WHAT OF THE HUMAN RIGHTS OF THESE PEOPLE?

I won­der where the Inter American Commission on Human Rights and Amnesty International are on these two New Mexico Stories. Recently Jamaican Cops were crit­i­cized and lam­bast­ed for fail­ing lie detec­tor tests. Amnesty International referred to The Jamaica 2013 Human Rights Report, in which that data sup­plied by the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF) revealed that up to August last year, 95 of the 190 police offi­cers who opt­ed to take lie-detec­tor tests, did not pass or com­plete the test. Amnesty said it was unable to deter­mine whether Police Commissioner Owen Ellington would dis­ci­pline those offi­cers who failed the test.

I will con­tin­ue to post these incon­sis­ten­cies on the part of Human Rights Agencies regard­ing police in Jamaica and the devel­oped world. I will also con­tin­ue to ask why are there two stan­dards regard­ing polic­ing in the devel­oped and devel­op­ing world. We will do so even as we decry and con­demn any and all instances of police abuse of cit­i­zens rights all over the world. Those charged with uphold­ing and ensur­ing our safe­ty and secu­ri­ty can­not be the great­est threats to our safe­ty and secu­ri­ty. It should be not­ed that Polygraph (lie-detec­tor tests are incon­clu­sive and unre­li­able . That unre­li­a­bil­i­ty has ren­dered them inad­mis­si­ble in courts of law in the United States and oth­er coun­tries. It must be of con­cern that a source of infor­ma­tion which can­not be admit­ted in a court of law is being used to decide one’s employ­ment or suit­abil­i­ty for advancement.

MAN SEEKS MILLIONS AFTER N.M POLICE FORCE COLONOSCOPY IN DRUG SEARCH.

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Police forced New Mexico scrap met­al trades­man David Eckert to under­go two dig­i­tal anal probes, three ene­ma inser­tions and ulti­mate­ly a colonoscopy after offi­cers incor­rect­ly assumed he was con­ceal­ing drugs, accord­ing to a law­suit filed in U.S. District Court on his behalf. http://​www​.usnews​.com/​n​e​w​s​/​a​r​t​i​c​l​e​s​/​2​0​1​3​/​1​1​/​0​5​/​m​a​n​-​s​e​e​k​s​-​m​i​l​l​i​o​n​s​-​a​f​t​e​r​-​n​m​-​p​o​l​i​c​e​-​f​o​r​c​e​-​c​o​l​o​n​o​s​c​o​p​y​-​i​n​-​d​r​u​g​-​s​e​a​rch.

TROOPER FIRES AT MINIVAN FULL OF KIDS FACES NO CHARGES.

TAOS, NM — A Tennessee fam­i­ly on vaca­tion in New Mexico end­ed up being shot at by state troop­ers after a vehic­u­lar mov­ing vio­la­tion went awry. What’s more, the troop­er who opened fire on them is fac­ing no charges, and has many sup­port­ers demand­ing he be put back on the streets with a badge and a gun. Oriana Farrell, 39, of Memphis, is a sin­gle moth­er who was haul­ing her five chil­dren (ages 6 – 16) through the American south­west on a fam­i­ly road-trip. The trip was intend­ed to be an edu­ca­tion­al expe­ri­ence for her chil­dren whom were home-schooled . http://​www​.polices​ta​teusa​.com/​2​0​1​4​/​c​o​p​-​s​h​o​o​t​s​-​a​t​-​m​i​n​i​v​a​n​-​f​u​l​l​-​o​f​-​k​i​ds/

OrianaFarrell3On October 28, 2013, on a desert high­way 1,200 miles from home, the fam­i­ly mini­van drew the atten­tion of the New Mexico State Police. Troopers had deter­mined that her mini­van had been trav­el­ing too fast and pulled the vehi­cle over to give her a speed­ing ticket.

PORTIA WANTS OBAMA TO START TALKING ABOUT GANJA:

Jamaica’s Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller has called on the Obama Administration to start talk­ing about Ganga. This call came after Phillip Paulwell, Miller’s Minister in charge of sci­ence, tech­nol­o­gy, ener­gy, and min­ing, told the Nation that Ganga would be decrim­i­nal­ized this year. This was a bold state­ment from min­is­ter Paulwell, con­sid­er­a­tion the changes need­ed to undo decades of leg­is­la­tion that attached seri­ous crim­i­nal penal­ties to the weed. We felt it was nec­es­sary to offer our hum­ble opin­ion at the time of the min­is­ter’s announcement.
https://​mike​beck​les​.com/​m​y​w​p​b​l​o​g​/​?​p​=​6​3​3​6​#​c​o​m​m​e​nts.

Decriminalizing cannabis is dif­fer­ent than actu­al legal­iza­tion. I was mys­ti­fied at what was going on behind the scenes which would have pre­cip­i­tat­ed that bold state­ment from the min­is­ter? It was not clear how Jamaica would nav­i­gate the shark-infest­ed chan­nel of inter­na­tion­al diplo­ma­cy, par­tic­u­lar­ly with major pow­er play­ers like the UK, Canada, and the US.
These coun­tries have all shown signs of eas­ing restric­tions some­what, yet none has actu­al­ly gone as far as to promise a def­i­nite time­line for decriminalization.
in the United States, a few states have moved ahead with eas­ing restric­tions, even with those steps Colorado and California are care­ful only to do so for med­i­c­i­nal pur­pos­es. It is impor­tant that even as some states have moved ahead with incre­men­tal decrim­i­nal­iza­tion, any­one caught with the drug by Federal author­i­ties is sub­ject to Federal law’s full force.

The Federal Government has shown no inten­tion of eas­ing Federal restric­tions on Cannabis. Even as the debate rages, the Obama Administration is ful­ly engaged in deport­ing Immigrants caught sell­ing or in pos­ses­sion of the weed. Jamaica is a small coun­try that must obey inter­na­tion­al laws. How exact­ly will this promise of decrim­i­nal­iza­tion work when the major pow­ers are still active­ly engaged in this decades-long war on drugs?

IS IT TRUE TO SAY?

FEBRUARY 009

Any good thing in the hands of the wrong per­son instant­ly becomes a dan­ger­ous thing. Money, Power, and unfor­tu­nate­ly a lit­tle Knowledge. Education ought to be the vehi­cle chan­nel­ing the oppressed,impoverished mass­es into the mid­dle-class. At least that’s what we were told. Unfortunately we have seen that in far too many instances, peo­ple gen­er­al­ly use the edu­ca­tion and pow­er they acquire for self­ish, destruc­tive pur­pos­es. Nowhere is this more evi­dent than in Jamaica. Those empow­ered to lead take bla­tant and obvi­ous advan­tage of the very peo­ple who empow­er them. Jamaica like many for­mer European Colonies have seen the rav­ages of what a caste sys­tem does to its peo­ple. You Know the lighter hued peo­ple gets all the breaks, the dark­er shades , well.… not so much. Today things have changed in Jamaica some­what, as long as you can afford to pay you can get an edu­ca­tion. We now have a Prime Minister who is a daugh­ter of the soil. Okay bad exam­ple, any­way you would think that edu­ca­tion would nec­es­sar­i­ly improve our coun­try since the major­i­ty of the new col­lege grad­u­ates are peo­ple of dark­er col­or. As a firm believ­er in edu­ca­tion I am dis­traught that new­ly edu­cat­ed Jamaicans seem to be more ungod­ly, more dys­func­tion­al, more decep­tive, more dis­hon­est, more anarchistic.

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What hope do we have for our coun­try if the peo­ple who are to be the new lead­ers, are far worse than the peo­ple we so vehe­ment­ly crit­i­cize today? Jamaica once prid­ed itself in the idea it had more church­es per square mile than any oth­er nation. Many will argue that we had more Bars also. My point though is that what appears to be a sys­tem­at­ic attempt in some quar­ters to remove the very idea of a deity from our nation­al dis­course has cre­at­ed a chasm or vac­u­um now occu­pied by demons. By every met­ric life is more dif­fi­cult. More mur­ders, rapes, child-abuse, shoot­ings. Even the killings have tak­en on a more grue­some more barbaric,demonic com­plex­ion. Could it be when we were unintelligent[sic] you know believ­ing in God, believ­ing in con­se­quence for actions, we were bet­ter off? Is it fair to say enlight­en­ment has induced us into becom­ing a more soul-less bunch of demon­ic las­civ­i­ous , hedo­nis­tic crea­tures who only live for the moment, obliv­i­ous of consequence?

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Or is there some­thing to the archa­ic unin­tel­li­gent notion that there is a God who gave us free will? Is there some­thing to the fairy-tale idea that God not only cre­at­ed every­thing, then cre­at­ed man. That he gave man domin­ion over all things? That he set clear prin­ci­ples for man to live by. Principles accom­pa­nied by clear unequiv­o­cal con­se­quences for depar­ture. Is it true to say God does not take that free will back sim­ply because he can but that he allows us to live our lives the way we see fit, with­out his inter­fer­ence. Is it true to imag­ine that there will be a day of reck­on­ing? Is it true to imag­ine that God does not med­dle unless we ask him to take charge of our lives and direct our paths? Is it true that the rea­son he does not med­dle is that it would run counter to his promise of free will. If God took our free will would that not make him a liar just like man? Isn’t that what the world want to do, prove God a liar?

WHO IS SURPRISED BY THIS?

Resident Magistrate Judith Pusey hear­ing the Kern Spencer crim­i­nal case, ruled that a cru­cial piece of evi­dence would not be admit­ted into evidence.A thumb dri­ve tak­en from an apart­ment the for­mer junior min­is­ter once occu­pied in 2008 would not be admit­ted into evi­denceThe Jamaica Daily Gleaner report­ed that the rul­ing came after defense attor­neys K.D. Knight and Deborah Martin object­ed as police cyber-crimes expert Sergeant Patrick Linton was about to give details about the con­tents of the thumb dri­ve. My under­stand­ing of crim­i­nal court cas­es tells me the very idea that the defense does­n’t want the thumb-dri­ve intro­duced into evi­dence is because of the poten­cy of what’s on it. I am not fault­ing the defense for wag­ing a spir­it­ed fight on their clien­t’s behalf. What I am against is the real­i­ty that the tri­al judges is seen as aligned with the defense. Even the per­cep­tion of such col­lu­sion is tox­ic and cor­ro­sive to the process.

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It is dif­fi­cult enough to suc­cess­ful­ly pros­e­cute a crim­i­nal offend­er. He/​she has no bur­den to say any­thing, it is up to the pros­e­cu­tion to prove its case. It is a steep hill to climb get­ing over “beyond a rea­son­able doubt” in crim­i­nal cas­es. It is expo­nen­tial­ly more dif­fi­cult to bring a crim­i­nal case against any­one con­nect­ed in Jamaica, much less to get that case to stick. The last thing the process of jus­tice needs is a judge who have demon­stra­bly aligned her­self square­ly on the side of the accused through words and deeds. It is impor­tant to remem­ber that Justice must not only be done but it must seem to be done. I am not a Lawyer, yet I remind my legal­ly trained friends that per­cep­tion is important.

The defense in this case can­not catch a break from this Magistrate Judith Pusey. First she want­ed the Prosecutor to tes­ti­fy on the stand about what if any­thing she offered a wit­ness to get him to tes­ti­fy against the accused Kern Spencer. This would have been a ground break­ing and unprece­dent­ed move had the pros­e­cu­tor acqui­esced. The DPP filed motion in the high court Appealing to the Magistrate’s order. The Court of Appeals agreed with the DPP. That was not enough the Magistrate fought back appeal­ing the deci­sion against her rul­ing and was smacked down by the high­est court in a unan­i­mous decision.

Sounds like some­thing you would expect com­ing from defense coun­sel on behalf of his/​her client right? That was the pros­e­cu­tor bat­tling the tri­al judge, who should be impar­tial , while the defense sits around sali­vat­ing at the spec­ta­cle. Many peo­ple do not see any­thing wrong with this non­sense. Sometimes their views are influ­enced by pol­i­tics. In oth­er cas­es they are influ­enced by loy­al­ty to the legal pro­fes­sion. Clearly this case is yet anoth­er which puts the Jamaican jus­tice square­ly on trial.

FREE UP THE WEED :: Political Freebie For Pnp;

Jamaica will this year join a vir­tu­al tidal wave of coun­tries across the globe in decrim­i­nal­iz­ing gan­ja, fore­run­ner to the estab­lish­ment of a med­i­c­i­nal mar­i­jua­na indus­try esti­mat­ed to be worth bil­lions of dollars.http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/news/Ganja-green-light-this-year

Phillip-PaulwellPhillip Paulwell min­is­ter of sci­ence, tech­nol­o­gy, ener­gy and mining.

Paulwell, who is min­is­ter of sci­ence, tech­nol­o­gy, ener­gy and min­ing, told mem­bers of the task-force at a meet­ing last Thursday that “gan­ja will be decrim­i­nal­ized in Jamaica this year and stressed that Jamaica can­not be allowed to be left behind on the issue”. In my esti­ma­tion there is noth­ing wrong with what Paulwell had to say regard­ing not being left behind in the race to decrim­i­nal­ize. My con­cern has to do with what effect this will have on the elec­toral process? I believe if this issue was placed on the bal­lot it would pass with fly­ing col­ors. Most large coun­tries which are engaged in eas­ing Cannabis restric­tions, are doing so behind seri­ous research and prepa­ra­tion. This in con­junc­tion with much greater infra­struc­tur­al sup­port to deal with any neg­a­tive fall-outs to emanate from legalization.

This is a huge polit­i­cal free­bie for the rul­ing People’s National Party. This issue will invari­ably pass muster with Jamaicans liv­ing at home and abroad. If not han­dled cor­rect­ly this could cement the Country into a one par­ty state for a long time to come. It is impos­si­ble for me to sec­ond guess the motives of Paulwell and the PNP . Yet it is dif­fi­cult to imag­ine that they could not wait and have the motion placed on the bal­lot in the next General Elections Constitutionally due with­in 2 years. That would give the issue much legit­i­ma­cy when decid­ed by the peo­ple. Of course the PNP, not to pass up a polit­i­cal oppor­tu­ni­ty, will run with this issue all the way to the next polls. This will be the cov­er against a crum­bling econ­o­my, cor­rup­tion and graft, sky­rock­et­ing crime sta­tis­tics, and an ever increas­ing amount of Jamaicans slid­ing below the pover­ty line. In the end this will not mat­ter Jamaicans can all com­fort them­selves by get­ting high. Free up the weed.

Jamaica’s Justice System On Trial?

As the tri­al of Dance-Hall per­former Adijia Palmer o/​c Vybez Kartel winds down, pret­ty much all the Nations 2.7 Million peo­ple liv­ing on the Island are anx­ious­ly await­ing the ver­dict. Jamaicans in the dias­po­ra are also tuned in to what appears to be the tri­al of the decade in Jamaica. I’m not quite sure why there’s so much atten­tion being paid to a bleached-skinned dance hall Dj , when the Kern Spencer tri­al is still yet to be concluded.

JUSTICE SYSTEM ON TRIAL !!!

Kartel has already beat­en one mur­der rap, main­ly because wit­ness­es refused to show to tes­ti­fy against him. Which brings us to the ques­tion of whether the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem is itself on tri­al. It is a self per­pet­u­at­ing phe­nom­e­non when wit­ness­es are afraid to tes­ti­fy against accused crim­i­nals. Criminals are embold­ened and nat­u­ral­ly becomes more brutish. Police and Prosecutors around the world rec­og­nize that depend­ing on eye-wit­ness­es accounts to pros­e­cute mur­der­ers, is a fool’s errand. The sole remain­ing count of mur­der against Kartel from all accounts should be a pret­ty easy case to pros­e­cute and prove. But things are not always clear-cut ‚or easy in Jamaica. Even though there has been no real chal­lenge to the text evi­dence by the defense, the despi­ca­ble unpro­fes­sion­al actions of mem­bers of the police depart­ment has seri­ous­ly jeop­ar­dized the case. A crit­i­cal police wit­ness had to agree to defense grilling that the cell-phone used by the defendant,which was a cru­cial exhib­it in the case was used while it ought to have been locked away.

With mur­ders at all time highs and climb­ing, the JCF has not shown that it has a clue how to bring the killers of almost 1,600 Jamaicans a year to jus­tice. Courts dock­ets are clogged and over­flow­ing with cas­es which will nev­er be pros­e­cut­ed. This means dan­ger­ous crim­i­nals will face no con­se­quence for their crimes. The Judges are lib­er­al beyond belief. On the rare occa­sion in which an accused is found guilty the pun­ish­ment met­ed out is usu­al­ly an affront and insult to the vic­tims involved in the crime.

There has been calls from cer­tain quar­ters, sug­gest­ing that to fix the sys­tem court dock­ets should be purged. Meaning that in cas­es where wit­ness­es are reluc­tant to tes­ti­fy , those cas­es should be purged , there­by reliev­ing the log-jam with­in the sys­tem. On the one hand, it does seem like a good idea. After all keep­ing them there serves no use­ful pur­pose if wit­ness­es will nev­er tes­ti­fy. However on the oth­er, it seem like giv­ing Amnesty and carte-blanch to mur­der­ers Rapists and oth­er Felons.The idea of start­ing afresh is only use­ful if all the Agencies respon­si­ble for the dis­pen­sa­tion of Justice are brought up to first world stan­dards. Otherwise throw­ing out old cas­es would be embark­ing on a very slip­pery slope.(MB)

SIDE-SHOWS MAY LEAD TO AN ACQUITTAL. Or Increases The Likely-hood Of A Successful Appeal Upon Conviction.

Conspiracy the­o­ries abound. Unsubstantiated alle­ga­tions of being tar­get­ed. Allegations of impro­pri­ety. Bringing a for­mer Senior Superintendent of Police, Carl Major, a peren­ni­al Prosecution wit­ness, to tes­ti­fy on their behalf. A mur­der case that has dragged on and on with seem­ing­ly no end in sight. If you ask me, the Defense in the Vybz Kartel case seems to hold all the cards. Yet the salient points of the case, i.e., the unequiv­o­cal voic­es on tape dis­cussing killing Lizard Williams, have not been seri­ous­ly chal­lenged in my esti­ma­tion. This leads me to con­clude that these are all dis­trac­tions by the defense. Let’s throw some s*** against the wall and see what sticks. This may very well work. In fact, the defense has cre­at­ed so many side-shows that it may be seen as rea­son­able doubt to a sym­pa­thet­ic, fear­ful, or cor­rupt­ed jury.

Add a lib­er­al defense-friend­ly judge (Lennox Campbell) to the mix; con­di­tions are ripe for this defen­dant to walk. So, how can I make such claims in a jury tri­al? You may even sug­gest that it’s not up to the Judge to decide inno­cence or guilt in a jury tri­al. You would be wrong. An accused is pre­sumed inno­cent or guilty based upon a pre­pon­der­ance of the evi­dence pre­sent­ed to a tri­er of facts. (Judge or Jury) . The defense has a duty to prove guilt beyond a rea­son­able doubt. The defen­dant has no such bur­den. In fact, the defen­dant may remain silent and say nary a word; the Prosecution must prove its case. However, the pre­sid­ing judge must main­tain tight con­trol of pro­ceed­ings, par­tic­u­lar­ly with the types of evidence/​exhibits he/​she allows in the tri­al. This must fol­low strict adher­ence to exist­ing laws and prece­dents. Allowing all kinds of dis­trac­tions into a case may cre­ate a sideshow. A sideshow usu­al­ly gives the appear­ance of rea­son­able doubt, result­ing in an acquit­tal for a guilty defen­dant. On that score, the pop­py-show Jamaican Criminal Justice System is liv­ing up to its own precedent.

MB

It’s A Serengeti !!!

FEBRUARY 009

Old Jamaican Proverb (Tek time search an yu wi find ants gut). (Translation)Allow peo­ple to talk and they will basi­cal­ly give you a win­dow into their soul, they will tell who they are. I was taught that lit­tle nugget by my great Aunt who raised me. May God rest her soul in peace. I took that proverb to heart and used it as a guid­ing prin­ci­ple in inves­ti­ga­tions. I found it a valu­able tool in inter­views. Simply allow­ing some­one to relate a sto­ry to you un-inter­rupt­ed . Once, he/​she is fin­ished, ask them to relate the same sto­ry again. You will be sur­prised to see the dif­fer­ence between the two ver­sions of the sto­ry which was just relat­ed to you. This was a valu­able tool for me as a young Detective, it helped me sig­nif­i­cant­ly in deter­min­ing whether a sus­pect was involved in a par­tic­u­lar crime, and if so to what extent.

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Today I am no longer in law-enforce­ment ‚hav­ing walked away at the ripe old age of 31. Yet I find that being able to assim­i­late what peo­ple put on social media tells a great deal about who they are. I can’t say I am sur­prised at the fact that Jamaican peo­ple are so sup­port­ive of oth­ers who are accused or even con­vict­ed of the most heinous and depraved crimes, because I’m not. I have had the oppor­tu­ni­ty to see the worst of the Jamaican peo­ple, yes I have also been blessed to see the very best of them as well. I have been to count­less mur­der scenes, I’ve seen the bul­let wounds, I’ve seen the machete wounds , I’ve seen the stab wounds. And when your job dic­tates that you watch corpses being cut open, the bar­barism of these end­less mur­ders changes you forever.

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Yet despite the Thousands of our fel­low-men and women who are slaugh­tered for no appar­ent good rea­son, Jamaicans still have not devel­oped an aver­sion to the car­nage. What will it take to sen­si­tize them to the sanc­ti­ty of life ? How dare any­one take the only life of anoth­er? Who is not angered by that, and why? Are we an emo­tion­less soul­less sub-human peo­ple devoid of feel­ing , devoid of emo­tions, that we treat the killing of our neigh­bors, our broth­ers and sis­ters as par for the course? How can a peo­ple be so unmoved by such car­nage yet con­verse­ly find it with­in them to ratio­nal­ize and make sup­pli­ca­tion for the aggres­sors? It is sick­en­ing, it makes me sick to my stom­ach to read their com­ments, hear them speak about the accused mur­der­ers as vic­tims being set upon by an evil sys­tem, with nev­er a word for the inno­cent vic­tims, most of whom nev­er stood a chance.

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Then I stop think­ing and it dawns on me, there are killers and those who sup­port them. Then there are the rest of us. “It’s a dog eat dog world now ” my friend told me today.….…. it’s true, It’s a Serengeti. The Lionesses and the Tigers and oth­er beast of prey feast at will on the hap­less Wilder-beast, the Zebras and the Gazelles. Maybe it’s divine­ly ordained that the inno­cent and the help­less become prey for the strong and pow­er­ful . Maybe law-abid­ing Jamaicans have resigned them­selves to being slaugh­tered and devoured like prey on the Serengeti. There is only one dis­tinc­tion how­ev­er, Predators on the Serengeti kill in order that they may eat. Killers in Jamaica kill for sport. At this rate it won’t be long before the inno­cent becomes extinct.

RULE OF LAW , The Real “Don”.

FEBRUARY 009

Having done real time in Law-enforce­ment and hav­ing done research in crim­i­nol­o­gy over the years, I have con­clud­ed long ago crim­i­nals are com­mon cow­ards. They are preda­tors who prey on those they believe weak­er than them­selves. Research data shows most crimes are crimes of oppor­tu­ni­ty. People do things because oppor­tu­ni­ty presents itself. (1 A woman who leaves her pock­et-book on the seat of her car in plain sight, presents an oppor­tu­ni­ty to some­one. Not just to steal her pock­et-book , but to cause sig­nif­i­cant dam­age to her car.( 2 Premeditated crimes. Crimes which are planned . Crimes orches­trat­ed by preda­tors who plot ways to destroy their prey . (3 Crimes of pas­sion , gen­er­al­ly cow­ard­ly acts per­pet­u­at­ed by so-called loved ones. In all these cat­e­gories there is a uni­ver­sal thread of cowardice.

  • One Jamaican News Paper cov­er­ing the mur­der tri­al of Vybez Kartel naïve­ly post­ed the head­line .Kartel close to tears. Tears and entreaties , ha , as a for­mer Detective I have seen much of this. After leav­ing law enforce­ment I have seen this kind of behav­ior play out in court-room after court-room across America. When it comes time to pay the piper accused break down in tears. As I have stat­ed time and again, the great­est deter­rent to crime is the assur­ance that crim­i­nals will be brought to jus­tice. In Jamaica that sen­ti­ment is par­tic­u­lar­ly impor­tant, because of the high mur­der rate. Experts, prog­nos­ti­ca­tors and pun­dits all opine about what needs to be done to arrest the bur­geon­ing mur­der rate. I have stat­ed repeat­ed­ly, make sure they are brought to jus­tice. Justice means a time­ly and fair tri­al, if found guilty the penal­ty must be severe. This dis­play by this accused Kartel, is proof pos­i­tive what most front line cops knew, they are not brave, they are not bad, the real bad-man is the rule of law.

Kartel Close To Tears/​give Me A Damn Break !

In a plea for his free­dom, Vybz Kartel told the 11-mem­ber jury in the High Court yes­ter­day that his skin bleach­ing and tat­toos were tools of his trade and asked not to be judged by his appear­ance. In one of five unsworn state­ments from the dock by the accused men, Vybz Kartel asked Justice Lennox Campbell and the jurors to sep­a­rate Vybz Kartel from Adidja Palmer.“My Lord, I bleach my skin and I am heav­i­ly tat­tooed also . My Lord, that is mere­ly super­fi­cial, that is the per­sona of Vybz Kartel, not Adidja Palmer. My Lord, I think you will agree…,” he said. “Who me?” asked Justice Campbell. “Yes, My Lord, some­times a per­son can be judged by appear­ance. My Lord, I am not an alien who came from space and land­ed on Earth.

Drum Roll, please .….….…And the Oscar goes to Vybz Kartel. What a load of crock. Many have argued that Adidja Palmer is a smart, tal­ent­ed man. I will with­hold per­son­al judg­ment on either. This is Kartel at his vin­tage best. The lib­er­al Judge Lennox Campbell is being mes­mer­ized by a true Artiste. This Courtroom is Kartel’s stage. The tri­al Judge, Jury, and oth­ers in that room were a mere audi­ence to his mas­tery. He was await­ing this moment. The moment to woo his audi­ence and mes­mer­ize his sub­jects is what Kartel does on stage — the allu­sion to his tat­toos, his skin bleach­ing, and his becom­ing a vic­tim. The whole talk about being placed on the floor by the police is clear­ly a bril­liant attempt to evoke any neg­a­tive emo­tions jury mem­bers may have of the Police. Mentioning the actions of a less-than-pop­u­lar Minister of National Security Minister. All aimed at evok­ing an emo­tion­al response from the Jury.

A bril­liant strat­e­gy, he and his Attorneys may think. Yet, it is a strat­e­gy that shows he has no defense against the charges. This is smoke and mir­rors, the­atrics, innu­en­dos, and unsub­stan­ti­at­ed alle­ga­tions of impro­pri­ety. In a Courtroom where jus­tice is sacro­sanct, this dis­play of the­atrics can be seen for what it is. Yes, Adidja Palmer and Vybz Kartel would be allowed to say his piece, but at the end of his the­atrics, there would be one ver­dict: “Guilty.“Unfortunately, the few Jamaicans who want jus­tice done must still be ner­vous and appre­hen­sive. Despite the over­whelm­ing evi­dence against the accused, the sys­tem is so bro­ken that one should not be sur­prised if they walked. At best, even if con­vict­ed, they will prob­a­bly end up with a slap on the wrist from this par­tic­u­lar Liberal Activist act­ing as pre­sid­ing Judge.
Worse yet, I believe his deci­sion not to throw out the jury once told that there has been tam­per­ing will come back to bite both Lennox Campbell and the Prosecution.

Twenty Five Trips In Twenty Four Months !!!

FEBRUARY 009

One hun­dred and six­ty-two mil­lion dol­lars ‚J$162M spent on for­eign trips over a two-year peri­od. Twenty five (25 for­eign trips tak­en over a twen­ty-four (24 month peri­od. An aver­age of over one for­eign trip per month. Yet Like I said some time ago, I believe these are not cor­rect num­bers. I imag­ine if the Jamaican peo­ple real­ly know the amount of mon­ey this Administration blows on for­eign trips there would be riot­ing in the streets. The Leader of the Opposition has revealed that the num­bers final­ly tabled in Parliament is not a com­plete nor cor­rect rep­re­sen­ta­tive fig­ure of the real costs of the PM’s trav­els. In fact it seems the amount tabled is a mere drop in the buck­et of the real costs of her and her del­e­ga­tions over­seas trips.,

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Andrew Holness

What’s astound­ing in this whole affair was the Administration’s reluc­tance to release the infor­ma­tion sought by the oppo­si­tion on behalf of the Jamaican peo­ple. Even more shock­ing is the dis­dain­ful atti­tude the Prime Minister took in respond­ing to the inquires. But noth­ing com­pares to the gut­ter behav­ior she dis­played and allowed her imma­ture Neanderthal acolytes to engage in ‚in response to the leader of the Opposition. The his­tor­i­cal san­i­tiz­ers in Jamaica have already embarked on a mis­sion to make Portia Simpson Miller’s 40 year jour­ney through Jamaica’s polit­i­cal morass a roman­tic and hero­ic adven­ture wor­thy of nation­al hero sta­tus. To the many who know her and saw the road she took to Jamaica House they are much less inclined to buy that hogwash.

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Simpson Miller

I nev­er asked to be invit­ed, I attend in the inter­est of my coun­try and my peo­ple. I have a respon­si­bil­i­ty as Prime Minister,” she told Parliament, adding that she is proud to have been invit­ed to Africa, the land of her ancestors.

Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller has been crit­i­cized over the years for not being .….. well too bright. Personally I have no use for elit­ists, I don’t care whether some­one has one two or no degrees as long as they can do the job they ask for. But state­ments like this real­ly caus­es one to scratch one’s head in won­der­ment at her lack of intel­lect. Every jack one of those mem­bers in that cham­ber has african blood flow­ing through their veins. Portia does not have a monop­oly on African blood or African Ancestry, as such her state­ment was moot. Her response was juve­nile, and une­d­u­cat­ed, yet boor­ish and Spanish-Town-Road-ish. The Prime Minister has a duty and an oblig­a­tion to open­ly, truth­ful­ly and in a time­ly man­ner report how she and her Administration uti­lizes pub­lic funds. Every pen­ny the Royal House-hold spends is account­ed for in Britain, Even Monarchs are answer­able in this day and age.

I am tempt­ed to say the Prime Minister is dis­dain­ful of the process and the peo­ple who are autho­rized to make sure that tax­pay­ers funds are spent judi­cious­ly. On sec­ond though, I am more inclined to set­tle on the notion that her boor­ish unin­tel­li­gent tirade was a by-prod­uct of igno­rance. In essence you may take the girl out of the ghet­to but you can’t take the ghet­to out of the girl. The Prime Minister must trav­el as part of her duties, yet it is uncon­scionable that a leader would take in excess of one over­seas trip per month for the last 24 months. The coun­try sim­ply can­not afford the cost in dol­lars and cents nor her absence. The coun­try is inun­dat­ed with crime, yet the Prime Minister jets out every month.

Simpson Miller high­light­ed that on one offi­cial vis­it to the People’s Republic of China in 2013 the gov­ern­ment spent $7.2 mil­lion but brought back J$1.7 bil­lion. The sheer non­sense of this expla­na­tion from the Prime Minister defies com­mon sense!!! Was this a gift from the Chinese? If it was what do they want in return? The fact is it was a loan.… That mon­ey has to be repaid with inter​est​.How can any­one with an ounce of brain sug­gest that kind of expense is worth the price of mere­ly secur­ing a loan? Our coun­try is in deep trou­ble , one way or anoth­er this Administration has to go.

IS IT THE CIA’S FAULT THIS TIME?

Jamaica’s crime prob­lem is get­ting more seri­ous by the day, yet it seem the Authorities have no inter­est in solv­ing this press­ing issue.We could dis­cuss Jamaican’s his­tor­i­cal love affair with criminals,we may also dis­cuss that it’s no longer cute or fun­ny any­more. The sta­tis­tics are stun­ning yet it seem that the Government is tone-deaf. The Prime Minister, when she hap­pens to touch down on the Island, refus­es to dis­cuss the spate of killings in the coun­try. She was forced to answer the Opposition’s queries about her exten­sive trav­els in the Parliament today February 11th. Miller respond­ing to Opposition Leader Andrew Holness argued that no one ques­tioned trips until she was elect­ed Prime Minister. Miller’s trips have been esti­mat­ed to cost a whop­ping J$162 million.

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I nev­er asked to be invit­ed, I attend in the inter­est of my coun­try and my peo­ple. I have a respon­si­bil­i­ty as Prime Minister,” she told Parliament, adding that she is proud to have been invit­ed to Africa, the land of her ancestors. 

All of this pos­tur­ing and Continent hop­ping while Rome burns. No one begrudge the PM her trip to the moth­er-land, but clear­ly this can­not be the best time and the best way to spend the Country’s mea­ger resources. To vis­it the land of her ances­tors is quite fine but she needs to do it on her own dime. The Minister under whose port­fo­lio crime falls, Peter Bunting, is await­ing divine inter­ven­tion. Now let me has­ten to say I pray for divine inter­ven­tion into my life dai­ly. I just don’t sit around wait­ing, I get up and make things hap­pen. God is divine­ly capa­ble of inter­ven­ing , we just have to do some things for our­selves .. he’ ll help then. The coun­try’s Attorney General who pals around with Carolyn Gomes of (JFJ) bad mouths the police is ask­ing the Clergy to help with fix­ing crime .What all of this shows is that the Government is either unwill­ing or unable to stop this bleed­ing. My incli­na­tion is they are unwill­ing. The entire PNP Party in Opposition did not lift a fin­ger to help the JLP Government in 2010. All then Prime Minister Bruce Golding asked was that the already lim­it­ed state of emer­gency be extend­ed. The PNP vot­ed “no”, there were no dis­sen­sion among them . In real terms the People’s National Party was not about to autho­rize the secu­ri­ty forces to root out crim­i­nals who were entrenched in their gar­risons. They weren’t even will­ing to allow them access to remove those who fled the wrath of the state. The PNP said then they were not about to autho­rize an exten­sion to the Limited State of Emergency out of fear the Security Forces would abuse the rights of cit­i­zens. They made those state­ments as spous­es and fam­i­ly mem­bers of dead cops con­tem­plat­ed bury­ing their dead. That was the posi­tion of Portia Simpson Miller and her Party as Police Stations were in flames. Eleven Garrisons to every one for the JLP is sig­nif­i­cant. They were not about to inter­fere with their pow­er-base. This is the recent his­to­ry of the PNP , it is no dif­fer­ent from the ear­li­er his­to­ry of the par­ty. Jamaicans get what they vote for. Ineptitude , Graft, Nepotism, Corruption, Criminality, Poverty. When it becomes unbear­able they blame every­one but them­selves. Wonder if they are going to blame the CIA this time

Jamaicans Can’t Even Agree Who They Support.

The Criminal Justice System in Jamaica appears to be trans­lat­ed Justice for crim­i­nals noth­ing for the inno­cent. Let’s take stock of the rea­sons crime and vio­lence are at all time highs on the Island Nation. As we con­tem­plate crime we would be remiss in not try­ing to find the root caus­es, to bet­ter under­stand how to reduce, if not elim­i­nate it. Every Jamaican should have a com­mit­ment to a Jamaica free of or at least, less inun­dat­ed with crime. Unfortunately hav­ing seen views expressed on the sub­ject I am not sure we are all com­mit­ted toward the same goal. It is per­fect­ly okay to dif­fer on strate­gies and pol­i­cy aimed at erad­i­cat­ing the can­cer of crime. When we can­not agree on who to sup­port in the debate, we know the coun­try is in seri­ous trou­ble. Any per­son may con­duct a sim­ple poll on social media, cre­ate your own top­ic eg.( “Man rape and kills 12-year-old child”)You may be sur­prised to find that a siz­able per­cent­age of respon­dents would blame some­one oth­er than the sub­ject in ques­tion. If the con­ver­sa­tion per­sist it would turn to total blame of the Police. How will this coun­try turn around when it is clear that a large, if not over­whelm­ing seg­ment of the 2.6 mil­lion peo­ple sup­port crim­i­nal­i­ty. And those in the dias­po­ra are hard­ly any better.

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Poverty. Politics. Corruption. An Ultra-Liberal Judiciary.an immoral pop­u­la­tion are just some of the prob­lems fac­ing our coun­try. How do we begin to turn around a place which seem to want to self-destruct? Politicians inter­fere in law-enforce­ment. Criminals are embold­ened. Police transferred,demoralized.Criminal arrest­ed , Court grants them bail. Criminal return to kill over and over after receiv­ing bail on a mul­ti­plic­i­ty of sep­a­rate mur­der charges. Police los­es inter­est and do their own thing. The cycle con­tin­ues. The biggest accel­er­ant to crime is know­ing one will not get caught or be made to pay for one’s crime.

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The peo­ple in pol­i­cy mak­ing are not total idiots, they under­stand what needs to be done. They also know it’s not in their inter­est to do it. A pro­fi­cient and pro­fes­sion­al Police Department is bad for the health of Jamaica’s politi­cians. So they cre­ate a diver­sion. Allow crime to get out of hand . This caus­es the police to look more inept. Empower (inde­com) to go after the police , crime increas­es. As we watch the watch­man the crim­i­nals have a field day. This is a sim­ple yet effec­tive strat­e­gy which has worked par­tic­u­lar­ly for the par­ty which now forms the Administration. The Tragedy is that the bru­tal­i­ty and dehu­man­iz­ing nature of the crimes being com­mit­ted will increase as crim­i­nals push the enve­lope with each crime they commit.

Everyone Eating A Food.

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Man haf­fi eat a food”, not prop­er English , yet every Jamaican under­stand that it means every­one should have a chance to make a liv­ing. There is noth­ing wrong with that con­cept. In fact it is a noble con­cept, only thing is that in Jamaica it takes on a sin­is­ter and omi­nous mean­ing.  Eating a food  means a lot of things in our coun­try ‚beyond the noble notion of com­mu­nal bliss. It means tak­ing what some­one worked hard for at the point of a gun. It means get­ting a pay-check from Government for work not done. Payback for polit­i­cal loy­al­ty and foot sol­der­ing. Shocking yes ? Someone’s deci­sion to eat a food could decide whether you live or die. This start­ed just around 1972 when the think­ing of Jamaicans changed after they vot­ed Michael Manley into office. All of a sud­den the man­sions at the top of Beverly Hills in Saint Andrew were not there as sym­bols of inspi­ra­tion to be achieved through hard work. They became sym­bols of the rich’s greed and exploita­tion. The own­ers of those Mansions were no longer peo­ple to emu­late, but liv­ing exam­ples of cap­i­tal­is­tic exploita­tion, to abhor and hate. Our love affair with crime and crim­i­nals have had a long and sto­ried his­to­ry . We can pull our hair and bemoan the thou­sands of mur­der, each decade. But we lie and decieve our­selves if we deny knowl­edge of its gen­e­sis. We’ve sown the seeds of dis­cord , hatred, and anar­chy. Now we eat the bit­ter fruits of our labor. We can blame every­one for our mis­for­tunes. , the CIA the IMF, the Martians . I rather believe it’s IMF,it’s Manley’s fault.

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P J Patterson

When a peo­ple who were used to work­ing hard and aspir­ing to great­ness sud­den­ly begin to envy those who achieved through the sweat of their brow they have a prob­lem. When they bought into the con­cept that those who worked hard , planned and accom­plished mate­r­i­al suc­cess are evil cap­i­tal­ists to be loathed ‚they have a problem.

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Portia Simpson Miller

We bought into the con­cept of a social­ist easy way of achiev­ing stuff. No longer inspired by the con­cept of hard-work and edu­ca­tion as vehi­cles of upward mobil­i­ty ‚we are in trou­ble. Now the fruits of our greed, envy, and hatred have ripened, why are we sur­prised about the blood letting?»»

SIMPLE RULES OF GIVING EVIDENCE:

People crit­i­cize the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF) dai­ly. Well-inten­tioned Jamaicans, as well as yours tru­ly crit­i­cize those who crit­i­cize the agency when we feel their remarks are unfound­ed, unin­formed, or mali­cious. Yet I would be hyp­o­crit­i­cal if I did not acknowl­edge the glar­ing prob­lems which con­tin­ue to define the JCF. This, even as the Agency claims it is re-invent­ing itself. It appears even the sim­plest task, is a task too great for the Agency. Let alone the expec­ta­tion that it oper­ate as a pro­fes­sion­al and pro­duc­tive entity.
The com­mon mis­con­cep­tion being pro­mul­gat­ed is that if we can fix the JCF crime will be a thing of the past. Those of us who fought in the trench­es know bet­ter. Yet the JCF con­tin­ue to add fuel to that fire of mis-infor­ma­tion and naïveté, because of its absolute incom­pe­tence. The Murder tri­al of Adijia Palmer o/​c Vybes Kartel is front and cen­ter in the news, yet it seem the Police are hell-bent on destroy­ing what ought to be an open and shut case against the accused.

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Kartel

Deputy Superintendent of Police Vernal Thompson shocked the court dur­ing the Vybz Kartel mur­der tri­al yes­ter­day when he declared that he was not sur­prised at cer­tain things that took place in the inves­ti­ga­tion of the mat­ter because crim­i­nals were with­in the police force.Thompson made the admis­sion, which solicit­ed audi­ble reac­tion from the jurors and oth­ers in the court, while he was being cross-exam­ined by defence attor­ney Pierre Rogers in the close­ly watched tri­al in the Home Circuit Court.http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/news/Senior-cop-shocks-court-with-admission-about-JCF-at-Vybz-Kartel-trial.

This accused has already beat­en one mur­der rap. God knows how many peo­ple he may have ordered killed, or may have killed him­self. This is prob­a­bly the best chance the State has of putting this guy away . Despite that the Police depart­ment appears to be doing it’s lev­el best, to live up to its rep­u­ta­tion as a cor­rupt irre­deemable agency which time is past. One of the first thing a detec­tive learns is nev­er to vol­un­teer infor­ma­tion. Neither under exam­i­na­tion nor cross-exam­i­na­tion. It is imper­a­tive not to seek to clar­i­fy any­thing, it is the job of the Prosecutor to do so. If pos­si­ble answer in (mono-syl­la­bles) “Yes, No”. As a detec­tive I saw this many times. Police wit­ness­es depart from these sim­ple rules, jeop­ar­diz­ing crim­i­nal cas­es in the process. Generally these are cops who play sec­ondary or periph­er­al roles who want to talk the most. As an inves­ti­gat­ing offi­cer it requires steely resolve to some­time resus­ci­tate your case. The JCF is sup­posed to be staffed with more edu­cat­ed , intel­li­gent offi­cers. My ques­tion to them is what exact­ly are you edu­cat­ed in? It seem despite the crit­i­cisms and howls of con­dem­na­tions, the JCF is deter­mined to self destruct.

UN-GOVERNABLE WASTE-LAND ?

Cop walks up to Cab-dri­ver informs him that there is a sum­mons at the sta­tion for him, the offi­cer then walks to the Station retrieved the Summons, returned to the Taxi-stand and served the Summons on the Cab-dri­ver in the pres­ence of his col­league and of course an ever vis­i­ble pha­lanx of so-called wit­ness­es . Driver takes the Summons and then threw it from the car. Officers told him he was under arrest upon which he attempt­ed to dri­ve away . The Police made sure he did not dri­ve away ‚he ran from the car, offi­cers chased and caught him.They used pep­per-spray and baton to sub­due and arrest him. Seem text-book arrest to me.….…

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Cabbie alleged­ly beat­en, pep­per-sprayed by police.

Not so fast ‚this hap­pened in the town of Mandeville in what is fast becom­ing a hell-hole ungovern­able place called Jamaica ? There were protests from the col­leagues of the cab-dri­ver . Of course every­one had a dif­fer­ent account of the inci­dent. They claim an arrest was not nec­es­sary as their col­league did noth­ing wrong. I will leave that for you to decide.

So lets look at the facts as they were report­ed .1) Officer told dri­ver there was a sum­mons at the Station for him , did not attempt to arrest him. 2) The Officer went to the sta­tion leav­ing his col­lege on the scene, retrieved the sum­mons, returned and served it on the accused. Accused prompt­ly threw the Summons from his car. 3) The offi­cer then cor­rect­ly tells him he is under arrest. He refused to sub­mit to being arrest­ed and attempts to dri­ve away. 4) Officers blocked the path of the car upon which he fled on foot. 5) Officers gave chase and appre­hend­ed him, using pep­per-spray and baton to com­plete the arrest. 

I will now leave it to you the experts who com­plain about Jamaican Police to tell me what the Police did wrong. Clearly Jamaica is a coun­try des­tined to becom­ing a failed state. I would implore any­one vis­it­ing my coun­try to review their options. This coun­try has made the deci­sion to be an ungoverned , ungovern­able Serengeti of mur­der, rape and mayhem.

STATE OF MISSOURI MURDERS BLACK MAN BEFORE HE HAD EXHAUSTED ALL HIS APPEALS:

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I recent­ly wrote about what I per­ceive to be the selec­tive way Human Rights abus­es are report­ed and exposed by Groups Like The DC based Inter American Commission on Human Rights and Amnesty International based in London England .https://​mike​beck​les​.com/​m​y​w​p​b​l​o​g​/​?​p​=​6​2​1​8​#​r​e​s​p​ond.

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Whether it is unlaw­ful Police Killings, or killings by States, The Inter American Commission on Human Rights and Amnesty International are sur­rep­ti­tious­ly silent when the killings occur in the United Sates and oth­er Industrialized nations. Herbert Smulls a Missouri inmate was put to death before his last appeal had been decid­ed . Smulls was alleged­ly on the phone with his Lawyer when he was tak­en away by Prison guards to the exe­cu­tion cham­ber. This hap­pened while the Supreme Court was sup­pos­ed­ly hear­ing his last ditch attempt for clemen­cy. Smulls was con­vict­ed for the killing of a Jeweler dur­ing a 1991 robbery.

Whether you believe in the death penal­ty or not is imma­te­r­i­al in this instance I believe . This inmate deserved due process. How could the state of Missouri move ahead with an exe­cu­tion when the accused had not exhaust­ed all his appeals? The Missouri Attorney General claims the state act­ed prop­er­ly. Smulls Attorney stat­ed how­ev­er, that this was the third time the state of Missouri had moved ahead with the exe­cu­tion of inmates who had not exhaust­ed their appeals

This rene­gade Justice gives cred­i­bil­i­ty and trac­tion to those opposed to the death penal­ty. Even those of us who are some­what pro-death penal­ty can­not in good con­science agree with a state cir­cum­vent­ing the law. What’s the hur­ry he was on death row all these years and enti­tled to his last appeal? What was the state of Missouri afraid of ? What was the rea­son the state moved to kill him while the high­est arbiter in the coun­try had not made it’s final deci­sion. Can we con­clude then, because it was a black man the State knew the Supreme court of the United States would not inter­vene? You see, this is why peo­ple in cer­tain com­mu­ni­ties do not believe that the sys­tem works for them. They have more than enough evi­dence the sys­tem works against them.

Yet despite these acts of obvi­ous crim­i­nal­i­ty by States, despite protes­ta­tions to the con­trary, no human rights agency had a sin­gle word of con­dem­na­tion, not a word of crit­i­cism. This was not just about Herbert Smulls the accused in this case. This was big­ger than him. This was about Justice and fair­ness. It was about the rule of law, it is about no one being above the law. Not even the state of Missouri.

LET’S JUST LEAVE IT UP TO (INDECOM) TO DECIDE:

1454678_10200939988521602_1751407521_n “There is gonna be, I sup­pose, a grey area in some instances that a per­son is act­ing pure­ly as a civil­ian who hap­pens to be a mem­ber of the force or is act­ing as a mem­ber of the force who is not on duty. I don’t think we could eas­i­ly attempt to address that through a def­i­n­i­tion,” Golding said. Said Bunting, “We may need to leave it to the dis­cre­tion of INDECOM. If it is clear that a man is on vaca­tion and gets into a fight with some­body else…I would not expect that INDECOM would get into that sit­u­a­tion but if the man is not ros­tered for work and while on the streets sees a sus­pi­cious act and then inter­venes and may have to use his ser­vice pis­tol in that case he is clear­ly act­ing as a constable”.“Yes, I would be hap­py to leave it to INDECOM’s dis­cre­tion. We have agreed on that,” Golding replied.http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/news/INDECOM-to-also-investigate-incidents-involving-off-duty-police_15917346 Mark-Golding (1) Mark Golding and Peter Bunting Of course those are not my words! Those are the words of these two Jack-ass­es, no dis­re­spect to Jack-ass. Jamaica is over-run with crime, one of the ways police have been able to appre­hend crim­i­nals is by being incon­spic­u­ous. Not nec­es­sar­i­ly under cov­er , just not in that bright red and black mon­key-suit they are forced to wear. Many offi­cers have nabbed crim­i­nals trav­el­ling in bus­es or just being in the right place at the right time. Numerous amounts of guns have been removed from the streets. Just last week the Jamaica Observer high­light­ed one such instance where an offi­cer dis­armed a man tot­ing a gun at a wake in St. Thomas http://​www​.jamaicaob​serv​er​.com/​n​e​w​s​/​A​l​e​r​t​-​p​o​l​i​c​e​m​a​n​-​d​i​s​a​r​m​s​-​g​u​n​m​a​n​-​w​i​t​h​-​b​a​r​e​-​h​a​nds. Every sin­gle law enforce­ment offi­cer who ever served in the JCF have a sto­ry to tell of actions they took while off duty. So lets see what is at issue here. Before we do that how­ev­er lets estab­lish what the Jamaica Constabulary Force Act says as it relates to cops being off duty. A con­sta­ble is nev­er off duty. In fact the Act is clear, if a crime is com­mit­ted in the pres­ence of a cop whether on or off duty and he/​she does not act he or she will be dis­ci­plined. Now INDECOM wants the INDECOM Act clar­i­fied, so they may go after cops who act in good faith while sup­pos­ed­ly off duty. If you take into account the fact that under PJ Patterson not a sin­gle Detective was trained for 10 years and jux­ta­pose that with the crime rate in Jamaica present day, it is clear that this Government of Portia Simpson Miller and her acolytes have deter­mined they want to com­plete­ly erad­i­cate law enforce­ment in Jamaica. The hairy-faced pri­mate Mark Golding, who occu­pies the Justice Ministry, is a known Anti ‑Police antag­o­nist, but Peter Bunting must know bet­ter. download (9)  Terrence Williams (indecom)commissioner. It is incom­pre­hen­si­ble that two men who are sup­posed to act with wis­dom could say what they are on record say­ing.»> Instead of hash­ing out the minu­tia of the law ‚with an under­stand­ing of the risks offi­cers face , the lev­els of brav­ery which goes into the actions offi­cer take, they chose to sim­ply leave the grey area up to the whims and wish­es of Terrence Williams. Where is the Police Federation on this ? Where is the Gazetted Rank ? Are they going to sit idly by as total lap-dogs while the men and women under their com­mand take the risks and gets sent to prison for act­ing in good faith?

Raymond Wilson
Raymond Wilson

It was just last year that Jamaica’s inept National Security Minister said quote :” That Agency has too much pow­er”. Bunting was relat­ing to the broad pow­ers giv­en the neo­phyte Agency (INDECOM) and it’s Napoleonic Commissioner Terrence Williams. Days lat­er Bunting walked back his com­ments and signed onto every­thing (INDECOM) want­ed. I asked then, who was behind the cam­paign to destroy the police force ? I asked why was Bunting forced to toe the line and by whom? Why is Bunting now walk­ing hand in hand with Mark Golding the anti ‑police Justice Minister in this cor­rupt Simpson Miller Administration? The Jamaican peo­ple know that Bunting is out of his league as a min­is­ter of nation­al secu­ri­ty. Yet I do not believe Bunting is seen as cor­rupt. On that basis we have to ask Minister Bunting to look at his role in this fias­co, this dis­man­tling of our coun­try can­not go unpun­ished. This lat­est action by the gov­ern­ment through its agents, sends a clear unequiv­o­cal mes­sage to crim­i­nals, cops will not come after you, if they do, we have peo­ple in place to make sure they go to prison. Surely there is an agen­da by the PNP to turn Jamaica into a one par­ty social­ist state. In fact they have opined that jamaica a pnp coun­try for years. Latest reports indi­cate they have brought recruit­ing into the schools. Democratic social­ism was sound­ly reject­ed as a prac­ti­cal pol­i­cy direc­tion for Jamaica in 1980. That did not change the ambi­tions of the Governing PNP they are using back-door means to turn Jamaica into a one par­ty state.They hope to do so while main­tain­ing appear­ances of a demo­c­ra­t­ic coun­try. Jamaicans need to open their eyes to the goings-on . 1)Calls for a rein­tro­duc­tion of Home ‑Guards.Under Michael Manley home guards were trained and put in place, the police force forced to den­i­grate into inef­fec­tive­ness. 2) Jamaica’s present cozy rela­tion­ship with Cuba. Under Manley Jamaican men were sent to Cuba to train. These une­d­u­cat­ed Jamaicans were trained as killers called (brigidis­tas)on their return to Jamaica they mor­phed into a ter­ror­ist group which changed the way Jamaicans looked at crime on the Island. 3) The build­ing of zones of polit­i­cal exclusion(garrisons) . This is the per­fect way to steal elec­tions. The PNP has used tax­pay­ers funds to build homes to house PNP vot­ers at the expense of the mid­dle-class. Jamaica’s mid­dle-class is now only 18% of the coun­try, with 78% clas­si­fied as poor . The Prime Minister’s and her par­ty the (PNP) records 105% of the votes in her con­stituen­cy out of a max­i­mum 100%[sic]. 4)The return to wide-spread un-checked crim­i­nal­i­ty and the demo­niz­ing of the secu­ri­ty forces, eeri­ly rem­i­nis­cent of the Manley years. The return of (JEEP) as a pork-bar­rel tax-pay­ers fund­ed give away to par­ty hacks, it’s the sec­ond com­ing of crash program,https://mikebeckles.com/mywpblog/?p=1860. What made the peo­ple think that the poli­cies of the 70’s which dec­i­mat­ed the coun­try , set­ting it back decades, would be bet­ter this time around? Manley and his acolytes did the very same thing this dunce is accused of doing, dec­i­mate the police, allow crime to rise, give peo­ple carte-blanche to do what they want. That strat­e­gy has wide appeal to Jamaicans who are large­ly an ungovern­able peo­ple. Even after Manley’s destruc­tive attempt at social engi­neer­ing the sta­bi­liz­ing hand of Edward Seaga ensured the Jamaican dol­lar was just 4 Jamaican dol­lars to 1 American dol­lars by the time he left office. Today the Jamaican dol­lar trades upward of J$107 to US$1. Where there is no vision the peo­ple perish.