How do large Police Departments in major Cities deal with crime yet main­tain and build trust with the cit­i­zens they pro­tect? In New York City this debate is rag­ing against the back­drop of a Federal Judge’s rul­ing that the Police Department’s stop and frisk Policy is uncon­sti­tu­tion­al.

Federal Judge Shira A. Scheindlin ruled on the prac­tice Aug. 12, deem­ing the pol­i­cy a vio­la­tion of the U.S. Constitution.“This case is about the ten­sion between lib­er­ty and pub­lic safe­ty in the use of a proac­tive polic­ing tool called “stop and frisk,’” she wrote in her deci­sion. “The New York City Police Department (NYPD) made 4.4 mil­lion stops between January 2004 and June 2012. Over 80% of these 4.4 mil­lion stops were of blacks or Hispanics.” Scheindlin not­ed that each stop result­ed in an inter­rup­tion of the person’s life with deten­tion and ques­tion­ing tak­ing place on pub­lic streets. “More than half of the time the police sub­ject­ed the per­son to a frisk.”The case was brought by four men, Lalit Clarkson, Deon Dennis, David Floyd, and David Ourlicht, who all claimed they were stopped, ques­tioned, and in some cas­es frisked with no rea­son­able cause.

The oppos­ing sides on this issue are not talk­ing to each oth­er. The Mayor has appealed the Judge’s deci­sion, which guar­an­tees this issue is not going away any time soon. Civil Rights groups like the NAACP , the National Action Network, and the New York Civil Liberties Union have long main­tained that this pol­i­cy is uncon­sti­tu­tion­al and racist​.New York City’s Police Commissioner Ray Kelly argues that it is an inte­gral tool which his Department uses to keep the city safe.

Ray Kelly has long been crit­i­cized for cre­at­ing a cli­mate in New York which allows Police Officers to abuse young Black and Latino men. Critics accuse the NYPD of hav­ing quo­tas, which places undue bur­den on cops to make arrests and write tick­ets. The Department has stri­dent­ly denied this, even as some mem­bers of the very Department has gone pub­lic claim­ing they are being forced to antag­o­nize and arrest peo­ple to bur­nish the per­cep­tion of a south­ern trend in crime. In oth­er cas­es Cops have tes­ti­fied that seri­ous crimes in white neigh­bor­hoods are being down­played and some­times not doc­u­ment­ed ‚to fur­ther the nar­ra­tive of declin­ing crime in the city.

The fact is that Police must have the abil­i­ty to rea­son­ably stop, ques­tion and if nec­es­sary search any­one they sus­pect of hav­ing com­mit­ted a crime, is about to com­mit , or is in the act of com­mit­ting a crime. So what exact­ly is the prob­lem? Why cant the police walk this fine line? Why can’t offi­cers be respect­ful and rea­son­able in serv­ing and pro­tect­ing? Many young men in New York City com­plain of being stopped and roughed up twice on one street by dif­fer­ent groups of cops all in the space of a few min­utes. They allege they are abused ver­bal­ly and phys­i­cal­ly . They allege when they complain,many com­plain of being searched sev­er­al time all in one day. Many com­plain of being arrest­ed and kept overnight, then released the next day with­out see­ing a Judge.

Commissioner Ray Kelly respond­ed to that claim by stat­ing the fol­low­ing .“To that point, last year 97 per­cent of all shoot­ing vic­tims were black or Hispanic and reside in low-income neigh­bor­hoods,” he said. “Public hous­ing where five per­cent of the city’s pop­u­la­tion resides expe­ri­ences 20 per­cent of the shoot­ings. There were more stops with sus­pi­cious activ­i­ty in neigh­bor­hoods with high­er crime because that’s where the crime is.” [Ray Kelly]

So does the NYPD Commissioner have a point? Yes he does, it is true that there are inor­di­nate amounts of crime in Black and Hispanic Neighborhoods. It is also true that the same can­not be said to be true in large­ly Caucasian neigh­bor­hoods. In cities all over America The rate of blacks killing blacks, and Latina gangs killing each oth­er is fright­en­ing. Police Departments have a duty not only to stamp it out but to make sure that it is dis­cour­aged. Police may only do so with strong no-non­sense approach which tells crim­i­nals exact­ly who is in charge.

New York city is not the only city with a crime prob­lem, Kansas city, Missouri: Little Rock Arkansas: Camden, New Jersey: Newberg, New York: Chicago, Illinois: Detroit, Michigan: Police Departments are respon­si­ble for cit­i­zen safe­ty, they are crit­i­cized when crime is out of con­trol yet lam­bast­ed when they adopt cer­tain mea­sures to deal effec­tive­ly with the can­cer of crime. With that said Police can­not oper­ate out­side of the laws they are sworn to uphold. That I believe is where the rub­ber meets the road. How do they pro­tect cit­i­zens rights , and pro­tect them from crime simul­ta­ne­ous­ly? It all comes down to how Police Officers do their jobs !

Those opposed to stop and frisk are jus­ti­fied in their out­rage at the instances of abuse, yet the Police Commissioner points to over 700 guns removed from the streets as a result of this process. Even as we reg­is­ter our dis­gust with the instances of humil­i­a­tion heaped onto our young peo­ple of col­or , we ignore the 700 weapons removed at our per­il. What we also ignore unfair­ly, are the amount of lives that may have been saved, and oth­er crimes pre­vent­ed as a result of the fear crim­i­nals have that they may be appre­hend­ed before they can car­ry out their crim­i­nal acts. In fact Ray Kelly has tran­scripts of con­ver­sa­tions sup­port­ing that very notion.

The solu­tion to the prob­lem lies in allow­ing Police to use stop and frisk as one tool in the arse­nal to fight crime. However police offi­cers must adhere to the guar­an­tees enshrined in law that they may only do so when they have rea­son­able cause to believe, that some­one may , have, or is about to com­mit a crime. It can­not be that the cri­te­ria for that sus­pi­cion is the col­or of one’s skin.

Even as Commissioner Ray Kelly points to the fact that when crimes goes up, the Black and Hispanic com­mu­ni­ty suf­fers the most, he must be mind­ful that these com­mu­ni­ties must also feel that the police work on their behalf. The entire cam­paign of keep­ing the streets safe, remov­ing guns from the streets , and down trend­ing crime sta­tis­tics as advanced by Mayor Bloomberg is miss­ing one com­po­nent. The entire pop­u­la­tion of the city must feel that thy are doing it on their behalf, not doing it on their backs. Michael Bloomberg would do well in under­stand­ing that act­ing like a sec­ond Giuliani is not a pos­i­tive for him.

It serves the inter­est of black lead­er­ship to face the real­i­ties of crime with­in the African-American com­mu­ni­ty, deny­ing the seri­ous­ness of it does noth­ing to fix the prob­lems. The socio- eco­nom­ic con­di­tions affect­ing the black com­mu­ni­ty cre­ates crim­i­nals. Young teenage women hav­ing babies out of wed­lock adds to the prob­lem. Fathers not tak­ing care of their chil­dren adds to the prob­lem. Black peo­ple claim­ing run down neigh­bor­hoods adds to the prob­lem. We have some work to do .

Yesterday I wrote that the JCF has dis­card­ed name brand cops. Some of my friends con­strue that to be a Clarion-call for a return to the old days, They inter­pret my assess­ment of the force of two decades ago and the exist­ing Constabulary of today, as a ring­ing endorse­ment for unin­tel­li­gent cops. I will try to set the record straight, using some facts and data sup­plied by the Constabulary itself.

I am not going for dis­band­ment of the Force as Reneto Adams did, maybe Adams knows some­thing I don’t, why he calls for the dis­band­ment of the depart­ment. After all he served for 41 years, I did a mere 10 years, 9 ¹⁄₂ to be exact. I am not ask­ing that the depart­ment be dis­band­ed, it would be self­ish to do so, it is an imprac­ti­cal solu­tion which is not guar­an­teed to pro­duce a bet­ter or dif­fer­ent result. As I have asked before, where would we source these peo­ple of impec­ca­ble char­ac­ter to staff this new department?

The Constabulary the coun­try has, is the con­stab­u­lary the coun­try will have to work, with and improve! I must ask though where is it writ­ten that the rule of law should take a back seat, or step back when crim­i­nals become more aggres­sion? Where is it writ­ten that mere­ly being able to present data bet­ter makes a bet­ter police force ?

One of the things the JCF has done is to fast track some recruits to the high­er ranks.[note I did not say senior ranks] Seniority is not some­thing you get from a col­lege or University, it is earned. Now here is the dis­con­nect between my friends and I . Even though I under­stand the need for more intel­li­gent offi­cers, and God knows over the years senior cops have embar­rassed us, there also needs to be a love and desire for the job by those who serve.

Over the years Jamaica’s Elitists have made the argu­ment that the Police Force was pop­u­lat­ed with fools who could not get any oth­er job. We don’t hear a peep out of those elit­ists, now that they have their plants at the top and through­out the depart­ment. These plants are not just elit­ists, they are par­ty hacks, they are unable to pro­vide results, they are not cops, and they will nev­er be cops.

Those of us who served want an intel­li­gent , suc­cess­ful, police depart­ment we can be proud of. It is impor­tant that we are able to say we were once a part of that. Unfortunately it is impos­si­ble, despite the rhetoric from some, for any­one to make that state­ment with­out hav­ing tongue in cheek. Police offi­cers are com­mit­ting more crimes than ever before, rob­beries, rapes, mur­der for hire, lar­ce­ny, tam­per­ing with wit­ness­es, graft , and every type of cor­rup­tion imaginable.

As I have stat­ed time and again the JCF which I love and which some of my dear­est friends and fam­i­ly are still a part of , are only clear­ing up 30% of crimes. Those num­bers are ques­tion­able , how those clear-ups are done are open to inter­pre­ta­tion. Detectives read­ing this knows what I am talk­ing about. Only about 7% of mur­der­ers are being arrest­ed or held to account. Again those num­bers are ques­tion­able. The con­vic­tion rate is even more dis­mal, and when they do secure a con­vic­tion in the coun­try’s lib­er­al courts , they are some­times over­turned on appeals.

In oth­er words, the JCF despite the hype as a com­pa­ny or a cor­po­ra­tion is a dis­mal fail­ure. There are tremen­dous forces which impact those real­i­ties, yet the hier­ar­chy, should be able to deliv­er more to the Jamaican peo­ple, their real bosses.

In response to an inter­view he gave to the Jamaica Observer Published in the Sunday Observer, I called my friend Dadrick Henry before I wrote a fol­low up to what was pub­lished in that Jamaican paper :http://​www​.jamaicaob​serv​er​.com/​n​e​w​s​/​F​o​u​r​-​y​e​a​r​s​-​w​i​t​h​o​u​t​-​e​a​r​n​i​n​g​-​a​-​c​e​n​t​_​1​4​7​6​3​7​9​5​#​i​x​z​z​2​b​7​f​8​8​rdI.

I want­ed to hear from the hors­es mouth, what exact­ly was going on, with­out the fil­ter of Editorial cut­ting and dic­ing. I also called his broth­er, a friend of mine, to learn from him what he knew. Having lis­tened to Dadrick explain what occurred, I was left with the impres­sion that he feels let down by the very peo­ple with whom he served at the Constant Spring CIB office, Some of those peo­ple are now in senior posi­tions with­in the JCF. I con­clud­ed our con­ver­sa­tion feel­ing that my entreaties over the years to him, to save some of him­self for him­self went unheed­ed.

He spoke long, emo­tion­al­ly and nos­tal­gi­cal­ly about what he and I accom­plished. I lis­tened as he vent­ed, he spoke at length about indi­vid­ual cas­es we worked on , from house break­ing to recov­ery of stolen prop­er­ty, recov­er­ing guns, to mur­der cas­es. My friend seemed stuck in the emo­tion­al exploits of our youth­ful exhuber­ance. Totally obliv­i­ous to the risks we took, unable to rec­on­cile the Constabulary force we served then with the JCF two decades lat­er. Ironically he believes some of the very peo­ple who were win­dow dress­ings at that CIB office of the mid 80’s to the ear­ly 1990’s are now some of the peo­ple who are twist­ing the dag­ger in his back.

Dadrick Henry the crime fight­er, was no dif­fer­ent than Altamoth (Parra) Campbell the crime fight­er, whose house was ran­sacked by mem­bers of the JCF on false infor­ma­tion that he was involved with a cer­tain sus­pect. Dadrick Henry rem­i­nisced about the night I was shot yet man­aged to recov­er a .357 Magnum bleed­ing pro­fuse­ly, my shoes filled with blood. He spoke about the Detective Corporal and a mem­ber of the Auxiliary, who were with me that night. They ran away, we laughed about that.

That Detective Corporal lat­er rose to the rank Of Senior Superintendent. I saw the new JCF com­ing two decades ago. Not a JCF which was more informed, bet­ter equipped, smarter, more effi­cient. No, I saw a JCF where it would be each man for him­self, where esprit de corps would be a dirty Latin term. Some of the peo­ple now in lead­er­ship were sec­ond rate Police Officers, they were peo­ple who were on a mis­sion of self, and they would do any­thing to get to where they thought they need­ed to be.

Dadrick Henry and a few oth­ers did not receive that memo, they are pay­ing the price. He had his demons but he loved his coun­try, he swore nev­er to live any­where else but Jamaica, he loved the Force. I won­der whether the force ever loved him. Some of my friends point to a new JCF, they say when this force takes shape it will be bet­ter. Others speak of the cour­tesy of offi­cers today, I always believed offi­cers should be cour­te­ous, I was cour­te­ous. I believed that offi­cers should be tough, I was tough, the two are not mutu­al­ly exclu­sive. The JCF is not get­ting more cour­te­ous as my friends insists, the force is get­ting less effec­tive, less com­pe­tent, less wor­thy of men­tion. The crime stats speaks volumes.

Until the JCF presents crime sta­tis­tics which are bet­ter than the sta­tis­tics of the 1980’s, Officers like Dadrick Henry, Parra Campbell, Bigga Ford and oth­ers will con­tin­ue to be larg­er than life, unfor­tu­nate­ly for these men and oth­ers like them the JCF rewards lethar­gy and incom­pe­tence not mer­i­to­ri­ous ser­vice. Merely being bet­ter able to com­pile crime data more effi­cient­ly, does not a more com­pe­tent force make.

One of the many things I learned about Policing in Jamaica is that it is not a job that you give your all to, It does not pay well, it is a thank­less job, and most of all, you are basi­cal­ly on your own in times of trou­ble even if you are dead right.

Left Former Inspector Dadrick Henry:

In 1987, I was one of four offi­cers trans­ferred tem­porar­i­ly from the Mobile Reserve to Constant Spring CIB. I was a young offi­cer with five years of ser­vice in the JCF. Within those five years, I had seen ser­vice at the then Beat, Foot Patrol at the bot­tom of West Street, reg­u­lar uni­form duties at the Mobile Reserve, and the so-called élite Rangers squad oper­at­ing out of the said Mobile Reserve. Contrary to the noise you hear about social engi­neer­ing and elit­ist polic­ing, we got results.
Our trans­fer aimed to fill the gar­gan­tu­an shoe-prints left by the indomitable Cornwall (big­ga) Ford, who had cement­ed a name for him­self in the Saint Andrew North Police Area. The fear was that crime would esca­late with Ford leav­ing for CIB Headquarters.

On our arrival there, that man whose por­trait you see above with that of Ford was a Corporal of Police, attached to the CIB office. No cop, Detective, or aide was more effec­tive than Dadrick Henry. On my first day learn­ing the area, I took a loaded .38 revolver from the waist­band of a well-known career crim­i­nal alias (chick­en-toe) — my very first col­lar in that precinct.
Dadrick Henry and I were to alter anchor one of the most suc­cess­ful duos ever sta­tioned any­where in the coun­try. Our record of suc­cess spoke for itself. We removed mur­der­ers and guns from the streets and gained con­vic­tions, which meant they paid for their crimes. We recov­ered stolen prop­er­ty, so much stolen prop­er­ty the media had to aid us in hav­ing peo­ple come into the Constant Spring Police Station to iden­ti­fy their prop­er­ty. People came from all over the country.
The recov­ered prop­er­ty facil­i­ty over­flowed, and there was no room to store the recov­ered prop­er­ty. Most impor­tant­ly, we pro­vid­ed a deter­rent to gang and drug activ­i­ty in the entire St Andrew North Police area. Dadrick Henry had a nose for sniff­ing crim­i­nals, like a trained snif­fer Dog. We took innu­mer­able amounts of guns from the streets. I told my friend, “Leave some of you for you” I reit­er­at­ed that mes­sage over the years when­ev­er we spoke.

Detective Inspector Noël Asphall, then our Boss, would put under­per­form­ing cops to work with us as pun­ish­ment; after a few weeks, they would say they had had enough and learned their les­son. We were always on duty, and the crim­i­nals knew it. Dadrick Henry is not per­fect; he had a tem­per, and he took the job some­times a lit­tle too seri­ous­ly. I warned him about that; I some­times act­ed as a good cop to his bad cop per­sona; it worked for what we want­ed to accom­plish and to keep him out of trouble.
Dadrick Henry stayed on with the JCF. He was­n’t per­fect, but he was a cops cop. After I left, he got into trou­ble; he lost his job and was con­vict­ed of using exces­sive force. I can­not speak to that; I was­n’t there. All I know is that he did his job. The force had no more use for his kind. He was tough, pro­duced results, and was no-non­sense. This new force belongs to Carolyn Gomes of the crim­i­nal rights lob­by JFJ.

Today, sad­ly, this is Dadrick Henry’s story :

Four years without earning a cent

Fearless vet­er­an cop Dadrick Henry yearns for bet­ter treat­ment by the police force.He has been shot twice in the line of duty and stabbed in both arms by an enraged crim­i­nal. But after serv­ing his coun­try for 35 years, embat­tled cop Inspector Dadrick Henry is almost a bro­ken man. He has been after four years in the wilder­ness with­out earn­ing a cent.

Read more: http://​www​.jamaicaob​serv​er​.com/​n​e​w​s​/​F​o​u​r​-​y​e​a​r​s​-​w​i​t​h​o​u​t​-​e​a​r​n​i​n​g​-​a​-​c​e​n​t​_​1​4​7​6​3​7​9​5​#​i​x​z​z​2​b​7​f​8​8​rdI

Jamaica’s chief Prosecutor Paula Llewellyn:

Criminals walk free because wit­ness­es can­not be found, Really? where the hell can any­one hide where it is impos­si­ble to find them. How can a pros­e­cu­tor take a mur­der case to court sole­ly on a wit­ness state­ment, par­tic­u­lar­ly know­ing how wit­ness­es are tam­pered with? Are we to believe that the Director of Public Prosecution did not know that this case was not ready for tri­al before fil­ing charges? So Kartel walks on that charge. What hap­pen to the vic­tim’s fam­i­lies ? Who look after their interest?

I believe the DPP’s time has come, she should resign in the pub­lic inter­est. Criminals have the best lawyers doing every­thing in their pow­er to get them out of jail, decent law-abid­ing cit­i­zens should have a fight­ing chance to get crim­i­nals off the streets. In the 1980’s Jamaica saw crime tamp­ing down when com­pared to the tumul­tuous 70’s, at the time many peo­ple berat­ed the police force, they talked about police being unable to speak stan­dard English, police offi­cers were ridiculed as mere big-foot peasants.

As I point­ed out in pre­vi­ous blog posts, I was offend­ed when we were called to inves­ti­gate one mat­ter or anoth­er and some woman in upper Saint Andrew would ask me “where were you trained”? They sim­ply did not believe there were any cops capa­ble of speak­ing any­thing but patios(patwa). Incidentally today, there is a big push to have every­one in Jamaica speak­ing patios the rea­son for that is lost on me but I will leave that alone. It seem how­ev­er that now arguably there are more edu­cat­ed peo­ple in the force, the com­mis­sion­er of police has both a bach­e­lors and a mas­ters degree in busi­ness admin­is­tra­tion. Many of the offi­cers in the top ech­e­lons have grad­u­ate degrees from the University of the West Indies and oth­er insti­tu­tions of high­er learning.

In 1991 when I depart­ed the force after a decade of hard work, the depart­ment was solv­ing over 70% of seri­ous crimes, not per­fect, but bet­ter than the debat­able 30% clear-up of sim­i­lar offences today. Even as the force claims they are clear­ing up 30% of seri­ous crimes, they are reg­is­ter­ing a low­ly 5% con­vic­tion rate from that 30%, and even then some of that measly 5% are over­turned on appeal.

So what’s miss­ing? Well edu­cat­ed peo­ple make bet­ter cops right? Well clear­ly not exact­ly so in Jamaica. It seem that the peo­ple in the force are just cool­ing their heels because they can­not find employ­ment in the field they want. So they take no risks , they do not go the extra mile , hence crime is where it is.

I believe Jamaica , a coun­try steeped in a vicious caste sys­tem, is real­iz­ing that degrees are not panaceas to every­thing. So even as they have cops who can speakie spokeie now, crime is on the rise as the prover­bial Phoenix . Cops have degrees in culi­nary skills are pro­mot­ed to Superintendent, not sure how that helps the Jamaican tax-pay­ers, many of whom can­not buy food.

As most real cops insist, polic­ing Jamaican streets and gul­lies requires a spe­cial breed, many of us left because we saw this dis­con­nect com­ing. The jury is still out on how our coun­try will fare with these (stush tapara­nis) elit­ists as their police officers.

May God help Jamaica, at least their offi­cers can speak stan­dard English now.

Dwayne Jones: This is the por­trait of Dwayne Jones an alleged gay Jamaican man who was bru­tal­ly shot and stabbed to death in Adelphi Saint James.The Jamaica Gleaner reports Jones, of Paradise Rowe and Porto Bello in St James was at a par­ty when he was alleged­ly attacked by a group of per­sons. A num­ber of explo­sions were heard and the police were called. Jones’ body was found on the road­way, with mul­ti­ple stab wounds and a gun­shot wound. One does­n’t have to be homo-sex­u­al, one does­n’t have to believe in the homo-sex­u­al lifestyle to know this is wrong ! How can a peo­ple, any peo­ple ‚under any cir­cum­stance do this to anoth­er human being? Does even the most anti-gay per­son with a shred of human­i­ty, believe that the rea­son these sav­ages killed this young man is total­ly because of his sexuality?

Who are the crim­i­nals? Does some­one of a dif­fer­ent sex­u­al ori­en­ta­tion deserve the death penal­ty? What does it say about a peo­ple who can sum­mar­i­ly exe­cute some­one and walk away as if noth­ing hap­pened? I know that some peo­ple will have all kinds of com­ments and opin­ions on this mur­der, they will argue back and forth about the pros and cons of homo­sex­u­al­i­ty, I will not get into that debate. A life was sum­mar­i­ly tak­en, that’s what is at stake, irre­spec­tive of what that young man did or did not do, every­one who par­tic­i­pat­ed in tak­ing his life are expo­nen­tial­ly more guilty than he could ever be.

ADIDJA PALMER (VYBES KARTEL) FREED.

Kartel

Dance-hall Disc-Jockey Adidja Palmer o/​c Vybes Kartel was freed in the Home Circuit Court on Wednesday July 24^th. Palmer who is accused of com­mit­ting two mur­ders, was freed on the mur­der of a Saint Catherine Business-man Barrington (Bossy) Burton.

Palmer will remain in cus­tody how­ev­er, as he awaits tri­al on the oth­er mur­der. Supreme Court judge Bryan Sykes instruct­ed the 12-mem­ber jury to return the ver­dicts ‚after the pros­e­cu­tion informed the court that it had no fur­ther evi­dence against the men.

The tri­al Judge Bryan Sykes alleged­ly barred two state­ments from being admit­ted into evi­dence, report­ed­ly those actions were the cat­a­lyst for the destruc­tion of the pros­e­cu­tion’s case.

Paula Llewellyn DPP:

As bystanders are we to believe that the Director of Public Prosecution Paula Llewelyn’s office under­took to pros­e­cute a homi­cide sole­ly on two eye-wit­ness­es state­ments? If this is so, it is a seri­ous indict­ment on that office, on the police and on what obtains for a jus­tice sys­tem in Jamaica. No crim­i­nal Justice sys­tem is fool-proof, as we have seen recent­ly in Florida, but it is seri­ous cause for alarm and con­ster­na­tion , when mur­der­ers are allowed to walk free because of bad laws, tech­ni­cal­i­ty, or shod­dy work by those tasked with bring­ing crim­i­nals to justice.

When jus­tice can be thwart­ed sim­ply because a wit­ness can­not be found , it is incred­i­ble incen­tive for future killers to make sure wit­ness­es are nev­er found, giv­ing rise to many more mur­ders. It is a vicious­ly wicked cycle which can only be arrest­ed when crim­i­nals are held to account for their crimes. This is done by metic­u­lous­ly going about inves­ti­ga­tions in a painstak­ing and pro­fes­sion­al way.

There is no great harm in allow­ing a suspect/​s to remain free until inves­ti­ga­tors, work­ing with com­pe­tent pros­e­cu­tors, are sure they have all the evi­dence avail­able or pos­si­ble to gain a con­vic­tion. Whether sci­en­tif­ic, eye-wit­ness, cor­rob­o­ra­tive, or cir­cum­stan­tial, police and pros­e­cu­tors owe it to the deceased and their fam­i­lies to do due dili­gence before arrest­ing a sus­pect. Most west­ern democ­ra­cies includ­ing Jamaica pro­tects a cit­i­zen’s con­sti­tu­tion­al right against dou­ble jeop­ardy, (can­not be tried twice for the same offence).

Because of those con­sti­tu­tion­al guar­an­tees, it is impor­tant that pros­e­cu­tors and law enforce­ment get it right the first time. As a young detec­tive can­di­date, a lec­tur­er told us quote. “There is no greater task giv­en any­one, than that which empow­ers him to bring the killer of the inno­cent to justice”.

That admo­ni­tion will always remain with me, even though I am no longer involved with law enforce­ment , I have pledged that I will always be on the side of inno­cent vic­tims, so help me God.

The views expressed here makes no assump­tions about the guilt or inno­cence of the accused Adidja Palmer.

I am par­tial and def­er­en­tial to the rule of law, I believe that as peo­ple we should be free to live our lives the way we chose, as long as what we do, does­n’t cause harm to oth­ers. I believe also that soci­eties must have rules com­men­su­rate with the times in which we live, oth­er­wise the result is chaos and anarchy.

Conversely I believe we should be able to find an agree­able mid­dle where the voic­es of those who gen­uine­ly advo­cate for human rights must be heard. The checks and bal­ances which gen­uine human rights agen­cies seek, can­not be over­looked, we owe it to our­selves to ensure that every cit­i­zen’s voice mat­ters, on the occa­sion when they can­not speak for them­selves, inde­pen­dent non-aligned human rights agen­cies should and must advo­cate on their behalf.

Oversight is good for law enforce­ment agen­cies, or at least the image of those who work in law-enforce­ment. I have spo­ken to numer­ous law enforce­ment pro­fes­sion­als, in var­i­ous police agen­cies in the United States as well as my for­mer col­leagues and I hear the same argu­ments over and over.

“We do not mind over­sight, we just do not need biased, zeal­ous over­sight, with peo­ple hav­ing their own agen­das”. My for­mer col­leagues in Jamaica, refers to over­sight agen­cies as “pres­sure groups” . They tell me they want peo­ple who under­stand what cops face, to do over­sight, and not fly by night pow­er-hun­gry-media whores, with nar­cis­sis­tic ambi­tions of grandeur.

INDECOM

The Independent Commission of Investigations was cre­at­ed to inves­ti­gate alle­ga­tions of abuse by agents of the Jamaican state.I will not bore you with the details sur­round­ing the for­mu­la­tion of the Agency. We will pro­vide a link so you may read for your­selves what the agency is sup­posed to be about.http://​www​.inde​com​.gov​.jm/.

The law has come up for review, as it has rea­son­ably been designed to after 3 years. As we com­ment­ed pre­vi­ous­ly, the Police, Military and now the Minister of National Security has come out against the Act. Minister Bunting who has respon­si­bil­i­ty for the nation’s secu­ri­ty did not mince words in rela­tion to this Act, quote: This com­mis­sion is too pow­er­ful. As we argued in a pre­vi­ous post, the Act con­flicts with the role of the com­mis­sion­er of police and the chief of defense staff’s abil­i­ty to oper­ate their agen­cies, notwith­stand­ing that the com­mis­sion­er of INDECOM has no expe­ri­ence in police or mil­i­tary mat­ters or procedures.

The com­mis­sion­er of INDECOM is empow­ered to direct both secu­ri­ty agency heads, to car­ry out and effect change to their respec­tive agen­cies , even though they are ulti­mate­ly respon­si­ble for the effec­tive­ness of their agen­cies. Not enough, the com­mis­sion­er of INDECOM , despite those sweep­ing pow­ers, is des­per­ate­ly demand­ing more and more pow­er, even as he runs around with peo­ple opposed to the rule of law and good order in Jamaica.

Despite all the heat­ed rhetoric com­ing from Terrence Williams about police excess and demands for more pow­er for him­self, in his lat­est sub­mis­sion to Parliament he report­ed that the major­i­ty of cas­es inves­ti­gat­ed by his office, police offi­cers act­ed prop­er­ly in the actions they took. This Act has ele­ments that seem clear­ly uncon­sti­tu­tion­al, even to the untrained. The Police Federation a use­less geld­ing pup­py does noth­ing for its mem­bers and nei­ther does the rum-bel­ly gazetted ranks, many of whom are mere polit­i­cal lap-dogs. These are the issues which should unite them toward a com­mon good. The Officers Association and Federation could be a for­mi­da­ble force on this issue, alas they would rather head for the near­est rum-bar.

This INDECOM Act was not prop­er­ly though out, it was a typ­i­cal knee-jerk act designed to assuage the con­cerns of crim­i­nal rights lob­by in the coun­try, with Carolyn Gomes of the anti-police group JFJ’s fin­ger-prints all over it. Not hav­ing a law is bet­ter than a bad law, this is a bad law which needs to be revamped re-debat­ed and re-authorized.

Sections of the Act lit­er­al­ly forces police offi­cers to self incrim­i­nate, it forces them to give state­ments, when they have to use force with­in a giv­en time, even as they are trau­ma­tized and should have the ben­e­fit of coun­sel. This Act in my esti­ma­tion is inju­ri­ous and harm­ful to law enforce­ment and offi­cers, National Security as artic­u­lat­ed by the Jamaica Defense Force, and huge con­se­quences for nation­al secu­ri­ty and pub­lic inter­est as argued by Minister Bunting.

Police needs over­sight which is con­ver­sant with the chal­lenges law enforce­ment faces. Oversight should be free from inter­fer­ence from the likes of Jamaicans for Justice. Those who inves­ti­gate the inves­ti­ga­tors should not be in a posi­tion to put self and per­son­al inter­est over coun­try as is hap­pen­ing now. When over­sight is car­ried out fair­ly , impar­tial­ly and free from ran­cor every­one ben­e­fits. What Jamaica can ill-afford, is a Jamaican FBI style agency, with a J Edgar Hoover type, ego-mani­a­cal nar­cis­sist, out of con­trol with too much power.

Fix it now or pay dear­ly later.