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Mattathias Schwartz’s Baloney:

Mattathias Schwartz’s
Mattathias Schwartz’s

There has been a lot of dis­cus­sion com­ing out of the 2010 Security Forces assault on mer­ce­nar­ies holed up in Tivoli Gardens in sup­port of con­fessed Don, Gun Runner and trans-nation­al crim­i­nal Christopher (Dudus) Coke.

This buzz has received new life after the Public defend­er and anti ‑police antag­o­nist Earl Witter released his report which did noth­ing to advance the debate.

Jamaicans are gen­er­al­ly inclined to buy into any­thing for­eign, our peo­ple cel­e­brate any and every­one over oth­er Jamaicans. This is true even when their coun­try­men make tremen­dous per­son­al sac­ri­fice on their behalf, they much rather exalt oth­ers over their own.

One such ben­e­fi­cia­ry of that largess is New Yorker Magazine award win­ning jour­nal­ist Mattathias Schwartz .http://​www​.newyork​er​.com/​r​e​p​o​r​t​i​n​g​/​2​0​1​1​/​1​2​/​1​2​/​1​1​1​2​1​2​f​a​_​f​a​c​t​_​s​c​h​w​a​r​t​z​?​c​u​r​r​e​n​t​P​a​g​e=7

I pro­vid­ed a link for your infor­ma­tion to Schwartz’s award win­ning Article titled: mas­sacre in Jamaica

On Thursday, thou­sands of Tivoli women marched in down­town Kingston on Coke’s behalf. They wore white and car­ried signs, writ­ten in mark­er on scraps of card­board: “Taking Di Boss Is Like Taking Jesus”; “After God, Dudus Comes Next!”; “Jesus Die for Us. We Will Die for Dudus!”

(1) By the week­end, Tivoli had filled with armed men. But, even as Coke pre­pared for war, he was nego­ti­at­ing his sur­ren­der with the police through a promi­nent mem­ber of Jamaica’s cler­gy, Bishop Herro Blair. Blair said that Coke was ter­ri­fied of dying, like his father, in a Jamaican prison cell. But the Bishop’s hopes for a truce fal­tered on Sunday morn­ing, when Coke’s forces attacked police patrols and four police sta­tions, set­ting fire to at least one. The police com­mis­sion­er cut off nego­ti­a­tions, and at six o’clock Golding declared a state of emer­gency in Kingston, giv­ing the secu­ri­ty forces expand­ed pow­ers of search, arrest, and deten­tion. In a brief­ing that night with Jamaica’s top secu­ri­ty offi­cials, the police com­mis­sion­er, accord­ing to some­one who spoke to him soon after­ward, warned that as many as two hun­dred peo­ple might die.

(2)Blair, who had served in the Jamaican National Guard, was skep­ti­cal of claims that a mas­sacre had tak­en place. He said that when he met with Coke in Java before the attack, to try to nego­ti­ate a res­o­lu­tion, he saw rough­ly a hun­dred gun­men with him. “There is a script that is writ­ten, when­ev­er police are involved,” he told me. “People will all say the same thing.” Witter, a for­mer jour­nal­ist, whose office inves­ti­gates con­sti­tu­tion­al vio­la­tions and cas­es of injus­tice, took the alle­ga­tions seriously.

Schwartz allud­ed to liv­ing and being around Tivoli Gardens for a lit­tle while before he wrote his 8 page Article. My first impulse was that I would not read what he wrote. My incli­na­tion is that I don’t need a New York inter­lop­ing elit­ists to tell me what I have lived and breathed, I refer to Jamaica, but I read the arti­cle nontheless.

Let me state cat­e­gor­i­cal­ly that I was not in Tivoli Gardens when the secu­ri­ty forces went in to annex it to Jamaica, nei­ther was Mattathias Schwartz. Moving to Langley Virginia and spend­ing some time at the Central Intelligence Agency cer­tain­ly does not make me a CIA agent and it damn sure does not make me an author­i­ty on spying.

Even though I pro­vid­ed a link to Schwartz’s Article, I have also pulled two para­graphs which I believe are a direct con­tra­dic­tion of the head­line of his arti­cle and the sen­sa­tion­al­ism sur­round­ing the very arti­cle itself, these two para­graphs are in blue ink.

In the first instance Schwartz said quote: “By the week-end Tivoli was filled with armed men”.

In the sec­ond instance he allud­ed to speak­ing to Bishop Herro Blair a promi­nent Jamaican cler­gy-man who is the polit­i­cal ombuds­man, and a known JLP affil­i­ate, who attest­ed to the fact that he saw rough­ly a hun­dred gun­men when he went into Tivoli to meet with Coke toward work­ing out a resolution.

So there were prac­ti­cal­ly scores of armed mer­ce­nar­ies ready to top­ple the state, con­ver­sa­tion over , let’s go home, lets make sure it nev­er hap­pens again right?

We Jamaicans did not need an inter­lop­er to tell us these things, we saw the attacks which killed police offi­cers and mem­bers of our mil­i­tary, we saw the police sta­tions burn­ing, we saw the bar­ri­cades, we saw the out­pour­ing of love and adu­la­tion for the don. we saw the desert­ed streets. Where in America or any oth­er coun­try in the civ­i­lized world would that be tolerated ?

The city of Boston was shut down tighter than a jail after the marathon bombers com­mit­ted their acts, the rule of law pre­vailed. Schwarts talks about police killings by the num­bers as it relates to killings of the NYPD, is this guy for real ? Does he seri­ous­ly com­pare Jamaica with New York City? Furthermore where is Schwartz over all the years when young minor­i­ty men are being gunned down by the NYPD? did he write an arti­cle con­demn­ing those cops in the Abner Louima case,? What about Ammadio Dialo? What about the scores of name­less face­less oth­ers? Is Schwartz too much of a cow­ard to crit­i­cize the pow­er­ful NYPD, or, are the lives of young African-American and Latino males not impor­tant to him?

Even as he tells the truth about Bishop Blair’s account of wit­ness­ing rough­ly a hun­dred armed men, Schwartz attempt­ed to cast doubt on the Bishops account by try­ing to link him to the secu­ri­ty forces. Bishop Blair has been a long time sup­port­er of the JLP, he had no axe to grind, he told the truth.

In the end, the ulti­mate source of schwartz’s sto­ry are the very same peo­ple whom he admit­ted, con­fessed they will be killed if they spoke to cer­tain truths. He report­ed about the large cache of weapons which was recov­ered, yet he coun­ters by say­ing ini­tial­ly that only a few guns were recov­ered, and yes he speaks with cer­tain­ty that there real­ly was not much of a fire-fight even though he was nowhere around.

Mattathias Schwartz is just anoth­er sen­sa­tion­al­ist media type who feed off the unfor­tu­nate plight of oth­ers for his own ben­e­fit, this case is no dif­fer­ent. To those who speak out of the sides of their mouths as if they know some­thing , let me say this.

Innocent peo­ple get killed in a war-zone, Tivoli was a war-zone, it is regret­table when any inno­cent per­son los­es his/​her life, some­times it is unavoid­able. I under­stand full well the sit­u­a­tion many res­i­dents faced that fate­ful day, do I leave and may nev­er be per­mit­ted to return, brand­ed an informer, or do I tough it out? After all they are sur­vivors, the police was nev­er able to do their jobs there, they were always ruled by one don or anoth­er, why would this time be any different.

However ‚some of us who have been on the front lines have long known that mer­ce­nar­ies in that com­mu­ni­ty use urban mil­i­tary tac­tics to fight and retrieve weapons dropped by fall­en com­rades . This tac­tic is made pos­si­ble by lay­ing down a sus­tained sheet of auto­mat­ic fire while they retrieve the weapons, leav­ing the police to explain the dead bod­ies. Then they bring out the women to mourn. This is now an effec­tive tool of Jamaica’s crim­i­nal underworld.

They under­stood the impor­tance of win­ning the pro­pa­gan­da war. Coke’s let­ter pur­port­ed­ly to the com­mu­ni­ty, was one more attempt at that charm offensive.

The gullible Mattathias Schwartz is noth­ing more than one more pawn to that end.

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TIVOLI GARDENS REVISITED:

officers braving the bullets daily
offi­cers brav­ing the bul­lets daily

Armed mer­ce­nar­ies erect bar­ri­cades to an entry point into Tivoli Gardens as they pre­pared for war against the Jamaican State in 2010.

This coun­try we know as Jamaica, some of us love, some claim to love, is fast descend­ing into a cesspool which will only attract the worst types of crim­i­nals, if we do not put a stop to it now.

Decent peo­ple are already shun­ning our beloved coun­try because of what’s hap­pen­ing there, we are fast-track­ing to becom­ing anoth­er sub-Saharan hell-hole.
Why is the National empha­sis on what is alleged­ly done by mem­bers of the Military, most of which are like­ly dis­tor­tions and dis­trac­tions ? (NOT argu­ing there should be no accountability).!!!
The National con­sen­sus must expo­nen­tial­ly be cen­tered on find­ing out how a com­mu­ni­ty got to what Tivoli Gardens mat­estacised into.

More impor­tant­ly, how could a local crim­i­nal become so pow­er­ful, that he was vir­tu­al­ly untouch­able locally.
Why the hell are we re-writ­ing history ?

Hannah Town Police stationed burned to the ground by Jamaica's urban terrorists
Hannah Town Police sta­tioned burned to the ground by Jamaica’s urban terrorists

Police sta­tion burns:

The Office of Public Defender has final­ly released the long await­ed Report, of what exact­ly tran­spired in the West Kingston Community of Tivoli Gardens in 2010. This has revived a vibrant debate on the issue, most of which so far has been in my esti­ma­tion fright­en­ing­ly mis­guid­ed and unpatriotic.

Someone not con­ver­sant with what led up to the Jamaican State annex­ing Tivoli Gardens to the rest of the coun­try, could seri­ous­ly walk away believ­ing that the peo­ple are seek­ing com­pen­sa­tion from a for­eign gov­ern­ment which ille­gal­ly invad­ed their enclave.

Bullet rid­dled police station:

The truth of the mat­ter is, since it’s incep­tion Tivoli Gardens has long enjoyed a type of favored sta­tus, one that is un-earned, but which has been bestowed on it nonethe­less ‚much like the fabled old­er sis­ters in the Cinderella story.

Tivoli Gardens, the brain-child of it’s patron Edward Seaga, for­mer Prime Minister and peren­ni­al mem­ber of Parliament, had a split per­son­al­i­ty. At best it was a great exam­ple of com­mu­ni­ty, a great com­mu­ni­ty clin­ic, my old­est son was born in that very clin­ic. A great Comprehensive High School, and oth­er social ameni­ties. Tivoli Gardens was ground zero for cul­ture and sports, much to the delight of Seaga who saw his efforts at social engi­neer­ing sim­i­lar to a par­ent child relationship.

Darling street police station destroyed by urban terrorists we know what happened we don't need anyone telling us what occurred.....
Darling street police sta­tion destroyed by urban ter­ror­ists
we know what hap­pened we don’t need any­one telling us what occurred.….

Darling Street Police Station destroyed:

But like a dot­ing par­ent Seaga failed to heed the prob­lems ema­nat­ing from that com­mu­ni­ty, much like a par­ent ignor­ing and deny­ing the wrongs been done by his teenag­er. Many argue that Seaga more than ignored those prob­lems, he was the cre­ator of those problems.

The Don cul­ture which evolved from the Tivoli com­mu­ni­ty mod­el, is now pos­ing an exis­ten­tial threat to the social order of Jamaica as we knew it. Seaga fun­da­men­tal­ly believed in the social mod­el he cre­at­ed, which was one of a hier­ar­chi­cal struc­ture with him at the polit­i­cal zenith. He also cre­at­ed the space for a Don or so-called(com­mu­ni­ty leader) who saw to the day to day affairs of the community.

This com­mu­ni­ty leader han­dled the affairs of the com­mu­ni­ty, the prob­lem with this how­ev­er is that it removed Tivoli from the sphere of influ­ence of the broad­er Jamaican soci­ety. This includes the abil­i­ty of the Police to arrest felons who take up res­i­dence there after they had com­mit­ted egre­gious crimes in oth­er parts of the country.

Seaga famous­ly asked years ago , quote: “What was Adams doing in Tivoli Gardens”? in ref­er­ence to then leader of the crime man­age­ment unit going into the com­mu­ni­ty to appre­hend want­ed men. Seaga unwit­ting­ly gave a peek into how he real­ly saw the com­mu­ni­ty, appar­ent­ly as his fief­dom not sub­ject to the reach or dic­tates of the rule of law.

As a boy grow­ing up in Saint Catherine, I was a fan of Tivoli Gardens, I saw that com­mu­ni­ty as a nec­es­sary counter-bal­ance to the con­fla­gra­tion of PNP gar­risons which had lit­er­al­ly sprung up every­where in the Kingston and Saint Andrew met­ro­pol­i­tan area. Years lat­er I changed my mind­set when as part of a Special Police unit from the Mobile Reserve I took sus­tained auto­mat­ic fire from that com­mu­ni­ty at the Denham Town Police Station, hun­kered down and ordered by the Superintendent not to return fire.

When the fir­ing ceased a police truck parked in front of the sta­tion was destroyed, bul­let holes pot-marked the walls of the sta­tion, where panes of glass exist­ed min­utes ear­li­er shards of shat­tered glass told a jagged tale of hor­ror. No one was ever held respon­si­ble. The prob­lem with what hap­pened that day is this, it hap­pened sim­ply because one boot-lick­ing, lap-dog Superintendent had his nose too far up Seaga’s ass to get out of our way, or was too much of a cow­ard to get out-of-the-way and let us do our jobs. My per­cep­tion of the JCF changed that day, it has­n’t improved since.

How could that com­mu­ni­ty not take on a brazen don’t care atti­tude of being untouchable?

The group of Ranger Squad mem­bers, of which I was a part, were more than capa­ble of han­dling those scum­bags that day. We were ide­al­ists who would have made the ulti­mate sac­ri­fice for the Jamaican state. Politics drove a nail in the cof­fin of the Jamaican state on that day.

In any coun­try where the rule of law is usurped, the empha­sis lat­er is gen­er­al­ly to make sure that those opposed to the nat­ur­al order are dealt with quick­ly and deci­sive­ly. This is true even in states that does not nec­es­sar­i­ly adhere to demo­c­ra­t­ic norms.

In Jamaica today, the con­ver­sa­tion is cen­tered around com­pen­sa­tion for res­i­dents of Tivoli Gardens. From the bull-shit report com­ing out of Witter’s office, to the par­lia­ment, to the reg­u­lar vil­lage lawyer, the argu­ment is about appor­tion­ing blame to the foot sol­diers of the secu­ri­ty forces who went in and restored san­i­ty to that vol­canic situation.

In most coun­tries those mem­bers of the secu­ri­ty forces would have received com­men­da­tions and have acco­lades heaped on them. In Jamaica the out­ra­geous sen­ti­ment is that a com­mis­sion of inquiry must now be con­vened to dig fur­ther to see what ille­gal act was com­mit­ted by those brave mem­bers of the secu­ri­ty forces, (if any) in what was a the­ater of war.

If you are final­ly appalled and out­raged you should be, this is in addi­tion to the wast­ed $76.098-million which has been allo­cat­ed to Witter’s office for this year. For that mon­ey, tax-pay­ers received a report call­ing for a com­mis­sion of inquiry, and yes that the peo­ple in Tivoli Gardens should be paid handsomely.

You ask what they should be paid for ? Your guess is as good as mine.

Jamaica just secured anoth­er loan from the International Monetary Fund, this mon­ey though nec­es­sary for the short term, will be part­ly respon­si­ble for dev­as­tat­ing con­se­quences to the coun­try’s attempt at sol­ven­cy in the future.

This will add to the coun­try’s bur­geon­ing debt cri­sis. Working police offi­cers, nurs­es teach­ers , fire­men and oth­ers, who apply to the National Housing Trust for mort­gages are turned down, years ago I was one of them. The Jamaican Prime Minister recent­ly announced a plan to build hous­ing units for urban dwellers, to peo­ple famil­iar with Jamaica, these are peo­ple who are unable finan­cial­ly to pay for those homes. They are polit­i­cal hand­outs for votes.

In effect, it is a dis­gust­ing­ly cyn­i­cal attempt at vote buy­ing, while work­ing pro­fes­sion­als are turned away , unem­ployed peo­ple will be housed at no cost to them­selves. If you ever won­dered why Jamaica is the way it is you should digest what you just read here today.

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MANY WOULD DO THE SAME :

Volunteer offer: ‘We’ll take back Jamaica’

FEBRUARY 011

Published: Tuesday | December 9, 2008

The Editor, Sir:An arti­cle appeared in the online edi­tion of The Star on December 8, which, I thought, removed all doubts from the minds of any per­son of sound mind and judge­ment about who is in charge in Jamaica — the gun­men, ter­ror­ists and thugs.Gone is any sem­blance of con­trol, at least on the part of the secu­ri­ty forces. The arti­cle of which I speak is the police-super­vised mass exo­dus of law-abid­ing home­own­ers and oth­er res­i­dents of Gravel Heights, St Catherine, after they were ordered to leave because they com­mit­ted the car­di­nal sin of being ‘inform­ers’ ( they spoke to the police).

Chilling mes­sage

This pur­port­ed action led to a raid in the com­mu­ni­ty by the secu­ri­ty forces and, of course, all the police did was to pro­vide secu­ri­ty for the exo­dus of the peo­ple. The chill­ing mes­sage this sends to the rest of the crim­i­nal ele­ments is this is the way to go; pret­ty soon law-abid­ing res­i­dents of Jamaica will be extinct. So, I have a pro­pos­al for the Government. I am a for­mer cop and am will­ing to drop every­thing I have to do and come down there with oth­er like-mind­ed for­mer cops. We would oper­ate under the law but with no polit­i­cal inter­fer­ence, and no mouthing from human-rights spokesper­sons. And I assure the peo­ple of Jamaica we will take back our coun­try, street by street. We did it before, we will do it again.We fear no one, no don.

Mr Prime Minister, the time for talk is over, soon you will be con­fined to just uptown Kingston as the secu­ri­ty forces will not be able to go any­where in this small coun­try. We will oper­ate under the law, but want no inter­fer­ence, or man­age­ment from any­one in the Government or secu­ri­ty forces. That’s my offer.

I am, etc.,

mb

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THIS IS AS RELEVANT TODAY AS IT WAS 3 YRS AGO:

LETTER OF THE DAY — JCF Refuses To Reform

Published: Wednesday | September 1, 20105 Comments

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THE EDITOR, Sir :

The heirachy of the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF) has nev­er been recep­tive to new ideas, nei­ther to lis­ten to them nor to imple­ment them. The evi­dence of this is the high attri­tion rate from the agency, yours tru­ly being one that decid­ed to leave.

Our coun­try con­tin­ues to strug­gle with a police depart­ment that though scru­ti­nized and held up to ridicule many, refus­es to get it.

Members of the JCF, on a con­sis­tent basis, have con­tin­ued to engage in activ­i­ties that make even some­one like me, one of their most ardent sup­port­ers, cringe.

The Police Academy, in light of these occur­rences, should seek to revamp its cur­ricu­lum as it is clear it does not work. There are ample exam­ples where it is absolute­ly clear that offi­cers, young and old, are mak­ing crit­i­cal mis­takes that mush­room out of con­trol to the detri­ment of all involved, includ­ing the taxpayers.

Latest inci­dent

I speak of the Buckfield, St Ann, inci­dent, as well as the lat­est inci­dent where a young offi­cer was shot and killed, alleged­ly by his colleagues.

There has always been sim­ple safe­guards that elim­i­nate any oppor­tu­ni­ty for the occur­rence of either of these two inci­dents. Police offi­cers are duty-bound, once they have arrest­ed some­one ‚to ensure that pris­on­er’s safe trans­porta­tion to a jail. The State through its agents, must ensure the safe­ty of pris­on­ers for the dura­tion of their incarceration.

Had the offi­cers involved in the Buckfield shoot­ing, two or three of them, got down on the ground and sub­dued that alleged mur­der­er, prop­er­ly hand­cuffed and removed him from the scene in a pro­fes­sion­al man­ner, the accused would be alive, and they would not be fac­ing mur­der charges.

Had the offi­cers, once they arrest­ed their col­league, prop­er­ly adhered to inter­na­tion­al polic­ing pro­to­cols and placed him in hand­cuffs, as well as prop­er­ly secured the weapon seized from him, we would not be hav­ing this discussion.

Surrendering con­trol

The cop on motor­ized patrol who decides to pull a motorist over, with two, three, or even more occu­pants, then makes the grave mis­take of order­ing all occu­pants to exit the car, places him­self, his part­ner, as well as all occu­pants of the car in har­m’s way, he just gave up con­trol of the situation.

This lack of fol­low­ing prop­er pro­ce­dure falls on the mid­dle man­agers of the JCF, they do not ensure that offi­cers going out on patrol have their batons, hand­cuffs, flash­lights, pep­per spray, and oth­er non-lethal tools that are now in their arse­nal. In addi­tion, super­vi­sors must vis­it younger police per­son­nel on patrol to ensure that pro­ce­dures are being observed. Only then will we begin to see a decrease in these incidents.

Mr. Beckles, I find your pre­sen­ta­tion inter­est­ing; how­ev­er, you seem unaware of the fact that closed-mind­ed­ness is ram­pant in Jamaica. If a leaf is declared to green, not many of us would agree that the same leaf has the poten­tial to become brown tomor­row. Very dis­ci­plined, intel­li­gent mem­bers of the Force do expe­ri­ence a cer­tain degree of resent­ment from their col­leagues, but that is not unique. That is a com­mon cry.

  • I should also point out that I dis­agree with your per­spec­tive on the appro­pri­ate pro­ce­dure in bring­ing the accused to jus­tice. If the firearm was takewn from him with­out any phys­i­cal or ver­bal resis­tance, and there was no pos­si­bil­i­ty of re-offend­ing, and, assum­ing that he could be found, he should have been sum­moned. There are strick rules in the use of hand­cuffs, I am told.

    The same pro­ce­dure is applic­a­ble for civil­ian offend­ers, if they are unlike­ly to re-offend, do not have a fix placed of abode or unlike­ly to turn up in court.

    Arrests, accord­ing to a cer­tain source, should be a last resort.

    • Avatar
      mike beck­les  Marcus Garvey ll • 3 years ago

      Sir I am a for­mer trained Police Officer and a for­mer Detective of the JCF I also suc­cess­ful­ly passed their accel­er­at­ed Promotional exam­i­na­tion, I aced all the exams I sat for pro­mo­tion for the dura­tion of the time I spent in the Department so I think I know some­thing about how an arrest is to be effected.
      It is not a dis­cre­tionary thing to reduce/​eliminate occur­rences of this nature every­one being arrest­ed must be placed in hand­cuffs, this is inter­na­tion­al police pro­to­col, it is this men­tal­i­ty of Jamaicans,to give a bly,this one won’t resist, or run away or grab a gun , to remove any doubt, every­one must be hand­cuffed in order to elim­i­nate those possibilities.
      Sorry sir I am not told, that is the way it should be done, it is issued for arrests, period.

  • Avatar
    Carla • 3 years ago

    This is so true, and well said. I do hope JCF lead­ers read it.

  • Avatar
    Midtowner • 3 years ago

    Haven’t you ever inter­act­ed with police­men? Have you lis­tened to their spokes­men at the scenes of crimes. Seriously, don’t they sound “mis-edu­cat­ed” to you? Do they do intel­li­gent things on the road? I am not say­ing that there aren’t intel­li­gent ones but I have rarely had any encounter with one of them. Anyway most of them appear lazy and distracted.

  • Avatar
    Rick Berns • 3 years ago

    LETTER OF THE DAY — JCF refus­es to reform
    My col­league, I fail to see, based on your argug­ment, what is wrong with police train­ing. To my cer­tain knowl­edge, all these pro­ce­dures are taught at the police train­ing school now, and has always been taught.

    I do agre with the rest; poor man­age­ment and super­vi­sion of offi­cers on duty.

    Rick

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AN AFFRONT TO PEOPLE’S INTELLECT:

The long await­ed and much over-due report on the Tivoli Grades oper­a­tion has final­ly been tabled in the Jamaican Parliament. This report was long await­ed but for rea­sons unknown to us has being delayed time and again.

Earl Witter: Public defender.

This is the biggest task that Public Defender Earl Witter has been giv­en since this new Agency was cre­at­ed. That office was allo­cat­ed $76.098-million as against $76.56 mil­lion last year.
We have long main­tained that this office is a colos­sal waste of mon­ey, it is a dupli­ca­tion of efforts, mon­ey squan­dered in this ven­ture could be bet­ter spent updat­ing the office of Director of Public Prosecution.

In plain Jamaican ver­nac­u­lar, it is a (eat a food posi­tion), it was cre­at­ed to give jobs to polit­i­cal hacks who can­not cut it in the real world. The Ministry of Justice ought to look to dis­pens­ing jus­tice on behalf of the Jamaican peo­ple, not anoth­er body.

Earl Witter is a long time crim­i­nal defense attor­ney, he has been mediocre at best through­out his car­rear, he has been tasked with run­ning this new Agency. The demand for a com­mis­sion of inquiry into what hap­pened in Tivoli Gardens by Jamaica’s pre­ten­tious Elitists in 2010 fell to Witter’s office.

For the record he was asked to inves­ti­gate in a fair and dis­pas­sion­ate way, what occurred in the Garrison West Kingston com­mu­ni­ty of Tivoli Gardens in 2010. Tivoli Gardens is the for­mer strong-hold of reput­ed con­vict­ed Gun ‑run­ning drug deal­er Christopher Coke who is doing time in a Florida Federal facility.

Of course, Witter has long held anti police views, he has know­ing­ly asso­ci­at­ed him­self with known anti-police antag­o­nist and crim­i­nal-rights group (JFJ) head, Carolyn Gomes.

Witter shares the view, as does Gomes,that all instances of police shoot­ings are ille­git­i­mate, because not enough Jamaican cops are get­ting killed.

One can­not make these things up, these are facts hap­pen­ing in Jamaica. Many peo­ple naive­ly believe that Jamaica is a par­adise Island nation, con­form­ing with International stan­dards, mov­ing for­ward as a devel­op­ing nation behold­ing to the rule of law.

I have not read the report in a com­pre­hen­sive way, most of what’s con­tained in it from my cur­so­ry glance could have been gleaned from any man on the streets. Apart from instances of legalese jar­gon it’s noth­ing more than a run­ning nar­ra­tive of what happened,opinions, and con­jec­ture, and some imper­ti­nent false­hoods and assumptions.

This report will do noth­ing to alle­vi­ate any ill which may have occurred, real or pre­cieved. It glo­ri­fies and gives rev­er­ence to degen­er­ate gun­men and trans-nation­al crim­i­nals, rather than expound on the virtues of adher­ing to and build­ing on a foun­da­tion of the rule of law.

THE JAMAICAN PEOPLE DID NOT NEED THIS REPORT, IT DOES NOTHING TO MOVE THE DEBATE FORWARD, IT DOES NOTHING BUT CREATE VICTIM-HOOD IN THE MINDS OF SOME, WHO ARE NOW DEMANDING MILLIONS OF DOLLARS IN COMPENSATION. IN OTHER WORDS EXTORTION.

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WHAT OF HETERO-SEXUAL RIGHTS?

I am tired of hearing and seeing people persecuted and maligned for standing on their principles.Never buy into the lies and distortions which says your fundamental faith-based principles are wrong, or that new alien acceptances are right and you should bow down to them.

I don’t care how many Kings and Emperors, Senators and Congress-men and Women say something, if I do not believe it, I won’t accept it.

So President Obama is push­ing a gay agen­da, that’s his busi­ness, I refuse to accept an alien phi­los­o­phy sim­ply because some­one in high office sanc­tions it. If the President believes so strong­ly in fun­da­men­tal Human Rights for all, why does he not cham­pi­on the right of all Americans and all peo­ple on earth, who are opposed to Sodomy to stand on the foun­da­tions of their beliefs and not capit­u­late to the tor­ren­tial avalanche of deviant con­tem­po­rary counter-culture?

Think about this, les­bian, gay, and trans-gen­der prac­tion­ers come out open­ly about their pref­er­ences at their leisure, when they do they are cel­e­brat­ed and hailed as heroes,what makes them heroes, who both­ers them?

Congress and state leg­is­la­tures pass laws to pro­tect them, why is it that they are so vehe­ment­ly opposed to oth­er peo­ple exer­cis­ing their right of descent? Why should the rights of Gays be guar­an­teed at the expense of my right to say,” no thanks to your deviant behav­ior” Who is intol­er­ant here?

Washington Wizard pro-bas­ket-ball play­er Jason Collins comes out and tells the world he is gay, he is cel­e­brat­ed as a hero, he is on the cov­er of Sport’s Illustrated, he received a phone call from the President of the United States., Collins is all over the tele­vi­sion cir­cuit. Good for him.

If this guy likes to have sex with men in their rec­tum or receives a penis in his rec­tum that’s his busi­ness. Did any of you ever hear that Millionaire ath­lete Jason Collins was being per­se­cut­ed because he was sus­pect­ed of being gay?.….….….….……

Me nei­ther !

Miami Dolphins wide receiv­er Mike Wallace tweet­ed, “all these beau­ti­ful women in the world and guys wan­na mess with oth­er guys. ‘Shaking my head’.“Wallace lat­er removed the tweet and apologized.

Why did you remove your tweet Mike?Did the Organization which write your checks make you do it? If they did what about your right to free speech?

Everyone rushed to the defense of the counter cul­ture degen­er­ate behav­ior , while many in the élite media was all over Mike Wallace exco­ri­at­ing him for being stu­pid, out of touch, moron­ic, and every deroga­to­ry adjec­tive they could hurl at him. The NBA as well as Dolphins Executives were falling over them­selves to say how proud they are of Collins.

Well let me say my piece, those who believe and engage in the pri­mal hedo­nis­tic and dis­gust­ing prac­tice of homo­sex­u­al­i­ty are free to do so. I, on the oth­er hand seri­ous­ly reserves the right to stand on the chris­t­ian prin­ci­ples indeli­bly bur­nished into my con­scious­ness from my for­ma­tive child­hood years.

I will not sur­ren­der them on the altar of being part of the in crowd. The demon­ic forces of Hedonistic and Sodomite indul­gence may cru­ci­fy me, but I will stand on my prin­ci­pled belief that mar­riage is between one man and one woman. I stand on the belief that Homosexuality is devian­cy and an abom­i­na­tion to God Almighty. The Bible says so and I believe it.

No Gay, Lesbian or trans­gen­der per­son has any­thing to fear from me, nei­ther psy­chi­cal­ly or oth­er­wise, but nei­ther will I fear ret­ri­bu­tion from them because I do not acknowl­edge their indul­gences as nor­mal and moral. They have a right to live their lifestyle, I will live mine my way, they don’t have to accept mine because I damn well do not accept theirs.

I am pre­pared for the abuse and invec­tive which will be hurled my way , I’m hap­py that those who do will exact­ly be mak­ing my point. The Bible did say this time would come, it is here, those who have eyes to see let them see, those who have ears to hear let them hear, worse per­se­cu­tion is com­ing for those who dare stand opposed to the dark forces of Sodom and Gomorrah.

We will not be able to work or par­tic­i­pate in any area of dai­ly life, I’m ready for them to per­se­cute me for stand­ing on the pil­lars of right­eous­ness and fideli­ty to principles.

Are you.

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YOUR GOVERNMENT WORKING FOR YOU !

Have you ever won­dered how your tax dol­lars are spent in on your behalf in America? Are you some­one who do not depend on Government for hand-outs?

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Here’s one way !

Last Friday evening my wife called me late in the evening I was close to going home from work , which I always do at 8.pm when pos­si­ble. She said ” Babe I just want you to know Bud dis­ap­peared and the police has him we won’t get him back until tomorrow”.

I was stunned, Bud is a black Lab we acquired, he is still young, not yet a year old, even though his size belies his age. This lit­tle pup­py had wormed his way into our hearts from day one. On the day we went to pick up a pup­py from the lit­ter, he latched onto me, tug­ging at my sneak­er laces, he did­n’t stop until the entire lit­ter joined in, they had me encir­cled while they all tugged at my laces and the legs of my sweat pants. My wife had her heart set on anoth­er pup­py with brown mark­ings but Bud’s tenac­i­ty forced her to change her mind, Bud decid­ed he was going to be a part of our fam­i­ly. My wife was duti­ful with every require­ment to own­ing a dog in the Town of Poughkeepsie, stuff I was­n’t even con­ver­sant with, she did and she made sure she dot­ted all the “I’ ”s and crossed all the “T“ ‘s .

On my arrival home she told me Bud went out­side with our sons and dis­ap­peared, she called but he did not respond, she drove around the neigh­bor­hood but there was no sign of him. So she decid­ed to call the Town of Poughkeepsie Police. They con­firmed that some­one had called that there was a strange dog in their back-yard, and an offi­cer had respond­ed and retrieved our dog, but we would not be able to pick him up until the next day which was Saturday April 27th.

This is what res­i­dents pay for !

We were dis­traught we fig­ured he must be ter­ri­fied , he had nev­er been away from us in his short life, we were par­tic­u­lar­ly wor­ried for him espe­cial­ly in light of how he was removed by the cops. We set­tled into Friday night with res­ig­na­tion that it was out of our hands. They said we could pick up our dog on Saturday, pay what­ev­er fees we were required to pay and so we pre­pared for that.

We did not sleep much Friday night, per­son­al­ly I did not know that I could care so much about a dog. Lets face it we Jamaicans are not nec­es­sar­i­ly all love-dovey with dogs.

We were told by the Police that the ani­mal war­den would be in at sev­en on Saturday, so duti­ful­ly Saturday morn­ing my wife called to say we would be head­ing down to the precinct to col­lect our dog, or so we thought.

Well not so fast Sargent Wagner told her that was­n’t going to hap­pen, the war­den would not be com­ing in until Monday April 29th, so Bud would have to stay in their cus­tody for the week­end. You thought that was hor­rif­ic for that young dog? Well it gets worse we would have to pay for the days that the dog was held by them, despite it is their war­den who decid­ed she would­n’t come in on the weekend.

That pret­ty much decid­ed the qual­i­ty of my week-end, Monday morn­ing we gath­ered up every­thing, leash and all of Bud’s paper­work and went to the Town of Poughkeepsie Police to col­lect our dog, of course Sargent Wagner was on duty again, yup ! a Sargent mans the front desk, I will have to research how much they receive from us the bilked tax­pay­ers. Wagner told us we would­n’t be get­ting our dog because the war­den had called in sick, so it was now Tuesday before we get our dog. Normally I am volatile and my wife is calm, I real­ized that my wife a nice sweet woman was on the verge, so I secret­ly begged her not to give them the sat­is­fac­tion. I decid­ed we were not going to be treat­ed the way Police in America treats black peo­ple, and nei­ther would we do what they expect us to do.

So Wagner brought out anoth­er Sargent to tell us pret­ty much what he had just told us, so now it’s two Sargents just to release our dog to us. This Jicha fel­low was pret­ty much the schmuck that Wagner was, just a lit­tle more rep­re­hen­si­ble. We had heard enough, I called a Lawyer friend of mine, but we decid­ed to make one more stop before head­ing to his office. We wait­ed at the offices of the Town Supervisor for a lit­tle until he arrived for work. Supervisor Tancredi invit­ed us into his office , he was very cor­dial, respon­sive and under­stand­ing, we wait­ed as he tried to call the Police Chief, no answer. He tried get­ting one of the Captains , none answered their phones. So he was left with Wagner at the front desk. Supervisor Tancredi seemed vis­i­bly embar­rassed that at min­utes to 9 :am there was no way of reach­ing the top tier of law enforce­ment in the Town, I whis­pered to my wife “what if there is a seri­ous emer­gency which requires their pres­ence and direc­tion”? Mister Tancredi took my wife’s num­ber and promised to get back to us, I went to work. Wagner called and told my wife that Bud could be picked up at an ani­mal Hospital, Todd Tancredi had done his job. Wagner told my wife we would be required to pay over $270.00 in fees in order to retrieve our dog. My wife went to the Town Clerk’s office to pay the fees, the clerk had no paper-work from nei­ther Wagner or Jicha, she cal­cu­lat­ed the fees which amount­ed to $254.oo.

Wagner and Jicha could­n’t even com­pute the fees correctly.

♦ Board $72.00.

♦ Shots $107.oo (dog has all it’s shots none was needed).

♦ Seizure $75.00 (despite the salary we pay the cops we have to pay again for them to actu­al­ly do what we already paid for).

♦ Total $254.00.

Our prop­er­ty and school tax­es for the Town of Poughkeepsie is a cou­ple hun­dred dol­lars less than $10’000 annu­al­ly, the only ser­vice the Police Department in our Town offers to res­i­dents oth­er than hid­ing in bush­es to write tick­ets is bad attitude.

So we took our dog home , thank God he seem ok , prob­lem solved right? Well not so fast, of course Tuesday morn­ing the war­den showed up for work and of course she called my wife , it is auto­mat­ic that despite being extort­ed and fleeced of $254 , the Town was not fin­ished, we would be issued with two tick­ets, I mean why not more Money right? She explained the tick­ets were manda­to­ry when a dog was impounded.

On her arrival at our home I asked her how much more we would be fleeced with these two tick­ets? She explained ‚at least anoth­er cou­ple of hun­dred dol­lars, and of course court costs. Welcome to Government gone amok. If you ever believed Government worked for you, if you ever believed any­thing was about your inter­est when politi­cians tell you they want to hire more cops and oth­er gov­ern­ment work­ers, get your head examined.

I had long held that Government did not work for peo­ple, peo­ple worked for gov­ern­ment, an unnat­ur­al phe­nom­e­non to begin with. As bad as these pub­lic ser­vice work­ers are the police in these lit­tle towns are the worse. The only bright spot in all of this was Town Supervisor Todd Tancredi who called Tuesday and spoke to my wife, he want­ed to know whether Bud was adjust­ing well to being back home where he belong. It’s not often that I have any­thing pos­i­tive to say about Government or those who work in Government, many could not func­tion in the pri­vate sec­tor or on their own. Todd Tancredi is not one of them. Our thanks to mis­ter Tancredi for serv­ing the inter­est of the peo­ple who put him in office.

Town of Poughkeepsie cops all dri­ve around in brand new cruis­ers, with full trap­pings, they are paid very well, crime in the town are rel­e­gat­ed to a few shop-lift­ing in the malls along the route 9 cor­ri­dor. You will get tick­et­ed for dri­ving 20 miles per hour on some roads, I kid you not, the speed lim­it is 15 miles per hour in places. No there are no schools in these zones, it is designed to tax you more.

As if that was­n’t overkill, the Sheriff’s depart­ment and State Police all over­lap in the tick­et writ­ing bonan­za. Just don’t expect much if you have a real prob­lem which requires their help.

Continue read­ing →

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RM PUSEY SHOULD BE REMOVED FROM THIS CASE NOW:

Kern Omar Spencer, MP (born 21 June 1974 in St. Elizabeth, Jamaica) is a Jamaican politi­cian. A mem­ber of the People’s National Party, Mr. Spencer served as Member of Parliament (MP) for St. Elizabeth North Eastern from 2007 to 2011.

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Kern Spencer. And his assis­tant Coleen Wright.

While a state min­is­ter in the ener­gy min­istry in the pre­vi­ous gov­ern­ment led by the PNP, Spencer was placed in charge of an ener­gy-sav­ing project. The project involved the dis­tri­b­u­tion of four mil­lion free Cuban light bulbs island-wide. The project was imple­ment­ed in July 2006.[3] Allegations of irreg­u­lar­i­ties in the project were lev­eled against Spencer in Parliament in November 2007 by then Energy Minister Clive Mullings, who asked the audi­tor-gen­er­al and the con­trac­tor-gen­er­al to probe the mat­ter [3] Clive Mullings, told Parliament that $114 mil­lion was improp­er­ly spent on the dis­tri­b­u­tion of four mil­lion ener­gy-sav­ing light bulbs donat­ed by the Cuban Government to the peo­ple of Jamaica.[4]wikipedia.

The Court of Appeal upheld a Supreme Court rul­ing that Senior Resident Magistrate Judith Pusey does not have the pow­er to sub­poe­na Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Paula Llewelyn as a wit­ness in the tri­al. Pusey, who is pre­sid­ing over the tri­al, had chal­lenged the Supreme Court rul­ing.(jamaica​glean​er​.com)

Let me be clear about one thing, irre­spec­tive of my per­son­al dis­like for politi­cians, and my per­son­al feel­ings as to what hap­pened in this case, the accused, Kern Spencer must be giv­en due process. He must be pre­sumed inno­cent until proven guilty by a court of law.

All fair mind­ed Jamaicans want in this mat­ter is that jus­tice be done. I have no infor­ma­tion about the guilt or inno­cence of the accused, so I am thrilled that the high court has now cleared the way for the tri­al to go ahead.

From the begin­ning that this case came to the nation’s atten­tion I opined in these blogs and wher­ev­er else my views are allowed, that there would be mas­sive stone-walling which would see this case delayed and delayed until it is tossed from the cal­en­dar for want of prosecution.

There is prece­dent which sup­ports my cyn­i­cism, the pow­er­ful and well con­nect­ed in Jamaica sim­ply do not get con­vict­ed in a court of law or gets sent to prison. Despite mas­sive cor­rup­tion , graft , and acts of thiev­ery which per­me­ates Jamaica’s polit­i­cal system,I stand to be cor­rect­ed but to the best of my rec­ol­lec­tion there has only been one politi­cian ever con­vict­ed and sent to prison. That was for­mer labor Minister in the JLP ‚JAG Smith, (now deceased).

We don’t know what will hap­pen in this case, Spencer and the PNP can afford to pay some pret­ty com­pe­tent defense coun­sel, which is nev­er in short sup­ply in Jamaica. In fact I thought that like so many oth­er cas­es involv­ing the con­nect­ed, defense coun­sel would be able to use the laws to Spencer“s advan­tage to pre­vent a tri­al. When the loop-holes in the penal code are con­sid­ered , shod­dy police work, added to poor prepa­ra­tion and just bad pros­e­cu­tion, it’s a won­der any­one gets con­vict­ed for crimes in Jamaica.

Even when there are con­vic­tions they gen­er­al­ly gets over­turned on appeal.

I nev­er imag­ined that the stone-walling would come from the Bench. 

From the incep­tion of this medi­um, I have report­ed and com­ment­ed on the judi­cial activism of Judith Pusey. Case after case, com­ment after com­ment she has over­stepped the nor­mal deco­rum of judi­cial restraint. This per­for­mance how­ev­er takes the cake. There are not many instances if any, where a Magistrate has so inject­ed her/​himself into a case, that defense coun­sel did not need to get involved. The Magistrate appoint­ed her­self default-defense coun­sel for Kern Spencer.

She picked a fight with the Director of Public Prosecution on her author­i­ty to decide who should be used as wit­ness, as against who should be the prin­ci­pal offend­er, she chal­lenged the evi­dence, she chal­lenged the way the evi­dence was col­lect­ed, and she used tax­pay­ers mon­ey to chal­lenge the DPP to the High Court.

As I said then, this Magistrate needs to be tak­en down a peg, her brand of activism is bet­ter suit­ed for defense coun­sel, she should do the hon­or­able thing and resign upon which she can join Spencer’s defense team. The Jamaica peo­ple can­not and will not get jus­tice in this case as long as Judith Pusey is allowed to hear this case.

It is incum­bent on the Chief Justice to remove her from this case now in the inter­est of Justice.Whether she did any­thing wrong is not impor­tant, Justice must not only be done it must seem to be done. Her actions before have been eye­brow rais­ing on instance, ques­tion­able on oth­ers, on this case her behav­ior has been disgraceful.

Our coun­try do not need Magistrates or Judges who see their role as that of crim­i­nal defend­er, it is about time that some com­pe­tent author­i­ty take a real close look at her. Justice can­not be hostage to a Resident Magistrate whose moti­va­tions are unclear.

Ok scratch that there is no com­pe­tent author­i­ty in Jamaica to do that, God help our lit­tle Island.

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DID COCAINE EVER LEAVE ?

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Cops in Jamaica have point­ed to what they char­ac­ter­ize as the re-emer­gence of cocaine com­ing from South America. They brag that they have smashed the Lotto scam and cites that as the rea­son cocaine is once again flood­ing the streets of the small car­ribean country.

Even as a sup­port­er of law enforce­ment in Jamaica I some­times have to shake my head in dis­be­lief at some of their utter­ances. First they con­tend­ed that they smashed the cocaine ring which result­ed in the lot­to rack­et, now they claim they smashed the lot­to scam so cocaine is back.

Ok, if you are con­fused you may not be alone, because none of this is true and nev­er will be true. Cocaine nev­er went any­where, and nei­ther will the lot­to scam or any oth­er crime which has the poten­tial to net the actors illic­it income.

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The Jamaican Police does not serve the inter­est of the pub­lic or itself as an Agency when it refuse to name the South American Country from which the major­i­ty of cocaine is flow­ing into Jamaica.

It dimin­ish­es what­ev­er lit­tle cred­i­bil­i­ty the Agency may still have left, if any. Much the same way it con­tin­ues not to name dirty crim­i­nals who are attached to either polit­i­cal par­ty when they com­mit crimes.

One of the most effec­tive crime fight­ing tools law enforce­ment has at it’s dis­pos­al is exact­ly the oppo­site of what the Jamaican police does with crim­i­nals, hid­ing their iden­ti­ty. All crim­i­nals must be arrest­ed with fan­fare and made to do what is called a perp-walk for the cam­eras. Shaming crim­i­nals must be exploit­ed for what it’s worth, par­tic­u­lar­ly in a coun­try which is lit­er­al­ly inun­dat­ed with crime and terror.

But of course it would be remiss of me to think that the cas­trat­ed lap-dog police force in Jamaica would be able to pull this off. Criminals are crim­i­nals, be they rogue states or peo­ple, whether it be Portia or Azan, Columbia or Panama, the peo­ple need to know that the laws apply to all.

I cau­tion and implore the JCF to stop being a car­toon Police Force and once and for all start learn­ing how to be a cred­i­ble law enforce­ment Agency. The first order of busi­ness is to stop mak­ing stu­pid and inane statements.

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Chris Gayle :ONE FOR THE HISTORY BOOKS.

Chris Gyle
Chris Gayle

Chris-Gyle
We cel­e­brate Chris Gayle in these blogs, Chris Gayle acknowl­edges the applause after scor­ing the fastest cen­tu­ry in his­to­ry, Royal Challengers Bangalore v Pune Warriors, IPL, Bangalore, April 23, 2013.

Chris Gayle
Chris Gayle

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PUBLIC SERVICE MY ASS:

Portia Simpson Miller Prime Minister and Richard Azan Jnr.Minister Works.

It’s rather dif­fi­cult to be nice when it comes to Jamaica’s Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller. It’s not just that she is igno­rant, she is also very arro­gant. That witch­es brew is a com­bustible and dan­ger­ous mix in the wrong hands. Miller has main­tained that she is await­ing the result of inves­ti­ga­tions in the mat­ter of alleged cor­rup­tion involv­ing Richard Azan, Junior Minister in the Ministry of Works. Allegations are that Azan in his capac­i­ty as mem­ber of Parliament for North West Clarendon abused his author­i­ty, con­trary to what he is legal­ly empow­ered, to give per­mis­sion for a private­ con­trac­tor to build shops on lands inside the refur­bished Spalding’s Market, with­out the approval of the local author­i­ty that owned the prop­er­ty. That’s not all, accord­ing to pub­lished reports , despite say­ing that he did noth­ing wrong the monies col­lect­ed from the stalls were being paid to Azan’s con­stituen­cy office. This is not hearsay, Azan and the Administration has now con­tend­ed that the monies have been hand­ed over to the Parish Council, once the sto­ry broke.

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Part of the new Spaldings Market in the Parish of Clarendon.

So by infer­ence irre­spec­tive of the crime one com­mits, resti­tu­tion absolves one of crim­i­nal cul­pa­bil­i­ty. The cor­rupt moral­ly bank­rupt Administration of Miller is a stain on the his­to­ry of Jamaica, yet she is con­vinced that despite the thiev­ery and destruc­tion of our coun­try she has made a pos­i­tive con­tri­bu­tion to Jamaica. Recently she was approached by jour­nal­ists who were not afraid to ask her ques­tions, she took umbrage and lied that a micro­phone actu­al­ly hit her in the mouth, this was lat­er proven to be a bald-faced lie. In her address at that event lat­er Miller pon­tif­i­cates about her decades of pub­lic ser­vice, as if some­how it insu­lates her from what­ev­er harm her and the admin­is­tra­tion inflicts on the coun­try. Maybe a micro­phone should in fact have struck her in the mouth, we would prob­a­bly have got­ten some truth from her lying lips. I would rather dis­agree with miller on the val­ue of her pub­lic service.

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The Coronation Market in Kingston, Jamaica“s cap­i­tal. Digicel image.

The truth is that oth­er than her per­son­al enrich­ment and grandiosity,the only thing her ser­vice has wrought is to make the entire coun­try like her con­stituen­cy of South West St. Andrew. That is pub­lic ser­vice Jamaica could cer­tain­ly do with­out. I would humbly sug­gest to the esteemed Prime Minister that she does not have to bear the frus­tra­tion of hav­ing to answer to pesky jour­nal­ists and tax-pay­ers, sim­ply refuse to give any­more of her­self to the nation and leave. 

Surely Miller feels she is above being ques­tioned on any issue, irre­spec­tive of the nature or mag­ni­tude of the con­tro­ver­sy sur­round­ing her and her par­ty, read­ers famil­iar with Jamaica and it’s prob­lems are aware of the long litany of cor­rup­tion and graft which are assigned to this par­ty and admin­is­tra­tion. Yet Miller is stuck in a Monarchistic time warp, seem­ing­ly believ­ing that she rules by decree. Or does she. I have always mar­veled that so many edu­cat­ed peo­ple could be fooled by one half baked idiot!

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THE DEATH PENALTY DOES WORK:

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Murder is the unlawful killing of a human being, by a human being, with malice afore- thought. It is contrary to common law. What that means is that it is a given, it doesn’t need to be legislated , you simply do not unlawfully take the life of another human being.

There are real­ly no absolutes in any­thing, there are always oth­er ways of doing things, we may not agree , but because we can­not see an alter­na­tive way of doing things does­n’t mean there is no oth­er way. The Death penal­ty is one such issue. There are strong opin­ions on both sides of the death penal­ty issue and it’s appli­ca­tion. In many coun­tries it has been out­lawed as a form of pun­ish­ment. Opponents argued suc­cess­ful­ly in those local­i­ties that it is cru­el and inhu­mane pun­ish­ment. Never mind that those to whom the death penal­ty is admin­is­tered, are deemed mur­der­ers who nev­er gave a thought to the cru­el inhu­mane treat­ment they were met­ing out to their victims.

Some argue it is inef­fec­tive as a deter­rent to mur­der and as such it should be abol­ished. Others argue the death penal­ty from religious/​moral per­spec­tives. They make the case that soci­ety should for­give. My con­tention about the moral/​religious argu­ments are as fol­lows. If we believe the Bible’s account of Jesus’ death on the cross, be remind­ed that two peo­ple were also exe­cut­ed with him. As far as the Bible’s account of that con­ver­sa­tion between Jesus and the two men are con­cerned, at least one of the men agreed that he deserved the pun­ish­ment met­ed out to him. Also be remind­ed Jesus in his mer­cy for­gave that man for his sins, he was still made to pay the price for his sins.

That man was a thief not a mur­der­er, yet he and the oth­er paid the ulti­mate price for the acts they com­mit­ted, with the guilt­less Savior. Jesus nev­er once rebuked the author­i­ties for admin­is­ter­ing the death penal­ty to the thieves , much less him­self an inno­cent man. The notion that Capital pun­ish­ment is not a deter­rent is ludi­crous at best and at worst can­not be proven by those who make those claims. People who kill and are found guilty, who have exceed­ed all of their appeals under the law, and are put to death, are deterred. As I have said before there are no sil­ver bul­lets to any prob­lem but for that one mur­der­er, soci­ety need not wor­ry anymore.

Of all the things which infu­ri­ates me about those who are anti-cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, noth­ing both­ers me more than their hyp­o­crit­i­cal silence on the issues of vic­tims rights. They pre­tend that the vic­tims nev­er exist­ed, or show bla­tant and dis­re­spect­ful dis­re­gard for the rights of the inno­cent, even as they lob­by for that of the guilty.

In Jamaica Authorities have accept­ed the notion, that putting beast­ly demon­ic crim­i­nals who kill mul­ti­ple peo­ple with­out com­punc­tion to death, is cru­el and inhu­mane treat­ment. They have accept­ed what many in the Industrialized devel­oped world does­n’t, that we should sim­ply for­give those demons. As such a free for all exists as it regards the tak­ing of human life, there is no fear of con­se­quence, be it impris­on­ment or death. Anti death penal­ty lob­by­ists are as much at risk as those peo­ple who are will­ing to see the law take it’s course in a just and prop­er way.

Jamaicans in the know, are aware that on the streets it is to one’s cred­it to claim how many peo­ple he has killed, in local ver­nac­u­lar(how much dup­py him mek). It is dis­gust­ing to hear fraud­u­lent Elitist make anti-death penal­ty argu­ments, when they live in coun­tries which embrace and use the death penal­ty as an effec­tive tool in the fight against seri­ous crime and terror.

Those who argue that the death penal­ty should not be used because of the risk of killing the inno­cent do so with some legit­i­ma­cy. There have been cas­es where the inno­cent have been put to death due to impro­pri­ety by law enforce­ment offi­cers and pros­e­cu­tors who reused to pay atten­tion to excul­pa­to­ry evi­dence for var­i­ous rea­sons to include race and oth­er con­sid­er­a­tions. The emer­gence of DNA evi­dence as a crime fight­ing tool has freed a con­sid­er­able amount of peo­ple wrong­ly convicted.

The con­clu­sive nature of DNA evi­dence also makes the case for the appli­ca­tion of the death penal­ty, even as it weeds out the inno­cent. Those opposed to cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment on the grounds that the inno­cent may be wrong­ly con­vict­ed, have no legit­i­mate quar­rel with the death penal­ty, their issue ought to be with unscrupu­lous cops and pros­e­cu­tors and tardy crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tems like the one which obtains in Jamaica.

You sim­ply do not throw out the baby with the bath-water, I urge the Jamaican Authorities to get on with the busi­ness of car­ry­ing out the will of the elec­torate and hang the cal­lous mur­der­ers on death row.

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WE KNOW HOW TO GET THE JOB DONE MINISTER BUNTING:

I have consistently said in these blogs that the present leadership in Jamaica will not be able to turn the country around, from the plague of serious crimes and poverty.

I have post­ed for your infor­ma­tion a speech giv­en by the coun­try’s National Security Minister Peter Bunting. I must con­grat­u­late Minister Bunting for the can­did elo­quence and heart-felt empa­thy which is inher­ent in his speech. I am not a fan of politi­cians and cer­tain­ly no fan of Bunting, but for this moment and this speech I do believe the Minister is being sin­cere. But in as much as Minister Bunting was being sin­cere, his speech gave a not often seen win­dow into the soul of how he and the Miller Administration feels at least on the sub­ject of crime. On this issue I am vin­di­cat­ed in my pro­nounce­ments that they do not have the answers , but I’m also fear­ful for the Jamaican peo­ple whose lead­er­ship is at their wit’s end on how to con­tain crime.

I would like to draw your atten­tion to this sen­tence I pulled from para­graph 3 of the Minister’s speech.

Quote: “However, I think that after 15 months I am con­vinced that the best efforts of the secu­ri­ty forces, by itself, will not solve the crime prob­lem in Jamaica.”

By this state­ment alone, the Minister revealed that they had no plan as an admin­is­tra­tion to curb, much less cure the crime epi­dem­ic, as I have sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly point­ed out.

I can­not write too much on this issue, my site admin­is­tra­tor tells me my blogs are too long wind­ed, but I just want to give the Minister a few point­ers. He may con­tact me for details.

(1) Tough uncom­pro­mis­ing leg­is­la­tion which puts crim­i­nals away for good, look at the American Rico Statue.

(2) Set per­for­mance stan­dards for all police Officers, to elim­i­nat­ing dead-wood cops from the depart­ment, start­ing with the Commissioner of Police down.

(3) Remove the Police Department from polit­i­cal con­trol. Create an effec­tive Police review board from civ­il soci­ety. Each mem­ber of that pan­el should have impec­ca­ble cre­den­tials, (as per crim­i­nal record), like that of police offi­cers. Panelist must be sup­port­ive of the rule of law and of the needs of law enforce­ment officers.

(4) Equip the Police with the tools they need to do their jobs.

(5) Divide the coun­try into grids, keep tight con­trol of each grid by posi­tion­ing offi­cers at strate­gic loca­tions in vehi­cles so they may respond to the needs of the cus­tomers , the Jamaican public.

(6) This would effec­tive­ly remove cops from sta­tion hous­es and place them with the public.

(7) Sub Officers and offi­cers must be out with the men aug­ment­ing staff strength, day and night .

(8) The way patrols are done must be revamped. There is no need for offi­cers on patrol to be dri­ving around for an 8 hour shift, it is a colos­sal waste of gas and wear and tear on the vehi­cles which are already in short sup­ply> (see parked strate­gi­cal­ly in grid per­spec­tive).

(9)All ser­vice vehi­cles must be added to grid sup­port, no gazetted or sub-offi­cer should dri­ve a ser­vice vehi­cle home. All use of vehi­cles must be for doc­u­ment­ed police duties.

(10) Increase expo­nen­tial­ly, penal­ties not just for prin­ci­pal offend­ers who com­mit crimes ‚but also for sec­ondary offend­ers who aid or are oth­er­wise involved.(see rico statute)

(11) Hire and train more detec­tives, give them mer­it pay/​promotions.

(12) Remove cops from office duties except in super­vi­so­ry positions.

(13) No police depart­ment makes pub­lic its inter­nal mem­os. Stop mak­ing the Force Orders pub­lic, giv­ing away staff strength, , where cer­tain offi­cers are sta­tioned, or will be trans­ferred to and oth­er infor­ma­tion the pub­lic has no expec­ta­tion of hav­ing. You are endan­ger­ing offi­cers lives, and threat­en­ing nation­al security.

I give the Minister a 13 point plan com­men­su­rate with the list of thir­teens attrib­uted to his speech. Bunting’s addressed was on April 13th, 2013 to the “13th Annual Prayer and Thanksgiving Service for the Security Forces of Jamaica”

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PETER BUNTING’S CANDID TESTIMONY THAT THEY HAVE NO CLUE:

The following is the full text of a speech given by Jamaica’s National Security Minister Peter Bunting, at an awards ceremony on the Campuses of Northern Carribean University in Mandeville Manchester.

“This is, I think, per­haps the fifth time I have had the oppor­tu­ni­ty, first­ly as oppo­si­tion spokesman and last year as min­is­ter of nation­al secu­ri­ty, to par­tic­i­pate in this ser­vice of thanks­giv­ing for the secu­ri­ty forces of Jamaica and, in par­tic­u­lar, for the men and women who serve in Area Three. I want to com­mend NCU for this ini­tia­tive in its 13th year, and I always say not just because the NCU main cam­pus is in my con­stituen­cy (Central Manchester) but the NCU does not only oper­ate from the com­mu­ni­ty but they are a part of the communuity.

“And this year’s ser­vice, of course, is espe­cial­ly poignant for me to par­tic­i­pate, hav­ing lost my own moth­er this week and also hav­ing been at KPH as we wait­ed hope­ful­ly while Sgt (Courtney Anthony) Simpson was oper­at­ed on. Unfortunately, he did­n’t make it. He, of course, as part of the Protective Services, worked very close­ly with us in the admin­is­tra­tion of gov­ern­ment and, in fact, worked two years on the gov­er­nor gen­er­al’s, King’s House pro­tec­tive secu­ri­ty detail. “For the last 15 months, I have been work­ing close­ly with mem­bers of the secu­ri­ty forces and one of the pleas­ant sur­pris­es that I have had is just how pro­fes­sion­al, how high a cal­i­bre of offi­cers and men, rank and file, that we have in the main serv­ing this coun­try. I have been impressed by their tremen­dous courage, com­mit­ment and dedication.“However, I think that after 15 months I am con­vinced that the best efforts of the secu­ri­ty forces, by itself, will not solve the crime prob­lem in Jamaica. But it is going to take divine inter­ven­tion, touch­ing the hearts of a wide cross sec­tion of the soci­ety and using as the instru­ments of divine inter­ven­tion the Ministers’ Fraternals, the aca­d­e­mics, the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty, those per­sons who work in the NGO (non-gov­ern­men­tal organ­i­sa­tion) com­mu­ni­ty, those of us who are in polit­i­cal ser­vice — all to try to make an impact, to touch the hearts and minds of our fel­low Jamaicans.

“This week has not been a good week in terms of vio­lence in Jamaica. And when I look at many of the reports, because I get the reports every morn­ing, and I see how many of the fatal­i­ties are caused by per­sons known to each oth­er and some­times in the same fam­i­ly, when I read yes­ter­day of the 17-year-old who hit his own father in the head, in Clarendon, fatal­ly; when I learned of the prowler, the bur­glar who was caught and killed by a mob in St James; when I read of the two hig­glers — friends, asso­ciates — who got in a dis­pute, one stabbed the oth­er, and I could go on and on — sit­u­a­tions which it would be vir­tu­al­ly impos­si­ble for the secu­ri­ty forces, unless we had 100 times the num­bers, to have pre­vent­ed, I realise how crit­i­cal it is going to be to get the entire soci­ety engaged.

“And…(pause) Am not embar­rassed to say because right now as min­is­ter of nation­al secu­ri­ty, I am going through a kind of a dark night of the soul because we are try­ing very heard at the min­istry, I see the men and women of the secu­ri­ty forces try­ing very hard, work­ing night and day, long hours. I see the lead­er­ship, capa­ble, com­pe­tent, pro­fes­sion­al, both of the police and the mil­i­tary. And so much effort is being made and yet so lit­tle head­way, such slow head­way is com­ing out in the statistics.

“And it real­ly takes a lot of faith to keep work­ing, keep going in the face of this. And of course, I am hap­py that I have so many per­sons of faith to encour­age and sup­port, not just myself, but all of the secu­ri­ty forces at this time.

“So I would just, in clos­ing, use this oppor­tu­ni­ty to once again appeal, to call on the Jamaican soci­ety to let us take back Jamaica from crim­i­nals and evil behav­iour. We have a num­ber of exam­ples of this. We have seen the pas­tors in Spanish Town make a real effort to con­front this prob­lem We have seen the Rotary Club, I think of New Kingston, who have tak­en on men­tor­ship of a lot of young men in the cor­rec­tion­al ser­vices, in the juve­nile cor­rec­tion­al sys­tem. And we have a great exam­ple right here in Manchester where the Manchester Dispute Resolution and Violence Prevention Association was formed last year.

“I don’t want to nec­es­sar­i­ly give it all the cred­it because I know Cowboy Knight and Supt Nesbeth and their teams have been work­ing very hard. But I do believe that the effort by Pastor Harvey, Dr Grace Kely, the Ministers’ Fraternal, the polit­i­cal rep­re­sen­ta­tives, the Custos, per­sons from the psy­chol­o­gy and social work depart­ment, per­sons who have giv­en their time freely to train I think almost 100 per­sons in our com­mu­ni­ties in Manchester to be first respon­ders, to inter­vene where domes­tic dis­putes occur and have the poten­tial to esca­late to injury or death. And this ini­tia­tive was formed last year because we recog­nised that unlike many oth­er police divi­sions, in Manchester most of our mur­ders came from domes­tic situations.

“When I say domes­tic I mean both the vic­tim and the per­pe­tra­tor were known to each oth­er, either as fam­i­ly mem­bers, as man and woman rela­tion­ship, as col­leagues who work side by side and had some falling out, dis­putes over fam­i­ly land — a recur­ring theme. And we, in doing this train­ing — and it’s short but quite a rig­or­ous train­ing — as first respon­ders, so far this year we have seen the num­bers of mur­ders in the parish cut in more than half. We are about 60 odd per cent less up to the last set of sta­tis­tics I saw, rel­a­tive to the cor­re­spond­ing peri­od last year.

“And I know that cor­re­la­tion is not nec­es­sar­i­ly cau­sa­tion. But I think we have no choice but to keep doing what­ev­er we can as indi­vid­u­als. Even if we are not cer­tain it is going to make a dif­fer­ence but at least let’s try some­thing. And that is what I would call on all Jamaica to do here today and going for­ward if we want to take back Jamaica.

“In clos­ing, let me thank NCU and all those who have come out to sup­port the secu­ri­ty forces today. And add my thanks to the brave men and women, espe­cial­ly those who have passed on in this last year, we acknowl­edge your ser­vice and contribution.”

We will respond to the Minister’s state­ment later.

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A REFLECTIVE LOOK BACK:

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I sat through the case of the Central Park Jogger on chan­nel 13, most peo­ple old enough will recall this case involv­ing 4 young African boys and 1 Latino. . Four of the juve­niles charged — Antron McCray, Kevin Richardson, Raymond Santana, and Kharey Wise — offi­cial­ly con­fessed to the crime, and each impli­cat­ed the oth­ers. A fifth sus­pect, Yusef Salaam, made ver­bal admis­sions, but refused to sign a con­fes­sion or make one on video­tape. Salaam was, how­ev­er, impli­cat­ed by all of the oth­er four and con­vict­ed. Salaam’s sup­port­ers and attor­neys charged on appeal that he had been held by police with­out access to par­ents or guardians, but as the major­i­ty appel­late court deci­sion not­ed, that was because Salaam had ini­tial­ly lied to police in claim­ing to be 16, and had backed up his claim with a tran­sit pass that indeed (false­ly, as it turned out) said that he was 16. If a sus­pect has reached 16 years of age, his par­ents or guardians no longer have a right to accom­pa­ny him dur­ing police ques­tion­ing, or to refuse to per­mit him to answer any ques­tions. When Salaam informed police of his true age, police per­mit­ted his moth­er to be present.[9]Wikipedia.

Having been a law enforce­ment offi­cer and a civil­ian it was one of the most sober­ing moments of my life. It brought home to me in a vis­cer­al way just how wrong the sys­tem can get it when most, or all of us believe that the right man is in custody.

The Central Park Jogger case involved the assault and rape of Trisha Meili, a female jog­ger in New York City’s Central Park, on April 19, 1989. Five juve­nile males — four black and one Hispanic — were tried and con­vict­ed for the crime. The con­vic­tions were vacat­ed in 2002 when Matias Reyes, a con­vict­ed rapist and mur­der­er serv­ing a life sen­tence for oth­er crimes, claimed to have com­mit­ted the crime alone and DNA evi­dence con­firmed his involve­ment in the rape. Wikipedia. This case was a cul­mi­na­tion of a per­fect storm of events which seemed like it was bound to occur when it did. It involved Racism, Police Impropriety, what undue pres­sure on police can cause, media that accept what it’s told and not try doing a lit­tler inves­ti­ga­tion on it’s own and a cor­nu­copia of oth­er variables.

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One of the lessons which should have been learned from this case is just how wrong we can get it, when we all in a knee-jerk way accept what­ev­er nar­ra­tive we have been fed. Sitting there watch­ing and lis­ten­ing to the sequence of events it was rather galling as media clips were played with the media prac­tion­ers being mere spec­ta­tors and mouth-pieces for the Government’s case..

The Police depart­ment com­mis­sioned a lawyer to inves­ti­gate what had gone wrong with the case, the result was that the inves­ti­ga­tions revealed that the police depart­ment did noth­ing wrong. Essentially the police depart­ment exon­er­at­ed itself from cul­pa­bil­i­ty. The truth is the Police depart­ment was too macho and ashamed to admit that as far as the case of the cen­tral park jog­ger case was con­cerned they got it hor­ri­bly wrong. This is not new with police depart­ments, and the NYPD is cer­tain­ly chief among offend­ers when it comes to issues like these. The case res­onat­ed with a crescen­do as the 5 young men were being pros­e­cut­ed, it went out with a whim­per as they were exon­er­at­ed. The law is an ass if the prac­tion­ers are too ego­is­ti­cal to say we were wrong and we are sorry.

To this very day the woman who pros­e­cut­ed the case and made a name for her­self still stands by the con­vic­tions even as all of the evi­dence shows they were in fact inno­cent. The 5 young wen were rail­road­ed with threats and coher­sion and promis­es of free­dom , they were lured into believ­ing that if each per­son rat­ted out the oth­er they would all go home. It was a lie. The police depart­ment should have apol­o­gized to them but the police is nev­er wrong so no apol­o­gy has been forth­com­ing to these men who have been so egre­gious­ly wronged. In 2003 the 5 men filed a suit against the city of New York for the harm done to them. Ten years lat­er the case is still in discovery.

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For those who talk about jus­tice and democ­ra­cy, do see this doc­u­men­tary http://​www​.pbs​.org/​k​e​n​b​u​r​n​s​/​c​e​n​t​r​a​l​p​a​r​k​f​i​ve/

Trisha the woman who endured that ordeal of being raped and abused is one of the most sought out inspi­ra­tional speak­ers on the lec­ture cir­cuit. Audiences enjoy Trisha’s ener­gy, wit, and poignant sto­ries about the pow­er of the human spir­it. Through her work, book, and lec­tures, she reach­es out to peo­ple strug­gling through recov­ery from any num­ber of prob­lems, offer­ing Hope and Possibility.

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BUNCH OF THIEVES:

In these Blogs we speak truth to power, while being fair, without compromising truth for expe​di​en​cy​.Today we bring to your attention a matter of grave concern again, yes in Jamaica. This matter involves the junior Minister in the Ministry of Transport, Works and Housing ‚Richard Azan.

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Azan:

Information com­ing to light revealed that Azan, in his posi­tion as Member of Parliament for North West Clarendon and as Junior Minister in the min­istry afore­men­tioned, abused his author­i­ty, con­trary to what he is legal­ly empow­ered, to give per­mis­sion for a pri­vate con­trac­tor to build shops on lands inside the refur­bished Spaldings Market, with­out the approval of the local author­i­ty that owned the property.

Inside the Spaldings mar­ket.adapt­ed:

The PNP Administration, of which Azan is a mem­ber, has since cir­cled the wag­ons around him even as more infor­ma­tion comes to light and var­i­ous groups have demand­ed that Azan resign. The Administration claims that the issues are not direct­ly relat­ed to the duties of Mr Richard Azan, in his capac­i­ty as min­is­ter of state in the Ministry of Transport, Works and Housing, but more so relates to him being Member of Parliament for the constituency.

If you are out­raged by this cyn­i­cal­ly insult­ing attempt at ratio­nal­iza­tion you are not alone. This how­ev­er is not an iso­lat­ed inci­dent. Like the Cuban light-bulb issue, Trafigura, the extra-large cab­i­net, and a litany of cor­rup­tion on the part of this admin­is­tra­tion which has caused un-imag­in­able harm and rot to our coun­try, they are again demon­strat­ing that they are above the laws. I find it ridicu­lous that any­one could be call­ing for the res­ig­na­tion of Azan. At best this is a fir­ing offence, at worst this is a felony pun­ish­able with seri­ous prison time.

The (http://​jamaica​-glean​er​.com/​g​l​e​a​n​e​r​/​2​0​1​3​0​4​1​6​/​l​e​a​d​/​l​e​a​d​2​.​h​tml) reports that the Portia Simpson Miller led Government is sat­is­fied with the fact that all monies col­lect­ed from rental of the shops have been turned over to the Parish Council. This goes beyond laugh­able. Even if some or all monies col­lect­ed have now in fact been turned over to the Parish Council, does it mean that the crime was not committed?The aver­age man on the street does not get to tell a tri­bunal, that he returned the total­i­ty of what­ev­er graft or theft he com­mit­ted to the right­ful own­er and as such he should be immune from pros­e­cu­tion. Jamaica has had cor­rupt Administration since Independence, make no mis­take about it. This one how­ev­er is the most bold-faced cor­rupt and moral­ly rep­re­hen­si­ble. This puts to rest the fem­i­nist argu­ments about the fideli­ty and hon­esty of female lead­ers, that is if you ever saw Portia Simpson Miller as a leader in the first place

The PNP admin­is­tra­tion in Jamaica which is above the Country’s laws:

In the United States, Illinois Governor Rob Blagojevich is doing seri­ous time in the Federal Prison sys­tem for attempt­ing to sell the Senate Seat for­mer­ly held by President Barack Obama, there are Congress-men and a long list of pub­lic Officials from all lev­els of the food-chain, in prison who took it onto them­selves to place them­selves above the laws. In Jamaica the only peo­ple sub­ject to the laws are the poor­est of the poor(the dut­ty fut bway pon di cana)and Police offi­cers. Even when the evi­dence of wrong-doing is glar­ing, as in this case, mem­bers of this admin­is­tra­tion are allowed to sim­ply give back what they have stolen and walk away with­out con­se­quence. Jamaica is effec­tive­ly a klep­toc­ra­cy, these moral­ly bank­rupt politi­cians should be ashamed to show their faces out­side the coun­try. If his­to­ry is prece­dent they will con­tin­ue unashamed as if noth­ing hap­pened. In essence noth­ing has hap­pened out­side the norm, thiev­ery and graft is the norm for them.

We call on Portia Simpson ‚Miller to fire Richard Azan and let the Police do their sworn duty to the pub­lic by charg­ing him with the appro­pri­ate crime/​s pre­scribed by law. Failing which the entire Government should resign in dis­grace as it has lost all moral legit­i­ma­cy to gov­ern. Mrs Miller, the coun­try does not belong to you or the People’s National party,contrary to PNP opin­ion. Neither does it belong to Holness and the Jamaica Labor Party. Jamaica belongs to the Jamaican peo­ple, to whom you are sub­ject and answer­able. I am aware you would like to be Queen, but you aren’t. Do the hon­or­able thing and acqui­esce to the wish­es of the peo­ple or step aside in the name of decency.

The fol­low­ing is a state­ment giv­en by Richard Azan regard­ing this mat­ter: The mat­ter of the con­struc­tion of tem­po­rary shops at the new­ly expand­ed Spalding Market has become the sub­ject of pub­lic scruti­ny and com­ment .I accept and wel­come such scruti­ny and debate as fun­da­men­tal tenets of the sys­tem of demo­c­ra­t­ic gov­er­nance in which I am a Parliamentary rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the peo­ple of North West Clarendon. The mat­ter is being inves­ti­gat­ed by the Contractor General. I am ful­ly respect­ful of that process and am coop­er­at­ing ful­ly with the inves­ti­ga­tion. I will there­fore make no fur­ther pub­lic com­ment at this time except to say I had no inten­tion to act in a cor­rupt man­ner and at no time did I derive any per­son­al ben­e­fit. I remain com­mit­ted to the sac­ri­fice of pub­lic ser­vice to Jamaica and the peo­ple of North West Clarendon. - Richard Azan:

To that we say . yah

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MAKING PRISONERS OF OUR CHILDREN:

Walk-way over the Hudson Poughkeepsie NY:

I met Jamal (not his real name) when he was a mere boy attending Poughkeepsie High School, like so many boys his age he came to the Barbershop I invested in to get his haircut.

That Barber shop was the new place to be ‚it was dif­fer­ent than the tra­di­tion­al shops, we had a recep­tion area with tele­vi­sion, and a desk com­plete with a com­put­er, new to the block and the busi­ness, I felt it was a good idea to build a data base, and treat our cus­tomers dif­fer­ent­ly. Jamal was one of the first kids to come to my shop, I was not a bar­ber but I had a crew of up to six bar­bers who attract­ed and took care of our cus­tomers. Many of the young boys were rau­cous, loud, some quite, by and large most of these young black boys were no dif­fer­ent than any oth­er group of young men. ‘Despite what trou­ble some of them may have been involved in one thing was cer­tain, these young men were absolute­ly respect­ful to me and the crew which worked with me. None was more respect­ful or more quite than Jamal.

I unof­fi­cial­ly men­tored these young men who would lis­ten ‚nev­er-fail­ing to point out to them that there are pit­falls that are strate­gi­cal­ly laid for them, poli­cies designed specif­i­cal­ly to get them into the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem and keep them there.

All the kids lis­tened some applied what they heard, some did­n’t, some are in prison, a few of them have been killed, some are doing fine.

Jamal joined the State Guard after grad­u­at­ing from Poughkeepsie High School, he also enrolled in Dutchess Community College, he con­fid­ed in me that he would like to be a Minister of Religion. He was also active­ly engaged in the local Seventh Day Adventist Church. Most of all, Jamal was proud to have a girlfriend.

Two days ago Jamal walked into my busi­ness-place and told me he just got out of Jail after a week. I was stunned, Jail and Jamal were two words I would nev­er put in the same sen­tence. He explained that he got into a ver­bal spat with his girl­friend and he tossed her cell­phone and kicked her car, he admit­ted he was wrong.

She did what women today do! She called the police.

he was arrest­ed , she obtained an order of pro­tec­tion against him.

He was angry , but noth­ing made him more angry than the shack­les they placed on his legs. He said to me “leg irons Mike”!.

He was charged with mali­cious destruc­tion of prop­er­ty, pub­lic mis­chief, and of course the police piled on two more charges, which the judge prompt­ly and cor­rect­ly tossed. They are offer­ing him a deal.

Get this,.….… for break­ing his girl­friend’s phone and kick­ing her tires, three (3) years pro­ba­tion and thir­ty (30) days in a state men­tal facil­i­ty for evaluation.

This means he will most like­ly be dis­charged dis­hon­or­ably from the New York State Guard. He will have to quit col­lege, he will for­ev­er be seen as a psy­chi­atric case. he will nev­er be able to be a lawyer, judge, or a cop. He will most like­ly find it dif­fi­cult to ever get real or mean­ing­ful employ­ment, which could poten­tial­ly turn this qui­et decent demure and respect­ful 22 year old into a career criminal.

Jamal’s sto­ry is the sto­ry play­ing out in count­less com­mu­ni­ties all across America. Young black boys are not allowed to make mis­takes. The sys­tem is mak­ing crim­i­nals out of good kids, the same mis­takes cops, lawyers and judges made in their younger years.

I write about this because this is a good kid who did not deserve this kind of treat­ment. The hor­ror sto­ries are the same day in day out, girl gets mad, she calls the cops , guy gets arrest­ed, nobody takes a look to see if these com­plaints are all legit or are some of these women using the sys­tem at their leisure?

Domestic vio­lence is a seri­ous prob­lem, as a police offi­cer I saw and dealt with it first-hand. No one’s inter­est is served when one par­ty uses the sys­tem to club the oth­er, it builds resent­ment and anger, and will have dev­as­tat­ing con­se­quences in the future.

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JCF MUST DO MORE AND BETTER WITH LESS:

The Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF) has long lamented the shortage or absence of resources to get the job done effectively.

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Police Station ‚Constant Spring:

Recently the Force announced it was oper­at­ing with 50% of the resources it needs to get the job done. Having served in the JCF I under­stand the seri­ous­ness of not hav­ing even the most basic resource to do the job.

On the oth­er hand I was also wit­ness to the JCF’s lack of man­age­ment, which result­ed in excep­tion­al waste and dupli­ca­tion of efforts, fur­ther com­pli­cat­ing the resource issue.

These waste gen­er­al­ly are clear, first in the qual­i­ty of a por­tion of the Force, there have always been too many offi­cers who should find alter­na­tive employ­ment. This is attrib­ut­able to their lazi­ness, lack of focus, lack of integri­ty, lack of love for the job, lack of com­mit­ment to the cause.There are legit­i­mate argu­ments to be made for a lack of com­mit­ment. I would sim­ply argue that though those argu­ments are legit­i­mate, they are not rea­son enough to be a slack­er . Those opposed to work­ing for the wages , or are offend­ed by oth­er sit­u­a­tions are free to leave.

Then there is the treat­ment of the vehi­cles , which gen­er­al­ly are not suit­ed to Jamaica’s ter­rain, no fault of the Police and sec­ond­ly the round the clock oper­a­tion of the vehi­cles, again this is not some­thing that should rea­son­ably be pinned on the depart­ment, it is attrib­ut­able to the shortage.

The way patrols are done are inef­fec­tive and counter-pro­duc­tive even. This needs a com­plete reassessment .

On the gen­er­al issue of waste, the same argu­ments may be made about many busi­ness­es and agen­cies in Jamaica and oth­er coun­tries. Jamaica sim­ply can­not afford it.

When both sides of the resource issue is con­sid­ered, the truth lies some­where in between the two sides, with a lean­ing toward not near­ly enough of any­thing to do the job. With that said the true test of any man­ag­er or man­age­ment com­pa­ny, is to do the best job pos­si­ble with lim­it­ed resources.

In the American civ­il war between North and South, Union General, Westmoreland com­plained to President Abraham Lincoln about not hav­ing enough Troops to attack the Confederate South, Lincoln replaced Westmoreland with General Ulysses S Grant. We all know that Grant won the war sav­ing and cement­ing the Union and the United States as we know it today.

My point is that Jamaica is a poor devel­op­ing coun­try, many peo­ple will chal­lenge me even on the notion of Jamaica being a devel­op­ing coun­try. There will nev­er be enough resource to go around. Neither polit­i­cal par­ty is par­tic­u­lar­ly fond of the rule of law, in fact some of the peo­ple at the high­est lev­el of Government/​Opposition are crim­i­nals, or at a bare min­i­mum, main­tain crim­i­nal con­tact. They do not want a pro­fes­sion­al com­pe­tent and inde­pen­dent police department.

Late 1987 I was tem­po­ral­ly trans­ferred to Constant Spring along with three oth­er men, Allen Gauntlet, Keith Skully and O Marston oth­er­wise called (Fat-Ball), Marston was some­what port­ly, hence the moniker. None of us was full trans­ferred in Force Orders from The Mobile Reserve where we were offi­cial­ly sta­tioned, we were sim­ply sent to fill the vac­uüm which was left from the trans­fer of then Detective Sargent Cornwall (big­ga) Ford, a leg­end, who had just been trans­ferred to the Flying Squad, based at the Kingston Central Police compound.

For the record, nev­er let any­one tell you that name brand-cops do noth­ing to bend the crime curve south. Determined crim­i­nals have esca­lat­ed crime, deter­mined cops bend the curve south. 

Throughout our coun­try’s his­to­ry there have been noto­ri­ous­ly dan­ger­ous crim­i­nals, these men have large­ly gained their noto­ri­ety, through dif­fer­ent means , brutality,callousness, aid­ed and abet­ted by sym­pa­thet­ic mem­bers of the pub­lic, Politics, cor­rupt-cops, the ter­rain of our coun­try, and oth­er means.

Conversely we have pro­duced deter­mined cops who knew how to remove crim­i­nals from the streets, Cops like Keith (trin­i­ty) Gardener, Joe Williams, Anthony Hewitt, Altimoth (par­ra) Campbell, Isiah Laing, are some of the more rec­og­niz­able names, of course there are men, and yes Women, Like Hortense Brown, who in many cas­es were just as effec­tive, Dick Hibbert, Ruddy Dwyer, Benjamin, O C Hare, and a long line of valiant sol­diers of urban polic­ing who under­stood our coun­try’s ter­ror­ists and how to deal with them.

The men and women whom I did not men­tion need not doubt their con­tri­bu­tion to our coun­try’s sta­bil­i­ty, you know your­selves, the point was about the most cel­e­brat­ed, the most well known.

I nev­er wore , nei­ther did I ever see a bul­let-proof vest dur­ing my decade of ser­vice from 1982 to 1992, we did not have com­put­ers, we did not even have type-writ­ers, at the Constant Spring CIB which serves some of the most depressed com­mu­ni­ties and some of the most upscale, we did not have a typewriter.

I sug­gest­ed to detec­tive Seargant McInnis that we use col­ored pins and a map of our geo­graph­i­cal respon­si­bil­i­ty to assist us. Different col­or pins rep­re­sent­ed dif­fer­ent types of crimes. Red for mur­der, blue for rapes, green for break-ins, yel­low for shoot­ings and so on.

This very sim­ple ‚unso­phis­ti­cat­ed method, allowed us to see, in real terms ‚what type of crimes were being com­mit­ted where. Complainants sup­plied us with the when, it made it eas­i­er for us to find the who.

I sought and gained per­mis­sion to approach inter­est­ed par­ties oper­at­ing in our precinct, and asked for old dis­card­ed type-writ­ers. Business-peo­ple were more than hap­py to give us usable type-writ­ers and desks, this made the demand from the kha­ki-clad clowns for a tor­rent of paper-work more pos­si­ble. At the time I was at the CIB office, they demand­ed 5 copies of all crimes com­mit­ted in the Parish of St. Thomas, St. Catherine and St. Andrew North, which con­sti­tut­ed Police Area 5.

It gen­er­al­ly took hours to record the crimes from St Catherine, a sin­gle detec­tive work­ing the office on any giv­en night would start writ­ing as soon as he entered the office at 8:pm some­times he would still be writ­ing at 9:am when the morn­ing shift arrived and some­times , long after. All of those crimes in detail had to be record­ed by hand and dupli­cat­ed 5 times.

I came up with the nov­el idea of car­bon paper, they put the brakes on that com­plain­ing that car­bon cre­at­ed smudges, which ren­dered the doc­u­ment illeg­i­ble, so it was back to writ­ing and writ­ing and writing.

One copy for the Commissioner’s Office, one for the Divisional Officer, one for the Area Officer,one for the crime chief. one for the Divisional Detective Inspector. A colos­sal waste of paper and man­pow­er to large­ly sat­is­fy the egos of lazy pompous over­weight dead-woods.

My point in all of this is this. The Commissioner will nev­er have all the resources he needs, what he does have is the infi­nite resource called the brain. Commissioner Ellington must devel­op strate­gies in con­junc­tion with capa­ble offi­cers at his dis­pos­al, to stop the scourge of crime. That will not get done with most of the kha­ki-clad crew he has, most should be retired to save tax-pay­ers money.

Pushing paper, or sit­ting behind a desk is not polic­ing. Most of these peo­ple, some I served with, are more con­cerned with the way a piece of fools-cap paper is fold­ed, so they may write non­sense on it, than how to remove crim­i­nals from the streets. In fact, many of them nev­er arrest­ed any­one, nev­er been to court, but they are car­rear cops, and don’t ever let them hear an explo­sion, Usain Bolt would have to seri­ous­ly strug­gle to keep his world record.

No won­der the coun­try is inun­dat­ed with crime, the kha­ki-clad clowns are more cor­rupt, more cor­rod­ed by pol­i­tics than the young men. Money being the only thing which flows upstream.

I would be hap­py to sup­ply the Commissioner with a detailed plan, out­lin­ing how to reduce crime by 20 to 30% in the first year. By the time the sec­ond year comes around, crime will begin to take a seri­ous trend downwards.

All he has to do is ask.

More to come on this issue: