Honour Slain Police With Heroes Park Memorial

The Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF) is respon­si­ble for the safe­ty, secu­ri­ty and law-enforce­ment duties on the island nation. Numerous cops have been killed in the line of duty, and the cre­ation of a memo­r­i­al to those offi­cers could help improve the pub­lic per­cep­tion of the police.

Such a memo­r­i­al park would serve to remind cit­i­zens and vis­i­tors of the risks that law-enforce­ment per­son­nel take when they per­form their duties, and of the respon­si­bil­i­ties that they take on as mem­bers of the JCF.

Originally cre­at­ed by the British after coloni­sa­tion in 1655, the JCF con­tin­ues to fol­low the frame­work of the British sys­tem with regard to offi­cer rank and some gen­er­al pro­ce­dures. Reorganised mul­ti­ple times over the years, the police force today pro­motes offi­cers from among the ranks, some­thing that was not done pre­vi­ous­ly, and active­ly recruits women to serve as well.

Violent out­breaks in var­i­ous parts of Jamaica con­tin­ue to plague the coun­try peri­od­i­cal­ly, and gang vio­lence has also increased in recent years. Both of these chal­lenges present the JCF with issues that can make the job more dan­ger­ous than in oth­er coun­tries (The History of the Jamaica Constabulary Force, 2011).

More than 30 police per­son­nel have been killed in the three years end­ing in 2011; some of these were killed in the line of duty while oth­ers were killed mere­ly for being known JCF personnel.

Just few days ago, we lost Constable Crystal Thomas, a young, hard-work­ing and bright female cop. The sim­plest and least cost­ly alter­na­tive to memo­ri­alise the slain con­sta­ble, and oth­ers, is erect­ing a wall of hon­our in National Heroes Park.

Slain While Serving

This option has been pro­posed and announced on sev­er­al occa­sions, and would list the names of those offi­cers who have been killed. This alter­na­tive has the advan­tage of plac­ing the memo­r­i­al in a park that is already ded­i­cat­ed to hon­our­ing Jamaica’s heroes, includ­ing war heroes, as well as lead­ers such as Marcus Garvey.

In addi­tion, National Heroes Park is already known island­wide, and even inter­na­tion­al­ly, which pro­vides addi­tion­al pub­lic­i­ty for the JCF memorial.

However, the park itself was con­sid­ered dan­ger­ous until rel­a­tive­ly recent­ly, and hav­ing a police memo­r­i­al erect­ed as part of a larg­er park could decrease the sig­nif­i­cance of the memo­r­i­al in the minds of observers.

I believe the death of Constable Crystal Thomas should give every Jamaican the moti­va­tion for a change of heart about how we view police personnel.

I hope some­thing will hap­pen real soon.

GEORGE G. ROACH
US Army (Retired)
Story first appeared here. Honour Slain Police With Heroes Park Memorial