weapon­ry on the plan­et and pow­er­ful friends, are seen as victims.

Of course the rea­sons for the col­lec­tive pun­ish­ment fed to the world is that Israel’s right to exist is being threat­ened by Terrorist Palestinians ded­i­cat­ed to the destruc­tion of the State of Israel. No one both­ers to men­tion that at best, Palestinians are equipped with crude Rockets with no guid­ance sys­tems, which ren­ders the effect from them more phys­i­o­log­i­cal than phys­i­cal. By Israel’s own account Palestinian Rockets large­ly land harm­less­ly in Israeli fields caus­ing no casu­al­ty. Israel main­tains tac­ti­cal war­fare against Palestinians who dare to chal­lenge them, using sniper fire to mur­der Palestinians they label ter­ror­ists. Similar Palestinian actions against IDF sol­diers is sold as a ter­ror­ist act.

In essence what the Zionist state is telling the world is that the occu­pied Palestinians have no right to self defense or self deter­mi­na­tion. The issue of Palestinian Rockets being fired at Israel is a legit­i­mate issue. No one wants to live under the threat of being anni­hi­lat­ed by explod­ing Rockets. On the oth­er hand the Palestinian peo­ple have a right to live out­side the boot-heels of Israeli occu­pa­tion. The issue is far more com­plex than explod­ing rock­ets and occu­pa­tion how­ev­er. The state of Israel did not just hap­pen as it is in dis­put­ed ter­ri­to­ry until the United States and Britain saw it pru­dent to place it there in 1948.

Chris Hedges: Israel’s war on American universities

Chris Hedges, whose col­umn is pub­lished Mondays on Truthdig, has writ­ten twelve books, includ­ing the New York Times best sell­er “Days of Destruction. quote: 

Israel has for decades been able to frame the dis­cus­sion about the Palestinians. But its con­trol of the nar­ra­tive is com­ing to an end. As Israel los­es ground it will vicious­ly and irra­tional­ly attack all truth tellers, even if they are American stu­dents, and espe­cial­ly if they are Jews. There will come a day, and that day will come soon­er than Israel and its paid lack­eys expect, when the whole edi­fice will crum­ble, when even stu­dents at Hillel will no longer have the stom­ach to defend the con­tin­u­ous dis­pos­ses­sion and ran­dom mur­der of Palestinians. Israel, by ruth­less­ly silenc­ing oth­ers, now risks silenc­ing itself. — See more at: http://​www​.israeli​-occu​pa​tion​.org/​#​s​t​h​a​s​h​.​j​x​Q​y​c​d​a​n​.​d​puf.

Noam Chomsky: Why the Israel-Palestine ‘nego­ti­a­tions’ are a com­plete farce.

Western opin­ion now fol­lows the ludi­crous assump­tion that mean­ing­ful Israel-Palestine nego­ti­a­tions can be seri­ous­ly con­duct­ed under the aus­pices of the United States – not an “hon­est bro­ker,” but in real­i­ty a part­ner of Israel. — 

In 1948 the State Department, the Defense Department and the CIA regard­ed such an out­come with open con­cern. Opposing this view was President Truman’s spe­cial legal coun­sel, Clark Clifford and his small entourage of sup­port­ers, who strong­ly endorsed US recog­ni­tion of Israel’s inde­pen­dence as in line with US inter­ests. It was Clifford, more­over, who shep­herd­ed the pro­pos­al for inde­pen­dence through the White House insist­ing that the Jewish state already exist­ed and that it remained only to rec­og­nize it before the Soviet Union did. Several points are worth mak­ing in this con­nec­tion. The first is a reminder of con­di­tions in Palestine in the win­ter of 1948 that led US offi­cials and the US President to come close to aban­don­ing sup­port for the UN Partition Resolution. The sec­ond is the US assess­ment of the sta­tus of Arab regimes on the eve of Britain’s depar­ture from Palestine, and the con­tin­u­ing mis­giv­ings expressed by US offi­cials as to risks that Jewish state­hood entailed for US inter­ests. The third point is that, when those mis­giv­ings proved to be false, US oil and defense inter­ests con­clud­ed that the new State’s mil­i­tary capac­i­ty and polit­i­cal ori­en­ta­tion could pro­tect those inter­ests, US pol­i­cy changed accord­ing­ly. http://​www​.israeli​-occu​pa​tion​.org/​2​011 – 11-09/irene-gendzi­er-why-the-us-recog­nised-israel/

Simply put ‚It’s about oil and oth­er strate­gic inter­est. This unholy alliance between the United States and the Zionist state of Israel has noth­ing to do with Biblical proph­esy as some Evangelical Pastors and oth­ers bel­low from their pul­pits. It is all about black and green. Black oil con­vert­ed into green dol­lars. What’s 3 bil­lion dol­lars annu­al­ly in aid and a few thou­sand dead Palestinians as long as Tens of bil­lions of dol­lars in oil keep flow­ing undisturbed?

Jamaica should exer­cise cau­tion in con­sid­er­ing more appoint­ments to the con­stab­u­lary from the United Kingdom. This com­ment was made by Chris Hobbs. Hobbs said that there is wide­spread lack of con­fi­dence in cops in the chief offi­cer rank in Britain. At the same time, Hobbs, who said he spent 18 months, between 2002 and 2010, col­lab­o­rat­ing with the Jamaican police, voiced strong endorse­ment of out­go­ing Police Commissioner Owen Ellington and Deputy Commissioner Glenmore Hinds. http://​www​.jamaicaob​serv​er​.com/​n​e​w​s​/​-​B​e​-​c​a​u​t​i​o​u​s​-​_​1​7​1​3​2​971

Yesterday we came out against the call from the usu­al quar­ters in Jamaica. Those who feel the next Police Commissioner should come from a pool which includes for­eign Nationals. Some of these quar­ters are the reg­u­lar Elites who shape and mis­in­form in our Country . They include the Editorial page of the GLEANER and the so called big-men in soci­ety, you know them .

I want­ed to know which Country sources it’s Security Heads from non cit­i­zens. I have not seen one response , nei­ther in these Blogs nor from Social Media. So I assume that issue is settled.

THEIR ARGUMENT

We live in a Global mar­ket­place where the shar­ing of ideas and tal­ents are inte­gral to growth and development.

MY RESPONSE

Yes, but there must be lim­its on what we out­source. That is why it was not a bad idea to bring in new ideas to help upgrade our Investigative capa­bil­i­ties. That is why it was not a bad idea to bring peo­ple in to help with tack­ling cor­rup­tion. It just is a colos­sal ret­ro­grade step to out­source the head of National Security.

For the media Elites at the Gleaner and in civ­il soci­ety who are push­ing this angle, Let’s not stop there, let’s get rid of Portia and bring in a for­eign­er, let’s start at the very top .

It is time that Jamaicans wake up remove their heads from wher­ev­er they have their heads , and rec­og­nize their future is theirs. Why allow a few peo­ple from uptown to dic­tate what you should do. Frankly I could­n’t care less about either of the can­di­dates in wait­ing . What I care about is giv­ing up sen­si­tive posts to peo­ple who have no inter­est , or loy­al­ty to our coun­try. I mean think about it, it is absolute madness!

Hobbs was effu­sive with his praise of the Jamaican Officers, Quote. The British police, could do with senior offi­cers of the cal­i­bre of both Ellington and Hinds. “British police morale has nev­er been low­er and indeed we could do with senior offi­cers of the cal­i­bre of Mr Ellington and Mr Hinds in the UK. Take care if con­sid­er­ing fur­ther appoint­ments from the UK,”.

It has been a long time since Slavery was abol­ished. It has been decades since we sup­pos­ed­ly gained Independence from England. I pre­fer to think of it as when we were uncer­e­mo­ni­ous­ly dumped by a dis­in­te­grat­ing power.

The notion that things for­eign are bet­ter is still a shack­le, not on our feet but in our minds. Jamaica can­not progress when it’s lead­ers are still shack­led to regres­sive ideas about the abil­i­ties of it’s own peo­ple. No one will build Jamaica but Jamaicans. There is noth­ing wrong with look­ing at what oth­ers do to see if we can use some things. We can­not give our coun­try away to for­eign­ers and expect to still have it.

Enough harm has already been done. Learn more about Chris Hobbs here. http://​www​.vig​i​lance​-secu​ri​ty​magazine​.com/​i​n​d​u​s​t​r​y​-​n​e​w​s​/​v​i​e​w​p​o​i​n​t​s​/​5​1​8​0​-​t​h​e​r​e​s​a​-​m​a​y​-​b​r​a​v​e​-​a​n​d​-​c​o​u​r​a​g​e​o​u​s​-​y​o​u​-​m​u​s​t​-​b​e​-​j​o​k​ing

Chief among the spec­u­la­tion regard­ing Owen Ellington’s depar­ture is.

1) The Americans took his Visa because of associations.

2) That Ellington fell out of favor with Portia. Imagine that.

3) The Americans want­ed Ellington gone because of nag­ging ques­tions of Human Rights abuse and the Americans are unwill­ing to sell arms and ammu­ni­tion to Jamaica as a result.

Let’s jux­ta­pose the lat­ter with the new call from cer­tain quar­ters in civ­il soci­ety and the Media , chiefly The Gleaner’s Editorial page to look over­seas for a Commissioner.

First lets put things in con­text. America has no moral author­i­ty to lec­ture any Country about Human Rights. Every day black and brown peo­ple are killed and abused by law enforce­ment offi­cers all across America with­out a whis­per from the Federal Government.

Now it would be a major irony if the Americans called for Ellington’s head when it was they who called for the extra­di­tion of Christopher Dudus Coke.

If the Americans believed that it was easy to get Coke, sure­ly they could have vol­un­teered to go get him them­selves. They were far bet­ter equipped to remove him with min­i­mum col­lat­er­al dam­age. Yes col­lat­er­al dam­age , it was a war.

How then could they demand the Commissioner’s head for doing exact­ly what they wanted?

Lets give cre­dence to the nar­ra­tive that it was nag­ging Human Rights alle­ga­tions which pre­cip­i­tat­ed Jamaica’s inter­na­tion­al Partners (America & England) alleged demand for Ellington’s head. How could that demand be legit­i­mate in light of Ellington“s body of work in root­ing out cor­rup­tion and abuse from the JCF? Experts and non-experts alike will argue Owen Ellington has been the best Commissioner of Police in mod­ern times.

If this is cor­rect, both Ellington and the coun­try has Carolyn Gomes to thank for the defam­ing of our Countrty. This in addi­tion to cor­rupt­ing young peo­ple with counter-cul­ture teach­ings and lit­er­a­ture, which were once alien to our Nation.

If there is truth to the alle­ga­tions America and Britain had some­thing to do with Ellington’s depar­ture, then the push by some in soci­ety to get a Commissioner from over­seas plays direct­ly into the plans Carolyn Gomes and Susan Goffe laid, using a gullible and naïve Ellington in the process toward remov­ing Police pow­ers from Jamaicans.

We did warn about this for a long time.

We did ask what did these for­eign Governments want for the mon­ey they gave to Gomes?

We did ask for account­abil­i­ty. We did warn that once the Police were demor­al­ized they would bring in for­eign cops. They have, and they want to bring in a cop to head the Department.

I did warn they would do these things in these very blogs. The Homosexual Agenda demands total acqui­es­cence and capit­u­la­tion of our cul­ture. There has been numer­ous alle­ga­tions that Jamaican cops are not help­ful to gays. Commissioner Ellington grant­ed a per­mit for the Churches to ral­ly against a Gay Jamaican counter-cul­ture. A few days lat­er he was gone, now they want for­eign­ers to head our Police Force.

Failing to con­nect the dots will com­plete­ly over­whelm our culture.

Christopher Zacca President of The Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica argues that to build our Country , peo­ple should buy Jamaican. He then does a 180 degree turn dip­ping his snout into the Conversation about the need for a new Commissioner of Police , sug­gest­ing that it is per­fect­ly kosher to look for a new Police Chief from overseas. 

The police Force has many edu­cat­ed well capa­ble offi­cers at all lev­els . These peo­ple have worked tire­less­ly to earn their edu­ca­tion with the belief that if they earn their degrees play by the rules they have a shot at accom­plish­ing their goals.

The last time the JCF tried this mad­ness the results are still being felt. Morale is impor­tant , if this lit­tle Country want to total­ly wreck the rule of law , pick a Commissioner from over­seas and live with the results. It’s time Jamaica stop with the NEGRO men­tal­i­ty . What oth­er Country out­sources it’s National Security to non cit­i­zens? What these Elitists are say­ing is that black Jamaicans are inca­pable of get­ting the job done. What exact­ly did Mark Shields etal accom­plish except his flair for the cock­tail cir­cuit? The Gleaner depict­ed Zacca’s hypocrisy appro­pri­ate­ly in a cartoon.

It goes to show that in Jamaica every­one knows how to do every­one else’s job but their own. I don’t see any­one run­ning back to Jamaica to invest. Maybe Zacca and the Country would be bet­ter served if he paid atten­tion to what he was hired to do leav­ing the Commissioner search to the peo­ple tasked with doing so.

Predators and prey, as it is in the Animal Kingdom so too is it with humans. Animals instinc­tive­ly react vio­lent­ly out of the need to eat or when they are threat­ened. Humans on the oth­er hand sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly cal­cu­late how to prey on oth­ers . The defin­ing char­ac­ter­is­tic which sep­a­rates the two species is the abil­i­ty of humans to rea­son. Since we are able to rea­son , it fol­lows there­fore that when we decid­ed­ly kill some­one, we simul­ta­ne­ous­ly give up the right to expect clemency.

Opposition Senator Merlene Malahoo Forte made an absolute fool of her­self in her con­tri­bu­tion to the debate on a Bill which seeks to expunge the Record of Jamaicans con­vict­ed for pos­sess­ing small quan­ti­ties of Marijuana. In her con­tri­bu­tion the Opposition Senator sug­gest­ed that the record of mur­der­ers should also be expunged as every­one deserves a sec­ond chance. Forte went on to say quote: “In some coun­tries peo­ple are reha­bil­i­tated for the offence of mur­der. Our own Privy Council has stat­ed that not every­one who kills and is con­victed of mur­der should be regard­ed as a mur­derer, in the tra­di­tional sense.

I believe I am miss­ing some­thing here, but what? What am I upset about ?

.….….….…..Everything!

1) I would like to see the data on reha­bil­i­tat­ed mur­der­ers, and the coun­tries from which they come.

Not every­one who kill and is con­vict­ed of mur­der should be regard­ed as a mur­der­er in the tra­di­tion­al sense?

News for the good­ly Senator/​former Magistrate. If some­one is con­vict­ed of mur­der, that per­son is a mur­der­er. I under­stand that many of the Liberal Elites in Jamaica would like to call vicious killers some­thing else , but they are murderers.

If there are mit­i­gat­ing cir­cum­stances in the com­mis­sion of the offense then the offend­er most cer­tain­ly would have been con­vict­ed of a less­er offense. If it isn’t mur­der the evi­dence may point to Conspiracy. It may point to Manslaughter, It may be mur­der or even manslaugh­ter in a less­er degree based on said spe­cial circumstance.

There is no way how­ev­er to make mur­der pret­ty ‚it is the killing of a human being by anoth­er human with mal­ice aforethought.

If the evi­dence does not sup­port this cri­te­ria , then it was not mur­der. Now I’m not sure what coun­try the Senator is ref­er­enc­ing. Some Scandinavian nations are very cre­ative in the way they approach Punishing crim­i­nals. I am yet to learn whether they actu­al­ly expunge the records of con­vict­ed mur­der­ers. In fact their approach to pun­ish­ment cou­pled with their eco­nom­ic bouyan­cy may be a sig­nif­i­cant fac­tor in their extreme­ly low mur­der rates.

Jamaica has one of the World’s high­est inci­dence of mur­der. Criminals kill with wan­ton dis­re­gard for life. Why would any­one in a posi­tion to influ­ence and shape Policy want mur­der­ers to walk around with pris­tine records. What is the moti­va­tion then for those who decide not to take life.

In Christian Theology it is report­ed that two thieves were cru­ci­fied with Jesus Christ. Jesus did not inter­vene, he did not try to change the penal­ty imposed on them by law. He offered one eter­nal life because he repent­ed. Despite the belief that that thief found solace in the Lord , he still paid the price for his crimes. Actions have consequences.

There is absolute­ly noth­ing wrong with redemp­tion for killers after they pay their debt to soci­ety. We sim­ply do not expunge their record. You get to have a clean record by not com­mit­ting crimes. What is the reward for those who play by the rules? What is the idea behind the con­stant desire to reward the most despi­ca­ble and brutish among us?

Just recent­ly two men report­ed­ly walked into a Car deal­er­ship and sum­mar­i­ly exe­cut­ed a man­ag­er on Maxfield Avenue. Thanks to Technology one of the killers has been appre­hend­ed. This case is no dif­fer­ent than the hun­dreds of homi­cides com­mit­ted in the tiny Caribbean nation annu­al­ly. It is just one where the killer was iden­ti­fied. On the rare occa­sion these dement­ed cretins are caught and con­vict­ed , how could any sane per­son want their record expunged?

I was stunned beyond belief when I saw this sto­ry in the Jamaica Observer attrib­uted to Opposition Senator Marlene Malahoo Forte a for­mer Resident Magistrate, and now the per­son who occu­py the Air chair of the late Wilmott Mutty Perkins.

Opposition Senator, Marlene Malahoo Forte’s sug­ges­tion that expunge­ment of con­vic­tions under the Criminal Records (Rehabilitation of Offenders) Bill be extend­ed to per­sons con­vict­ed of all forms of crimes, includ­ing mur­ders, failed to get any sup­port in the Senate on Friday. Speaking in the debate on the Bill, which pro­vides for expunge­ment of con­vic­tions for using small quan­ti­ties of gan­ja, after between 30 months and 10 years of reha­bil­i­ta­tion, Senator Malahoo Forte, a for­mer Resident Magistrate, said she made the sug­ges­tion in the con­text that every­one can be reha­bil­i­tat­ed. “It doesn’t mat­ter where you have wronged, over time you can be reha­bil­i­tat­ed. It may sound far- fetched, but it is not impossible,”.

Jamaican Politicians have a propen­si­ty to let their mouths gal­lop in front of their brains. This is one case where it begs the ques­tion, “did she do any home-work in prepa­ra­tion for her sub­mis­sion to the debate?

We are talk­ing about expung­ing the record of con­vict­ed Criminals here. The Senate is con­sid­er­ing a Bill, which pro­vides for expunge­ment of con­vic­tions for using small quan­ti­ties of gan­ja, after between 30 months and 10 years of rehabilitation. 

I think this is a good piece of leg­is­la­tion which shows good will to peo­ple who have offend­ed but have man­aged to stay out of trou­ble. No one should be con­demned for life because he/​she was con­vict­ed for a lit­tle weed.

Forte went on to say ” “In some coun­tries peo­ple are reha­bil­i­tat­ed for the offence of mur­der. Our own Privy Council has stat­ed that not every­one who kills and is con­vict­ed of mur­der should be regard­ed as a mur­der­er, in the tra­di­tion­al sense.

This is a shock­ing lib­er­al tes­ta­ment com­ing from some­one who once was a Magistrate. The issue is one of the expunge­ment of records, which has noth­ing to do with the reha­bil­i­ta­tion of mur­der­ers.

This state­ment how­ev­er illu­mi­nates what I have writ­ten about for some­time now, that Jamaica Judges are crim­i­nal lov­ing left­ists who sup­plant the rule of law with their own per­son­al opinions.

How can any­one sug­gest that Society remove from record, the fact that some­one was Convicted of Murder, irre­spec­tive of the cir­cum­stances? Have Forte cal­cu­lat­ed that she is in jeop­ardy of no longer be tak­en seri­ous­ly? Assuming she ever was !

Jamaica is awash in crime and cor­rup­tion, many will legit­i­mate­ly argue that expung­ing records is not the way to go at this time. I believe how­ev­er that it is always the right time to be merciful.

We send mur­der­ers to prison to do time, then they are released back into soci­ety. That is for­give­ness. That is hav­ing a sec­ond chance. We do not wipe the slate clean, we keep a record of their deeds to inform and edu­cate us going forward.

Clearly Melhado Forte has shown her­self to be a feath­er-weight who is not wor­thy of seri­ous consideration.

A few days ago a young man walked into my busi­ness inquir­ing about what it would cost at a bare min­i­mum to have a cell phone. I asked him a few qual­i­fy­ing ques­tions, all the time refer­ring to him as sir. He could­n’t have been more than 23 years old. He was big, with a boy­ish, almost child­like look.

To my sur­prise he retort­ed ” Mike why you call­ing me sir man?I ain’t nev­er done any­thing to you, you know me man , you know my Mom , if I did some­thing to you I apol­o­gize man”.

Then he said some­thing even more shock­ing . Man I miss my father , I haven’t seen my dad for so long Mike” !

In shock, I looked at anoth­er cus­tomer stand­ing close by. I was unsure how refer­ring to him as “Sir” could be con­strued to be an indi­ca­tion that I was mad at him. I was even more con­fused as to what him miss­ing his dad had to do with the foregone.

I con­clud­ed one thing , he was hurting.

The male cus­tomer stand­ing close by chimed in , “Sir is a sign of respect man” , to which he nod­ded his head in obvi­ous under­stand­ing and smiled. I was­n’t con­tent to let him walk away with­out at least try­ing to learn a lit­tle about him. After explain­ing to him that refer­ring to him as Sir was a sign of respect and cour­tesy, he smiled broad­ly then told me he had not seen his Dad in years. I had no solu­tion, so I told him I loved him. He pur­chased the ser­vice he could afford and left.

So what’s the moral of this spiel? Well… I’ve want­ed to talk a lit­tle about some of these very issues for years now. Having worked a decade in Law Enforcement I saw a whole bunch of young peo­ple whom I believed would have been expo­nen­tial­ly bet­ter off had their par­ents made the right decision.

Many of the prob­lems of our Society today may be traced back to the doorsteps of each and every home on this Planet. Whatever the prob­lem, they begin with deci­sions we made.

That deci­sion may be an emo­tion­al deci­sion to vote for some­one who should nev­er be elect­ed to office, or an ill-advised deci­sion by a woman to have sex with a male she knows will nev­er be a father to a child, in the event she becomes preg­nant. The deci­sion may be even more sim­ple, how about not tak­ing the chance of hav­ing a child, in the event she can­not forego sex?

This is a sub­ject we have tip-toed around for far too long, large­ly in def­er­ence to women. There is a rea­son most female Animals mate with the strongest male, The Alpha male. It is a built in defense against the break-down of the Specie. Imagine if Lionesses mat­ed with the weak­est most fee­ble Lion, pret­ty soon Lions would be hunt­ed by domes­tic Dogs. But seri­ous­ly you do get the pic­ture right?

The Human specie is not all about the need for brute force to sur­vive, notwith­stand­ing women are not absolved of their respon­si­bil­i­ty to be judi­cious with their bod­ies. I am in no way lay­ing the entire­ty of the blame at the feet of women, nei­ther will I shy away from ask­ing women to be more account­able because it is unpop­u­lar to do so.

Barring sex­u­al assaults, and oth­er events which takes away a wom­an’s right to choose a part­ner, It begins with a wom­an’s deci­sion to have sex with a man. It begins with her to decide to have unpro­tect­ed sex. It is her deci­sion to have sex with a man who has no job and nev­er had one. It is her deci­sion to have sex with a man who has sev­er­al women. It is her deci­sion to main­tain a sex­u­al rela­tion­ship with a man who can­not stay out of jail.

Ask your­selves this, how will a man be a suit­able father to your kids if he is a shift­less , lazy man who does not work and can­not stay out of prison? I’ll take it a bit fur­ther , why would you want a man who is in and out of Prison to be the father to your chil­dren? What kind of role-mod­el will he be? Is that even impor­tant to you women? This is a con­ver­sa­tion we need to have with­in the black community. 

We can con­tin­ue to bemoan what the “Man” did , or even con­tin­ue to do. We can con­verse­ly get up and change our cir­cum­stance. We can­not con­tin­ue to blame oth­ers for deci­sions we make. We can­not con­tin­ue to exco­ri­ate and vil­i­fy those in our com­mu­ni­ty who speak to these truths. No one owes us a liv­ing, not our par­ents, not the coun­try, not the President.

It is our respon­si­bil­i­ty to seek knowl­edge. There are places called Schools, no one owes it to us to get us an edu­ca­tion. Why does an American Citizen not have a piece of Identification? Is it an unrea­son­able request to ask that you iden­ti­fy your­self in order to vote? Why do you think those who would do us harm make it so we have to show ID? Don’t you real­ize it’s because they know we sim­ply refuse to go get a piece of identification?

Why do you women con­tin­ue to have sex with unwor­thy men you know will not stick around if you get preg­nant? Why do you then turn the male child from that union into that man who walked away from you, call­ing him your baby? Have you ever won­dered why he calls your home his Crib? If you enable him to live off you, not get an edu­ca­tion, not get a job. How will he be a man to the women he inter­acts with? How will he be a father to the chil­dren he will most cer­tain­ly sire?

It will be anoth­er hun­dred years and noth­ing will change for us if we shack­le our­selves to the belief that some­how it is up to some­one to teach us things. To give us things, to make deci­sions for us.

How much longer can we hide behind the fal­la­cy that some­how young women are to be pitied because they made con­scious deci­sions to have unpro­tect­ed sex which results in preg­nan­cy? Does any­one real­ly believe young women today do not know that sex leads to preg­nan­cy? On what Planet is that notion plau­si­ble ?I humbly ven­ture to say that in the case of young girls in High Schools who have kids , they actu­al­ly active­ly plan those preg­nan­cies, some­times with their friends so they may all have babies around the same time.

Those are the rea­sons 71% of all black babies born the US are born to sin­gle unmar­ried women. Whose fault is that? Is that the white man’s fault? I made this argu­ment recent­ly in a con­ver­sa­tion and some­one accused me of “judg­ing” the women.….….…

I was told that these women do not know they should not have unpro­tect­ed sex. Because they are not taught that they should­n’t. My ques­tion was, “whose fault is that”? How much longer are we going to pre­tend it is some­one else’s fault that a large num­ber of that 71% , are mere­ly fod­der for the Prison Industrial Complex?

We sim­ply can­not con­tin­ue with the non­sense that they are build­ing Prisons to house black peo­ple. It rather is that we con­tin­ue to have chil­dren we refuse to care for that invari­able end up in the pris­ons. The so-called- man is all too eager to prof­it from our mis­takes. It is the American way , it is called Capitalism.

It’s incred­i­ble what pass­es for com­mon sense and intel­lect these days. Take Conservative Icon and reg­u­lar FOX mis­in­for­ma­tion pun­dit Anne Coulter for exam­ple. Here’s what this much revered opin­ion mak­er of the right had to say about the game of soc­cer. (America’s inter­est in World Cup soc­cer is a sign of “moral decay.”

Coulter went on to say quote, “Soccer is a team sport that doesn’t rec­og­nize the indi­vid­ual achieve­ment that has made America great”. 

Okay I got­ta real­ly lean on my Conservative friends here, real­ly? So the Xenophobic Coulter cer­tain­ly nev­er heard of Pele, Diego Maradona , Socrates Jurgen Klinsmann the American soc­cer coach and count­less others.

What does it take to be a Conservative these days? Does one have to be the most racist Xenophobic , irra­tional moron? It cer­tain­ly appears that way !

The American pas­time Baseball, is a Team Sport. So is American Football, which by the way fields a lot more play­ers than Soccer does per game. What about Basketball , last time I checked it was a team sport or maybe it’s a one-on-one in Coulter-land. Most Organized gamed are played at the team lev­el , includ­ing Boxing, Tennis, Golf, Swimming, and even Gymnastics.

This has got to be the most ridicu­lous state­ment yet com­ing from this hair-brained Racist ide­o­logue. It behooves her and her acolytes at FAKE news to rec­og­nize that America have not done well in Soccer because America did not put the nec­es­sary resources into the game which would make her com­pet­i­tive like oth­er Nations which have done so.

The entire World Plays Soccer and Cricket , America is slow com­ing to that real­i­ty, to that we say wel­come America. Note to Coulter, America did not become great because of peo­ple like you and the FOX crowd, she did so despite you.

Here’s hop­ing America will have a bet­ter show­ing at the next World cup in 2018 despite the nean­derthal rem­nants like Coulter etal.

There is obvi­ous moral decay for sure here, I hope Coulter gets help before it’s too late.

Over the suc­ceed­ing days ‚weeks and months, the abrupt depar­ture of Commissioner of Police Owen Ellington will invari­ably be the top­ic of many discussions.

Ellington’s sud­den Exit is not nov­el in the way Commissioner’s of Police have left their jobs in the Island Nation. Of course as Jamaicans like to say “if sup­pem nuh gu su it nealy gu su” .Translation , if what you heard is not total­ly true, it has some truth to it.

Owen Ellington could nev­er have been the first choice for the PNP Government. After all Ellington was appoint­ed Commissioner of Police under Bruce Golding and his JLP Administration in 2010. Anyone with knowl­edge of Jamaican pol­i­tics, knows that plum jobs are hand­ed out to die-hard par­ty loy­al­ists, some­times, irre­spec­tive of qual­i­fi­ca­tions or talent.

This is gen­er­al­ly true of both Political Parties. However the PNP hav­ing held elect­ed office for 28 of the last 40 years, have lit­er­al­ly trib­al­ized the entire pub­lic sec­tor from top to bot­tom. No area of nation­al life has been spared the cor­ro­sive insid­i­ous can­cer, which is the People’s National Party Agenda.

Ellington posed a prob­lem for the new PNP Administration how­ev­er. He was edu­cat­ed. He was well loved by the men and women under his com­mand. He also had the respect and admi­ra­tion of the pub­lic. Ellington’s pop­u­lar­i­ty with the pub­lic came large­ly from his stat­ed com­mit­ment to remov­ing rogue cops, restor­ing cred­i­bil­i­ty to the Agency and reduc­ing crime.

Hardly any oth­er Commissioner came to the top job with such a clear-eyed focus, on what need­ed to be done. How do you replace some­one with Ellington’s Resume, and game-plan? 

So the Directionally chal­lenged, moral­ly bank­rupt, crime lov­ing Administration was stuck with Owen Ellington. This does not speak to Ellington’s Politics far from it. In fact he may be a sup­port­er for all we know. Just not a died-in-the-wool PNP trib­al­ists like a Roy Thompson or a Francis Forbes. Or a poten­tial mem­ber of Parliament in wait­ing like a Lucius Thomas for that matter.

Ellington is no fool, he must have had his res­ig­na­tion ready in his desk draw­er from the day the new Administration stepped into Jamaica House.They did not give him a sin­gle vote extend­ing the lim­it­ed state of emer­gency when he went into Tivoli Gardens to get Dudus Coke.

The PNP showed their hand when despite being chief cheer-lead­ers against Bruce Golding,they would not sup­port the secu­ri­ty forces. In a Country pop­u­lat­ed with rea­son­able peo­ple that par­ty would have been banned to polit­i­cal obscu­ri­ty. They were con­verse­ly reward­ed with the reins of Government just months lat­er. Golding for his part, was the one banned to obscu­ri­ty for stu­pid­ly inter­ven­ing into what clear­ly was a mat­ter for the coun­try’s courts.

It’s now 2014 this Government has been a colos­sal fail­ure by every met­ric. National Elections are con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly due between  December 29^th 2016 and 16 March 2017 . It is impor­tant that the cor­rupt Simpson Miller Administration have trust­ed loy­al­ists in place in time to exe­cute their game plan.

We do not yet know what the true rea­son was, why Ellington was shown the door. He may have been asked to do some­thing anti­thet­i­cal to his beliefs and prin­ci­ples. He may have been put in a ten­u­ous posi­tion ren­der­ing it impos­si­ble for him to con­tin­ue . Whatever the rea­son, the nar­ra­tive put forth by Bunting and his Ministry amounts to noth­ing more than a load of crock.

I was nev­er a great fan of Owen Ellington, I am a huge fan of Jamaica, With Miller and the band of thieves run­ning the gov­ern­ment and Ellington run­ning the JCF it was always a sit­u­a­tion out of cor­rect order.

It must have been hard for him to dumb down for his polit­i­cal boss­es. Ellington gained my respect when he wrote an arti­cle trum­pet­ing the Indonesian mod­el and it’s suc­cess­es. I thought the writ­ing was on the wall for his tenure, I said so then.

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