If Only The JCF Would Stop Being Cartoon Characters…(video Inside)

There are very good lessons to be learned from tak­ing the time to look close­ly at nature. As humans, we are mere­ly one of the many species which inhab­its this plan­et, how­ev­er, those of us who refuse to adapt to changes hap­pen­ing around us gen­er­al­ly do poor­ly and may even­tu­al­ly become extinct.

If ever there was a police depart­ment which should dot every (i’) and cross evert (T’), that depart­ment would be the Jamaica Constabulary Force(JCF).
As a result of its own actions, the JCF gave itself INDECOM and has con­tin­ued to bleed com­pe­tent peo­ple, much the same way that the coun­try on a broad­er scale, has not found a way to retain it’s best and brightest.

Whether we are in the dig­i­tal age or not, police offi­cers are pro­fes­sion­als and they should act like it. Today peo­ple are more intent on video­tap­ing police than crim­i­nals. Many will argue the lines between the two are some­times indis­tin­guish­able. I tend to agree.
Police, how­ev­er, have strict rules and pro­to­cols which they should fol­low. When they fol­low those rules they have noth­ing to fear from cit­i­zens who choose to video­tape their actions, this new real­i­ty is part of the land­scape and police offi­cers must adjust to it.

When offi­cers fol­low strict pro­to­cols those very same videos are excul­pa­to­ry. I have always said that the great­est asset a police offi­cer has is knowl­edge of the laws he is enforc­ing. Strict adher­ence to pro­to­cols is ger­mane to being safe and insu­lat­ed from crim­i­nal and civ­il lia­bil­i­ties.
When police offi­cers do not fol­low sim­ple pro­to­cols bad things happen.

And so they did, in that case in Western Kingston a few days ago. Regardless of the rea­sons that the police decid­ed to arrest Romaine Abrahams, there were enough offi­cers on the scene to sim­ply col­lar Abrahams and place him in hand­cuffs.
He was abu­sive, he was dis­re­spect­ful, he resist­ed arrest, and he assault­ed the offi­cers, but all of that could have been avoid­ed if offi­cers act­ed deci­sive­ly and pro­fes­sion­al­ly, by sim­ply plac­ing him in hand­cuffs quick­ly and deci­sive­ly mov­ing him from the scene.
Interestingly, there was a sub-offi­cer on-scene even­tu­al­ly act­ing as peace-mak­er when he should have ordered the sus­pect cuffed from the start.

Jamaica is not the eas­i­est place to be a police offi­cer. Regardless of where an offi­cer is sta­tioned, he will be forced to deal with dis­re­spect­ful, opin­ion­at­ed, igno­rant, pompous and aggres­sive peo­ple. Officers must adjust by being delib­er­a­tive, pre­cise, no-non­sense, and they must fol­low pro­to­col.
The media will not report the truth, they are in it for the sen­sa­tion­al and sala­cious con­tent, so the police should expect no objec­tiv­i­ty from what exist as media there.

I am tired of hear­ing about how great the train­ing is, and how offi­cers are trained dif­fer­ent­ly now. (As if dif­fer­ent­ly equates to bet­ter)
Unfortunately, I haven’t seen that train­ing man­i­fest­ed in their actions on the streets. Instead, what we see time and again, are car­toon­ish dis­plays which makes one cringe and which are sure to land offi­cers in hot water. In a coun­try where police work is already hot water.

Mike Beckles is a for­mer Jamaican police Detective cor­po­ral, a busi­ness own­er, avid researcher, and blog­ger. 
He is a black achiev­er hon­oree, and pub­lish­er of the blog chatt​-​a​-box​.com. 
He’s also a con­trib­u­tor to sev­er­al web­sites.
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