(INDECOM) Must Now Put Up Or Shut Up

INDECOM ACT
An Act to make pro­vi­sion for the estab­lish­ment of a Commission of Parliament to under­take inves­ti­ga­tions con­cern­ing actions by mem­bers of the Security Forces and oth­ers agents of the State that result in death or injury to per­sons or the abuse of the rights of per­sons. https://​www​.inde​com​.gov​.jm/

Under the pro­vi­sions of the act, the Agency has broad and sweep­ing pow­ers not only to inves­ti­gate but it has tak­en it onto itself to arrest per­ceived offend­ing mem­bers of the JCF and has engaged in its own illicit[sic] pros­e­cu­tion of mem­bers of the Constabulary with the full acqui­es­cence of the JLP Administration in Kingston. This, though the agency have been rebuffed in the Appellate courts as to its lack of author­i­ty to act as inves­ti­ga­tor, arrest­ing offi­cer and pros­e­cu­tor, some­thing unheard of in any oth­er part of the world.

It is now eight years(8) since the INDECOM law has been in effect, over that time INDECOM has suc­ceed­ed great­ly in caus­ing hard-work­ing police offi­cers to lit­er­al­ly drop their hands out of fear of being caught up in the dem­a­gog­ic web of slan­der which has been unleashed against mem­bers of the force by nar­cis­sist Terrence Williams and for­eign­er Hamish Campbell, the Commissioner and chief deputy of INDECOM.

As a con­se­quence, Crime has increased expo­nen­tial­ly year over year, more rank and file police offi­cers are leav­ing the depart­ment, even as the JCF is unable to meet recruit­ment tar­gets, com­mis­sion­ers of police are changed and exchanged and the nation is no clos­er to a solu­tion of end­ing the bloodletting.

It is because of the immense pow­er and influ­ence of INDECOM that the lat­est sal­vo of accu­sa­tion by INDECOM direct­ed at the (JCF) is so befuddling.
Hamish Campbell, an assis­tant com­mis­sion­er of the Independent Commission of Investigations (INDECOM), declared that the repeat­ed alle­ga­tions of ‘plant­ed firearms’ were beyond anecdotal.

Campbell, who was address­ing a press con­fer­ence at the com­mis­sion’s head office yes­ter­day, first gave exam­ples of two instances where guns had been recov­ered from a fatal shoot­ing. The weapons had already been sub­mit­ted to the police lab­o­ra­to­ry in respect of a pre­vi­ous shoot­ing, one as recent as this year.

“In those mat­ters, there are wit­ness­es who claimed an alleged ‘plant­i­ng’, and the weapon seems to indi­cate some mis­han­dling,” he said. He then dis­closed that a recent inves­ti­ga­tion of a police shoot­ing revealed that the firearm pur­port­ed to have been found on the dead man was ques­tion­able because the same weapon was already record­ed in police cus­tody records as hav­ing been seized a month before.

Campbell also point­ed out that the bal­lis­tic exam­i­na­tion of a police MP5 weapon, held with­in a police armory, revealed that cas­ings that matched that police weapon also matched cas­ings found at the mur­der of two civil­ians from a pre­vi­ous time. He fur­ther dis­closed that dur­ing a search of police premis­es, two weapons (revolvers) were found, which were record­ed as being unac­count­ed for. A third weapon, which was found in a police draw­er, had no record at all at the station.

The Police High com­mand now under the lead­er­ship of a non-cop out­sider was late in respond­ing to these claims and only just yes­ter­day man­aged a lack-lus­ter pre­dictable blah-blah.

“The JCF (Jamaica Constabulary Force) takes these alle­ga­tions very seri­ous­ly and would like the mat­ter to be probed fur­ther. As a direct result, we have writ­ten to INDECOM ask­ing them to pro­vide us with the infor­ma­tion regard­ing their pub­lic claims to facil­i­tate fur­ther inves­ti­ga­tion. “The JCF is giv­ing the pub­lic an under­tak­ing that the mat­ter will be thor­ough­ly inves­ti­gat­ed and we will assist in bring­ing any mem­ber found in breach of the law to jus­tice,” the high com­mand said in a statement.

INDECOM has the pow­er and resources to inves­ti­gate and bring charges where war­rant­ed not to issue slan­der­ous press releas­es with­out back­ing up those releas­es with tan­gi­ble evi­den­tiary facts.
Additionally, even if INDECOM is in pos­ses­sion of this kind of evi­dence why is the assis­tant com­mis­sion­er mak­ing state­ments about it when it has a respon­si­bil­i­ty to bring crim­i­nal charges where applicable?

In light of these devel­op­ments, it must clear­ly be under­stood that even if INDECOM has evi­dence of what it alleges, the thing to do is to pro­ceed with fur­ther inves­ti­ga­tions then sub­mit its full find­ings to the Director of Public Prosecution for her action.
Furthermore, it is abun­dant­ly clear that the idea behind these unsub­stan­ti­at­ed alle­ga­tions is to elic­it max­i­mum shock val­ue and do immea­sur­able harm to the JCF at a time when crime con­tin­ues to go down in St James even though not across the Island.

The lead­ers of INDECOM, Terrence Williams, and Hamish Campbell have nev­er been con­tent to work in the back­ground, allow­ing their work to speak for them as real inves­ti­ga­tors are wont to do.
Instead, Williams and Campbell have opt­ed for the more high pro­file grand­stand­ing method which real­ly is about appear­ances with pre­cious lit­tle sub­stance once the smoke screen settles.

In fact, the Police own Inspectorate branch has yield­ed much more tan­gi­ble results than INDECOM’s 8‑year effort has.
It is about time that ordi­nary peo­ple in the coun­try demand that the Police clean up its act and become more cred­i­ble with its account­ing but more so that the Government move to repeal the INDECOM act and replace it with a law which pro­tects police and cit­i­zens alike,
More impor­tant­ly, who­ev­er heads the agency should be guid­ed by strict rules as to what they may divulge and what they may say in public.
INDECOM from its incep­tion has been a can­cer­ous tumor on the body of the Jamaican secu­ri­ty appa­ra­tus result­ing in untold dead and a mas­sive ero­sion of the rule of law.
If the idea was to cre­ate a failed state, then the two polit­i­cal par­ties have been extreme­ly suc­cess­ful in the cre­ation of this anti-Jamaican Albatross which is now total­ly out of control.