How Terrain And Topography Affect Policing .….

One of the more daunt­ing chal­lenges fac­ing the police in Jamaica is the rugged and hilly terrain.
Jamaica is a very moun­tain­ous coun­try. The rugged ter­rain lacks gen­er­al plan­ning, which ought to be in place to guide mod­ern com­mu­ni­ty cre­ation better.
In real­i­ty, peo­ple build struc­tures on their prop­er­ty, and the next per­son builds on his land, and before you know it, there is an unplanned com­mu­ni­ty. It’s not unusu­al to find beau­ti­ful homes on roads next to auto repair shops that spill out onto spaces where side­walks should be.
Alleyways, cul­verts, and arti­fi­cial gul­lies all form part of the mish-mosh of chaos: Jamaican urban and sub­ur­ban centers.
Even in cas­es where there are ele­ments of plan­ning, the result falls woe­ful­ly short of meet­ing mod­ern com­mu­ni­ty plan­ning standards.
The greater Portmore Area of Saint Catherine is a case study in what not to do. Yet, homes’ build­ing con­tin­ues unchecked using the same meth­ods, which present severe chal­lenges for first respon­ders and have become a breed­ing ground for crim­i­nal activity.

Homes are built with park­ing lots set apart, which forces home­own­ers to leave their cars or dis­em­bark pub­lic trans­porta­tion and walk along nar­row alleyways.
This presents seri­ous safe­ty chal­lenges to res­i­dents of these communities.
In the event of fire or ill­ness, ambu­lances and fire trucks are some­times unable to get to res­i­dents in a time­ly fashion.
All of this because there is inad­e­quate planning.
Never mind the unau­tho­rized expan­sions on homes, and the use of homes as com­mer­cial entities.

More chal­leng­ing for the police is the ever-present gul­ly issue, which offers shoot­ers easy escape routes dur­ing shoot-outs.
As a for­mer law enforce­ment offi­cer, I know all too well the daunt­ing chal­lenges these sce­nar­ios pose to both offi­cer safe­ty and the per­cep­tion of offi­cer veracity.

There are total­ly con­struct­ed com­mu­ni­ties from board and zinc, and the dirt alley­ways are all hemmed in on both sides with cor­ru­gat­ed zinc sheets.
Add a heavy mix­ture of high-pow­ered weapons to those slums, and the job of the police becomes expo­nen­tial­ly more difficult.
It is easy to crit­i­cize, sec­ond-guess, and Monday morn­ing-quar­ter­back police when they give their ver­sion of shoot­ing events.
But those of us who were forced to police these death-traps under­stand the method­olo­gies the Island’s urban ter­ror­ists employ in defend­ing those turfs from the rule of law.
In the inner-city com­mu­ni­ties, women, and chil­dren quick­ly secure fall­en shoot­ers’ weapons, while oth­er thugs lay down cov­er­ing fire.
This mil­i­taris­tic strat­e­gy has been a long­time sta­ple of many com­mu­ni­ties, par­tic­u­lar­ly the Political garrisons.
The so-called area lead­ers and area dons under­stand that dead gang­sters and no weapons mean police are in trou­ble and most like­ly will end up in prison.

The Jamaican media has been a will­ing and com­plic­it part­ner of the crim­i­nal under­world; in oth­er cas­es, the media unwit­ting­ly becomes the area’s Don’s mouthpiece.
Over the years, the media has sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly cast doubt on the police ver­sions of events as a mat­ter of policy.
The use of the word “alleged­ly” is used sub­tly to belie police ver­sion of events, while there are no such dis­claimers when paid mourn­ers come out to claim police mur­dered inno­cent choir boys.
Those are facts for the Jamaican media!
To a man, every sin­gle per­son of the 2.8 mil­lion Jamaicans knows that the peo­ple who turn out to mourn and claim they saw the police mur­der inno­cent youths in their beds at 3.00 in the morn­ing are lying.
Yet the Media give them mega­phones to make the scur­rilous, lying accu­sa­tions any­way. This is not to give cov­er to police who betray their oaths. This writer has no such inten­tion to cov­er for dirty rogue cops.
This is not to sug­gest that there have not been inci­dents where some offi­cers have act­ed out­side the laws. I con­tend that the media and, sub­se­quent­ly, many in the so-called civ­il soci­ety have giv­en aid and com­fort to crim­i­nals for decades, while demo­niz­ing the police.
This has cre­at­ed dis­re­spect for the rule of law and con­tempt for those who enforce them.

Yes, it hap­pens all the time men shoot at offi­cers, offi­cers respond, and there are dead bod­ies, and yes, some­times there is no find­ing the weapon/​s.
The antag­o­nis­tic Terrence Williams of INDECOM tells of a case where offi­cers were fired on and returned fire, killing a subject.
Officers combed the bush­es and were unable to locate any weapon.
He bragged that his inves­ti­ga­tors arrived on the scene and com­menced to search for the fall­en weapon.
An INDECOM agent is report­ed to have found the weapon.
Williams retells that sto­ry to make the police seem inept at find­ing evidence.
The fact is that giv­en the ter­rain in sit­u­a­tions like we have in Jamaica, it is quite easy to miss cru­cial pieces of evi­dence, includ­ing weapons in places where there are thick under­brush, veg­e­ta­tion, and hilly and unpre­dictable terrain.
It came as no sur­prise to me that the offi­cers who were accused and slan­dered in the media as part of a sup­posed death squad oper­at­ing in Clarendon were found not guilty by a jury just today, Wednesday, March 15^th.
The Police have every right to use lethal force in defense of their lives and the lives of oth­ers; even in cas­es where there are no guns, offi­cers some­times face dan­ger­ous offend­ers hell-bent on doing them harm.

Police offi­cers have a right and an expec­ta­tion to go home to their fam­i­lies at the end of their shift.
We expect our offi­cers to be men and women of char­ac­ter and good judg­ment. After all, they are invest­ed with the pow­er of life and death over oth­ers. We should expect no less.
But in cas­es where they act appro­pri­ate­ly in defense of their lives or that of the cit­i­zens, they swore to pro­tect, and they have every expec­ta­tion that they will be supported…

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Mike Beckles is a for­mer Police Detective, busi­ness­man, free­lance writer, a black achiev­er hon­oree, and pub­lish­er of the blog mike​beck​les​.com. 
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